 What was the effect on the Mississippi River after the disaster?
Only Joseph Schwartzberg, head geographer of the Department of the Interior, wondered if the disturbance might not be a settling of the Kiowa Fault. They found themselves on the scene of what was fast becoming the most violent and widespread earthquake North America—probably the world—has ever seen in historic times. To describe it in the simplest terms, land east of the Fault was settling, and at a precipitous rate. East, where sharp reports and muffled wheezes told of continued buckling and dropping, the earth trembled downward. The Arkansas River, at Avondale and North Avondale, was sluggishly backing north into the deepening trough.
 It has diminished to only a fraction of what it once was
 It has grown substantially.  It has increased river shipping  It has merged with the Missouri  It has diminished to only a fraction of what it once was