Glover River

About

Glover River — Oklahoma's Last Free-Flowing River. The river's character starts with its flow. The USGS gauge 07337900 records an average of about 260 cubic feet per second, with a historical figure near 234 CFS — modest numbers that describe a small mountain river rather than a big-water run. Boaters find the Glover most workable in the 100–1,000 CFS range, and the whitewater tops out around Class III. That combination of forks-fed flow and a rated I–III channel makes the river read differently depending on where a paddler puts in.

The upper and lower halves are distinct runs. The Upper Glover covers roughly 15 miles as a Class II–III forested mountain stream, tight and quick through the hills where the forks come together. Below it, the Lower Glover opens across about 20 miles of wider valley, easing to Class I–II as it works toward its confluence. Together they trace 35 miles of southeastern Oklahoma, held within McCurtain County the whole way and remaining a tributary of the Little River.

Long before the river was gauged, it ran through Choctaw Nation territory in the Ouachita Mountains, and it runs there still. Its undammed status owes much to that remoteness — a river tucked into the far southeastern corner of the state, within Choctaw jurisdiction, spared the impoundments that reshaped so many other watersheds. The Glover's exceptional biodiversity reflects centuries of minimal human disturbance, a continuity that sets it apart from rivers with a heavier industrial past.

That is not to say the Glover escaped the timber era. From the 1830s through the 1920s, the watershed was logged to feed the regional timber industry of the 1850s–1910s and the railroad expansion of the 1860s–1910s. Local sawmills, logging drives, and downstream lumber operations were the major players. The old-growth stands were exhausted by 1910; state forestry conservation began in 1915, and the establishment of state forests in the 1930s ended large-scale logging. The early hydrological record followed a similar arc, with USGS survey work from the 1870s onward and streamflow assessments through the 1910s–1930s laying down the first comprehensive picture of the river.

The modern chapter is about protection. In 2021, conservation groups launched a campaign to permanently safeguard the Glover as Oklahoma's last free-flowing river. The case rests on biology: the river supports more than 50 fish species, some 30 mussel species, and the endangered leopard darter, making it one of the most biodiverse small rivers in the southern United States. Today the Glover carries the designations of an Oklahoma Scenic River candidate and that last-free-flowing distinction, and outfitters such as Glover River Outfitters run kayak and canoe rentals in McCurtain County. It remains what its geography made it — a single-county river, undammed and biologically rich, still defined by the forks that form it and the pine country it drains.