June 5, 1971

President Richard M. Nixon was the keynote speaker for the dedication at the Tulsa Port of Catoosa in Oklahoma of the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System. Senator John L. McClellan, Congressman Wilbur D. Mills, and Speaker of the House Carl Albert of Oklahoma were in attendance. The system, comprising seventeen locks and dams over a 443-mile span of the Arkansas River from Catoosa, Oklahoma, through Arkansas to the Mississippi River, was designed as an aid to flood control, navigation, and recreation. It also benefits Arkansas with hydropower potential, wildlife conservation, and water supply, as well as by adding billions of dollars annually in trade transportation in Arkansas and Oklahoma.