This French map from 1783 combines European claims and native America.

The "Old Southwest," which is dominated by the Red River, is a political rather than a cultural designation.

This photograph depicts "part of Satanta's Kiowa Band at Sutler's Store, Fort Sill, Indian Territory" by either Soule or Bliss.

The Caddo structures were so numerous that Europeans who came to the Red River labeled southwestern Arkansas "Mound City."

Zebulon Pike's journey to the Red River was beset with problems and intrigue.

In 1868, a battle between native Plains warriors and American settlers took place at White Creek where Cooke, Denton and Wise counties meet.

A new Oklahoma county named Swanson would boast Mountain Park as its temporary county seat in 1910-1911.

The Red River is a shifty river, but that's not meant as an insult.

From 1893 to 1920, Rainy Mountain Indian School "Americanized" children from the Kiowa and Apache tribes, and now lies as an unmarked ruin.

The Cossatot River derives from a French word meaning"crushed head," and in 1833, it was to be spanned by a toll bridge.

The Cross Timbers is well defined on this 1844 map by Josiah Gregg.

Between 1809 and 1819, a young American named Henry Ker traveled up the Red River from its mouth to its far western reaches search of gold.

Bianca Babb was seven years old when she was abducted by Comanches after her mother was killed in a raid.

Fort Lynn was a lumber town in southwest Arkansas surrounded by several logging camps.

The Pawnee/ Wichita village that George Catlin sketched was abandoned by the 1860s.

Why was there an outrage about this map that landed in the newspapers?

The U.S. Army was instrumental in the slaughter of bison to destroy the Plains tribes.

The Caddo Nation mined salt for over eight hundred years, and this activity remained an Arkansas industry into the 19th century.

Sophia Suttenfield Aughinbaugh Coffee Butt Porter was one of the more colorful characters to inhabit the Red River Valley.

In a description of his travels to Texas, Olmsted and his party pushed on to Gaines Ferry on the Sabine River.