![]() ![]() Authorized project purposes are hydroelectric power, fish and wildlife, and recreation. The project was authorized by the River and Harbor Act July 4, 1946, and amended by the Flood Control Acts of 19. For many years, Fort Gibson was one of the most important military establishments on the western frontier. The Fort Gibson Stockade, on the banks of the Grand River near the upper reaches of the lake, is a national historic landmark. The traffic on the river served an increasingly large population until the coming of the Katy Railroad in 1872. Following the war, the town was rebuilt, and farms once more came under cultivation. It was burned by Federal troops in the spring of 1863. During the height of steamboat traffic, thousands of bales of cotton were shipped from the Vann Plantation and other large farms in the Webbers Falls Bottoms.Ī post office was established at Webbers Falls in 1856. The town began to flourish then came the turbulent period of the Civil War. By 1833, seventeen steamboats docked regularly at Fort Gibson. ![]() After the Cherokee removal to this part of the Indian Territory, Walter Webber, a western Cherokee chief who established a trading post and portage service on the Arkansas River in 1829, took over the salt works.Īt one time this area included the vast plantation of “Rich Joe” Vann, owner of the famous quarter-mile race horse, “Lucy Walker.” He later came into possession of a flashy Mississippi River steamboat which he named, “The Lucy Walker.” In those early days, Webbers Falls was the site of the most important steamboat landing between Fort Gibson and Fort Smith. Salt was shipped in keel boats down the Arkansas River to Louisiana markets. The falls, referred to as “LaCascade” by General Zebulon Pike, and reported in 1806 to be six or seven feet high at normal stage of the river, were scarcely more than a riffle before impoundment to the present navigation pool levels. The navigation channel was excavated through the rocks which once formed the falls. As early as 1820, a salt plant in the Webbers Falls-Gore area was in operation. ![]() Webbers Falls Dam is a little over three miles upstream from the historic falls, where many a steamboat captain had to drop anchor and unload trade goods for overland shipping when water was low. ![]()
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