The Red River begins its total length of 1,360 miles in the Texas panhandle. It is the second-largest river basin in the southern Great Plains.

The origins of the Red River are two forks in the Texas panhandle, the Prairie Dog Town Fork and the North Fork.

The Red flows east, forming the border between Texas and Oklahoma and a portion of the border between Texas and Arkansas at the northeastern corner of Texas. Then, it flows into Arkansas and turns south entering Louisiana.

In Louisiana, the Red River forms the boundary between Caddo and Bossier parishes and flows southeast, through Red River, Natchitoches, Rapides, and Avoyelles parishes. The river empties into the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers.

It gets its name from its color, which comes from the fact that the river carries large quantities of red soil in flood periods.

Larger cities of Shreveport and Bossier City were developed on either bank of the river, as were the downriver cities of Alexandria and Pineville.

In the early 19th century, settlers found that much of the river’s length in Louisiana was unnavigable because of a collection of fallen trees that formed a Great Raft over 160 miles long. In 1839, Captain Henry Miller Shreve began clearing the log jam, but it was not completely cleared until the 1870s, when dynamite became available. 

In June 2015, the Red River flooded parts of northeast Texas, southwest Arkansas, southeast Oklahoma and Louisiana, from Denison Dam, to just south of Alexandria. The river reached its highest level in over 70 years, cresting in most of the affected areas at around 6 to 9 feet over the flood stage reaching a record height of 37.14 feet.

Red River Parish was established in 1871 as part of Reconstruction and was created from parts of other parishes when the boundaries of the parish were established by the Legislature. It’s named after the river that runs through the entire length of the parish.