January 4, 1969

The first commercial barges from Wheeling, West Virginia, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, docked at the Port of Little Rock, thanks to progress on construction of the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System. The project, which was initiated to control flooding and improve navigation along the river, handles hundreds of thousands of shipments annually, provides cost savings to hundreds of companies, and has added billions of dollars each year in trade transportation in Arkansas and Oklahoma.