The broad alluvial valley of the lower Mississippi River contains large channel belts for which age control has been limited by the lack of organic material for radiocarbon dating and deposit ages greater than the limit of radiocarbon. In order to produce a detailed chronology of fluvial evolution, samples for optical dating were collected from Late Pleistocene channel-belt deposits. Quartz sand was analyzed using the coarse-grained, single-aliquot regenerative-dose (SAR) technique. Samples showed little evidence of partial bleaching, and optical ages are for the most part consistent with the available radiocarbon and relative age constraints. Optical ages range from 85 to 11 ka and, along with geomorphic and stratigraphic relationships, indicate that the Mississippi River was meandering during the end of the last interglacial (85–83 ka) and switched to a braided regime by 64–50 ka during initial marine oxygen isotope stage (OIS) 4/3 glaciation of the upper Mississippi drainage basin. The Mississippi River switched back to a meandering regime after formation of the youngest braid belt at 11 ka. The 69 optical ages presented here provide the first detailed chronology of lower Mississippi valley braid-belt and Pleistocene meander-belt formation, and provide an example of the utility of optical dating in fluvial settings where material for radiocarbon dating is scarce.