Red River Reveal

A NEW RENOVATION AT IDABEL’S MUSEUM OF THE RED RIVER REINFORCES ITS STATUS AS A MUST-VISIT OKLAHOMA DESTINATION.

- TRISHA BUNCE

CULTURE HAS THE power to divide, unite, offend, and up-lift, but what does it really mean? Is it a raised pinky finger over a fine cup of tea? Is it a set of phrases, slang, and inside knowledge particular to one group or region? Maybe it’s ballet tickets or owning an early, hard-to-find album from that famous band everyone loves from before they hit it big. The very word culture encompasses many things—gender and race relations, religion, and politics, to name a few—that can be difficult topics of conversation.

In 1974, McCurtain County lumber magnate Quintus Herron saw culture in a collection of fossils and artifacts from the cradle of the Caddoan Mississippian culture. This region incorporates two main river systems—the Canadian and Arkansas river system to the north and the Red River to the south—and draws together parts of four states: Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas.

Civilization came to this area as early as two hundred years before the birth of Christ and by 800 CE had established the cultural roots of what became the extensive Mississippian culture. Archaeological digs in and around this rich earth were discovering almost daily treasures and clues to the past of a people, a region, a nation, and the very bedrock history of the planet.