SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – Do you know why Shreveport’s Red River is red? If not, you should consider taking a vacation to the most-visited state park in Texas. There you’ll see one of the two major sources of Red River.

You can make the 8-hour drive from Shreveport, the largest city on the Red River, to the Palo Duro Canyon where you will see humble beginnings of the Red.

At the Palo Duro Canyon, the color of the Red River is layered within canyon walls.

And if you go, you might find a new favorite vacation spot, too.

The Red River of the South

Once upon a time, the Red River of the South was the southern (and western) boundary of the Louisiana Purchase. But for years after the United States bought Louisiana, finding the source of the Red River was controversial.

Here’s why.

It took hundreds of years for nations, explorers, and settlers in “Texas,” “Louisiana,” “Arkansas,” and “Oklahoma” to determine which countries owned property in the New World. In “Louisiana,” Spain, France, and the United States all “owned” the land at one time or another. The Red River was often the property line between nations, so tracing the path of the Red River had more to do with politics than geography.

But that’s a different story.

What’s in a name?

The Red River hasn’t always been called the Red River. Natives were in the ArkLaTex for more than 10000 years before Europeans and Africans arrived. And as a whole, Native Americans understood a great deal about river ecosystems in the ArkLaTex.

But as people began flooding into (what is now) Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma from other areas of the world, and countries began to buy and sell and trade their massive holdings in the new world to one another, the names and even the “sources” of rivers changed for political reasons.

The Red River we know today has had many names, though most of them came about because of her color.

The Caddo Indians called the Red the Bah’hatteno. The Spaniards called her Rio Rojo and Rio Colorado. The French knew her as Rivière Rouge.

But once the United States owned the land, Rivière Rouge became the “Red River.”

So if you’re ever feeling bad about your life, just be grateful you weren’t a mapmaker in the New World during the 13th through the 19th centuries.

The source of the Red River

In the 21st century we know the Red River has not one, but two major sources. We don’t even think about the river’s boundaries today, but in the 18th and 19th centuries, counting one source of the Red River as the main channel could change boundary-lines between nations.

The Red River is special. It carries more sediment to the Gulf Coast via the Atchafalaya and Mississippi Rivers than almost any other river in the nation.

The Red River is beautiful, with beige sand beaches and reddish-orange waters that stretch from the panhandle of Texas to the Mississippi River.

And one of the two sources of the Red River is a canyon so large that it is second only to the Grand Canyon.

Panorama of the Palo Duro Canyon in the Texas Panhandle, summer 2023. (Source: KTAL/KMSS’ Jaclyn Tripp)

The Palo Duro Canyon

“Sometimes the description was of a herd of buffalo stampeding toward the brink, and suddenly plunging downward a thousand feet to wholesale death… but for sixty miles there is only one crossing of the canyon for loaded wagons,” wrote Walter B. Stevens in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat in 1892.

He was writing about the place where water began flowing together in a direction that would eventually intersect with the Mississippi River.

“You drive over a treeless, boundless plain, the short, soft buffalo grass deadening sound and easing jolts. There is no previous indication of the chasm. The break in the surface is not noticeable until the horses are within a few feet of the edge. Leaning over, you will look down upon a strange scene. There is a wall at your feet and another from half a mile to two miles opposite. Between these walls, at the base, is river, meadow, pine forest, waterfall, all combined. But the tops of the tallest pines come nowhere near the level of the plain.”

Images of Palo Duro Canyon by KTAL/KMSS’ Jaclyn Tripp

Today, the Palo Duro Canyon State Park is the most popular state park in Texas.

Herds of buffalo no longer fall to their deaths over the edges of the canyon’s cliffs. Instead, the site has become the most visited state park in Texas.

The Palo Duro Canyon is considered to be the most scenic landscape in the Texas Panhandle.

And it’s one of the two major sources of the Red River.

Images of Palo Dura Canyon State Park by Jon Soul and KTAL/KMSS’ Jaclyn Tripp. Tripp is featured in the image on the right.

There’s a magic about the canyon in spring and summer that people arriving from Louisiana are wholly unprepared to experience. The colors of the red-faced cliffs, the unexpected vibrancy of the native flowers, and the babbling of little streams and creeks makes for a truly gorgeous setting.

A host of native butterflies and other life in the park serves as a much-needed reminder of the colors that once flourished along the Red River in Northwest Louisiana.

Palo Duro Canyon State Park photos by KTAL/KMSS’ Jaclyn Tripp

You can see the similarities in the wildflowers of Northwest Louisiana and the Palo Duro Canyon. There are Indian Paintbrushes and unapologetic hues of bluebonnets that seem to have wandered a little too far away from the mild temperatures near the Louisiana line. Purple and yellows, whites, reds, and oranges compete for your attention.

This trail doesn’t offer a great view of the canyon, but cottonwood trees sing as you hike. (Source: KTAL/KMSS’ Jaclyn Tripp)

If you are the hiking type, there are more than 15000 acres of trails waiting for you at Palo Duro Canyon State Park.

And if you get the chance, hike to the Lighthouse. It’s worth the effort.

You must have a few things for your trip, though. You’ll need bug spray, sunscreen, a sun hat, polarized sunglasses, and as much water as you can carry. It’s hot in the Palo Duro Canyon in late spring and summertime—heck, it’s even hot there in the fall. Don’t even think about hiking a trail without enough water for yourself and a stranger in need.

Stop by the Palo Duro Canyon State Park even if you’re just passing through. The view from the visitor’s center is remarkable, even in the late-summer moonlight when it’s still over 100 degrees. (Source: KTAL/KMSS’ Jaclyn Tripp)

But few things on this earth are as lovely as the bold, boisterous colors of desert flowers and the clay-baked cliffs of Palo Duro Canyon.

In the Palo Duro Canyon, native plants don’t just shrivel up and die in the heat of summer. They actually thrive in the harsh conditions.

And if you look closely when you’re out hiking, you’ll see that many of the native plants in the canyon are also native to Northwest Louisiana. It’s almost like we have a river running between us.