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“Then we lit up and had supper, and the king and the duke family laughed their bones loose over the way they served them people” (Twain 153).
This line from Huckleberry Finn exposes the presence of traveling cons on the Mississippi River, who swindled townspeople with underwhelming performances and other deceptive ploys.

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“Them rapscallions took in four hundred and sixty-five dollars in that three nights. I never seen money hauled in by the wagonload like that before” (Twain 153).
This quote emphasizes the cunning criminals of the river that either stole money from oblivious townspeople or tricked them into giving up their money willingly. These strategies proved to be highly effective.

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“I see the fog closing down, and it made me so sick and scared I couldn’t budge for most a half a minute it seemed to me—and then there warn’t no raft in sight; you couldn’t see twenty yards” (Twain 85).
This quote from Huck that is found in the novel shows how dangerous the fog is on the river because it can easily cause travelers to become lost or separated from their fellow travelers.

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“Well the days went along, and the river went down between the banks again; and about the first thing we done was to bait one of the big hooks with a skinned rabbit and catch a catfish” (Twain 60).
One activity that is practiced heavily on the river is that of fishing. Families take their boats out onto the river in hopes of catching tasty fish. Businesses also use the Mississippi to capture fish that is then supplied to restaurants and stores.

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This guide from the Wisconsin DNR outlines the regulations for fishing on the Mississippi River in Wisconsin. #FishFun

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The Upper Mississippi River is home to over 119 species of fish - more species than are found in any of Wisconsin's inland lakes. Favorite sport fish include walleye, sauger, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, channel catfish, northern pike, bluegill, and crappies. On the Mississippi River, you don't necessarily need a boat to catch them! The species list also includes riverine species such as catfish, blue sucker, shorthead redhorse, and bigmouth buffalo that are typical of large rivers in Wisconsin as well as some ancient fish such as paddlefish, lake sturgeon and shovelnose sturgeon.

Management of Mississippi River fisheries

Weighing shovelnose sturgeon

Management of the Mississippi River's natural resources often is accomplished through interagency cooperation, especially since there are often overlapping and shared responsibilities and authorities for fish and wildlife resources. While much of the Mississippi River that borders Wisconsin is part of the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge, Wisconsin retained title to, custody and protection of the fishery in the river and adjacent waters.

Survey results and reports

Wisconsin fishery biologists conduct fish and habitat surveys on several navigation pools of the Mississippi River. The final reports, when available, are online at Fish and Habitat Survey Reports. The reports are categorized on a county basis as follows: Pool 7 - La Crosse County, Pool 8 - La Crosse and Vernon County, Pool 9 - Vernon and Crawford County, Pool 10 - Grant County.

Mississippi River fishing information

Although the Mississippi River can be intimidating for anglers, its mix of backwater lakes, running sloughs, tailwaters and main channel habitats offer spectacular fishing opportunities.

For more detailed information on fishing on the Mississippi River including maps, safety tips for boating, and river habitats for fish see the Fishing and Boating on the Mississippi River guide available at the Wisconsin DNR - La Crosse Service Center.

Special rules, regulations and agreements apply when fishing the Upper Mississippi River. Reciprocity agreements between Wisconsin and the states of Iowa and Minnesota allow a person to fish the boundary waters on the Mississippi River providing they have a valid fishing license from one of the adjacent states. The boundary waters area is defined by the railroad tracks that parallel both sides of the river. However, residents must possess a resident license when fishing in their own states boundary waters. Regulations between Wisconsin and the other states differ so anglers must obey the regulations in the state they are fishing.

Fish consumption advisories on the Mississippi River

For public health protection, the Department of Natural Resource routinely monitors chemicals in fish collected from waters throughout Wisconsin. After consulting with the Division of Heath the state issues fish contaminant advisories each year. Precautions recommended in the advisories range from advice that you remove fat and skin before cooking and eating some fish to a stronger statement that advises that you should not eat certain fish. You may also want to consult the fish consumption advisories from Iowa and Minnesota which also border the Mississippi River.

Fish consumption advisories:

Fishing tournament information

Fishing tournaments have become popular on the Mississippi River from local ice fishing derbies to B.A.S.S.The tournament regulations and permit application process is now available on-line

More fishing resources

For anglers looking for more information, and locations to fish in counties bordering the Mississippi River check out WI DNR fishery areas. Fishery and Stream Bank Protection areas along streams, rivers, and lakes protect water quality by reducing erosion and run-off and improve habitat and fishing opportunities. This site provides maps, activities and contacts.

Learn to identify Wisconsin Fishes with the Fish Identification Database[exit DNR]

For fish mangers and anglers looking for historic fish sampling information collected by a variety of agencies and tribes check out the WI DNR & Wisconsin Aquatic Gap Mapping Application[exit DNR] available in a dynamic, queriable and geographically referenced application, includes directions.

Wisconsin Fishing Regulations

See the DNR Managed Lands Site to find easements and wildlife areas for fishing and other recreational opportunities.

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The Upper Mississippi River is home to over 119 species of fish - more species than are found in any of Wisconsin's inland lakes. Favorite sport fish include walleye, sauger, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, channel catfish, northern pike, bluegill, and crappies. On the Mississippi River, you don't necessarily need a boat to catch them!

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“The ferryboat was floating with the current, and I allowed I’d have a chance to see who was aboard when she come along, because she would come in close, where the bread did” (Twain 45).
As shown in the quote above, the Mississippi River was primarily used for transportation of people during the early 1800s, and ferries carried people between port cities.

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This video displays a FOX news report about major fog that caused safety concerns along the river. #StayAlert

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(WVUE) - Heavy fog has forced the U.S. Coast Guard to close a stretch of the Mississippi River near Algiers Point.

The river is closed from mile marker 93.5 to mile marker 95.

The fog is not making the back to work commute easy on the roads either.

At the Elysian Fields on ramp to Interstate 610 fog was thick and getting worse heading toward downtown New Orleans.

Drivers are advised to keep lights set on low beams. Vehicles equipped with fog lights are ideal in heavily foggy conditions.

Drivers are also advised to allow extra time to finish the morning commute.

Reduced speed and increased distance between cars is the safest way to get through a foggy commute, traffic experts say.

"If you're following a vehicle you want to give about five to seven seconds between you and the car in front of you," said Don Redman, spokesman for AAA of Louisiana and Mississippi. "Look at a fixed object when that car in front to you passes and count up to five to seven seconds so you have time to react in case of a sudden stop."

A dense fog was over the Crescent City Connection and a thick fog is reported coming into the city from New Orleans East.

Copyright 2017 WVUE. All rights reserved.

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U.S. Coast Guard closes part of the Mississippi River due to heavy fog

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(WVUE) - Heavy fog has forced the U.S. Coast Guard to close a stretch of the Mississippi River near Algiers Point. The river is closed from mile marker 93.5 to mile marker 95. The fog is not making the back to work commute easy on the roads either.

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This article discusses the piracy of the 19th century on the rivers of the United States and tells the story of the Harpe brothers. #Piracy

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Today in the news we hear a good deal about piracy at sea. Somalia of course is one good example. Another is the piracy that continues to be a threat to ocean freighters in the area of Indonesia. While most of these crimes involve the stealing of ships and cargo not too many, but still some, involve the capturing of ship crews. To help prevent ocean hijacking and outright piracy, several nations including the United States have begun patrolling the most dangerous of these sea lanes. What is a story that hasn't been publicized too much is the piracy and murder that took place on the inland waterways right here in the U.S. The river pirates at the turn of the 19th century were an obstacle to westward immigration.

There was a time when traveling down the Ohio River was akin to journeying on the Oregon Trail by wagon train. The dangers were every bit as great. The threat on the inland waterways didn't come from a party of raiding Indians. It came from ruthless pirates who had no qualms at all to hijack a river boat, steal the boat itself and murder crew and passengers. Piracy attack along the Ohio River bank took many lives. The dangers on the Ohio went all the way down to Cairo Illinois where it merges with the Mississippi River. An article written in the book, Waterways West, by author Robert West Howard, estimates that between the early years of 1785 and 1805, more than two-thousand men, women and children lost their lives at the hands of these violent river pirates. Think about it. That is an astoundingly high figure of deaths at a time when our nation's population was a fraction of what it is today. During that period of time, rivers like the Ohio and Mississippi represented what we often call the Wild West. The Ohio River was the original home of the legendary figure Mike Fink, probably the most famous boatman on the early Ohio.

This was the era before steamboats. The description of a typical vessel in this era was a flatboat perhaps forty to seventy feet in length and twelve to fifteen feet wide. The hull was raised maybe seven feet out of the water. On the deck was built a log cabin. Wagons and livestock might have been carried on the flat roof of the cabin. Two large rudder/oars were fixed on the front and back. These boats or arks depended on the river current for power. Basically, it served the same as a wagon train wagon except it floated down the river. These powerless barges with valuables onboard were prime targets for the river pirates and murderers.

River pirates had a few ways to commandeer these floating arks. They would hide out in a cave along the river. Perhaps one would offer to help navigate the relatively helpless barge over some supposed dangerous rapids downriver. He might get aboard and suggest that they maneuver to a cave where there was also supposedly good clean water and a marvelous sight. When the boat entered the cave area it would be set upon violently by the pirate gang. Once inside the cave the immigrants would be slain, the vessel looted of everything and perhaps then floated downriver to the Cumberland River and sold in Tennessee. It was that ruthless and in many ways more deadly than the attacks that occurred decades later on the Oregon Trail.

To say these murderers were chased is an understatement. This was a time when the United States was a very new nation. The frontier Wild West was the region of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. There was no established law enforcement and the only method to deal with these deadly pirates were as vigilantes. Vigilante groups were the law enforcement of that era and in that place. They were similar to the later groups in Montana, Wyoming and other frontier territories.

One particular event probably illustrates best as to how these pirates were dealt with when captured or killed. The Harpe brothers led a small gang of pirates/robbers who moved around the lower Ohio and upper part of the Mississippi. The Harpe brothers, sometimes described as actually cousins, didn't only rob and kill people on the rivers but also did the same by ambush on land. They were both river pirates and cold blooded killers. The Harpes roamed the entire area of Kentucky and down to the Cumberland Gap and on the Natchez Trace. The Harpes were also connected with a shady robber named Wilson. The Harpes with all their wisdom decided to kill Wilson and bring his head in to Natchez to collect a bounty. The problem was, the boatmen of Natchez recognized the Harpes for who they really were. They were both promptly arrested, tried and beheaded. So to discourage other would be pirates, the heads of all three were displayed on stakes along the Natchez Trace. A strong statement by the people and boatmen of Natchez was truly made.

Eventually, and as a protective measure, flatboats began traveling down the Ohio as a flotilla. This of course was very similar to the wagon trains that flowed across the prairie decades later. Some believe the idea for the wagon trains went all the way back to these river flotillas. Obviously, there was strength in numbers. Additionally, the flotillas had a keel boat in the middle of the chain of flatboats as protection. Keelboats were first built in Pittsburgh PA around 1775. The keel boat had a deck house with bunks and cargo space which in the case of protecting the flotilla included a one pound cannon, rifles and cutlasses and a crew not shy to use them. You can see the better maneuverability the keel boat had from the picture at the top of this page.The keel boat was positioned in the middle of the flotilla so to guard against trouble downriver and upriver. The keel boats assured that the flotilla would make it safely past known plunder points. There were many hidden ambush points on the river banks. The Keelboats were largely successful in protecting the defenseless flat boats..

Pirates operated on the rivers during the last part of the 18th century and during the early part of the 19th century. They also operated on the Great Lakes during the 1800's. Wherever there was an opportunity to plunder and a lack of law enforcement, the pirates/robbers will appear. In the violent events that took place on the Ohio River at the turn of the century, a good argument could be made that the perpetrators were vicious murderers rather than pirates. In many instances they were both. Pioneers have always been in harms way. It went with the territory. At the time of the piracy and murders along the Ohio River, the river represented the American frontier very similar to what the Dakotas were in the 1830's.

A few other interesting stories you will be interested in. The Great Train Robbery and The Yellowstone Steamboat in Texas.

The river piracy and violence on the early Ohio River was an unfortunate part of history. Essentially it was a violent and dangerous part of American westward expansion which would repeat itself over and over with pioneer immigrants who would travel the old Santa Fe Trail after 1821 and the various Overland trails beginning in the late 1830's.

(Photos and images are from the public domain)

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High Piracy on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers

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Today in the news we hear a good deal about piracy at sea. Somalia of course is one good example. Another is the piracy that continues to be a threat to ocean freighters in the area of Indonesia. While most of these crimes involve the stealing of ships and cargo not too many, but still some, involve the capturing of ship crews.

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“We laid there all day, and watched the rafts and steamboats spin down the Missouri shore, and up-bound steamboats fight the big river in the middle” (Twain 69-70).
Twain identifies various types of ships that utilize the river throughout the novel, including steamboats, ferries, rafts, and canoes.

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The massive effects of flooding is demonstrated when Huck says,“Another night when we was up at the head of the island, just before daylight, here comes a frame house down, on the west side. She was a two-story, and tilted over considerable” (Twain 56).

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The latter portion of this article analyzes the barge system on the river, which is used to transport resources and products throughout the United States

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World War I produced a major resurgence in river trade. As other lines of transport became congested, the river was recognized as an increasingly valuable asset. With federal initiative, new barge lines were organized, and by 1931 the annual barge traffic moving along the river was twice the volume moved in any single year during the previous century. In 1907, for instance, the steamer Sprague established a new world record for size of tow. Its raft of 60 coal barges weighed 67,307 tons and covered an area of 6.5 acres (2.6 hectares).

Sprague's record is unlikely to be matched by any other paddle wheeler, for the remaining steamboats are mostly showpieces, and the modern Mississippi towboat is of design radically different from its forebears. Screw-driven and diesel-engined, the modern towboat is made fast to the stern of its tow. Ahead stretches a rigid platform of barges as much as 1,500 feet (460 metres) long and with a designed draft of 9 feet (2.75 metres). Most barges are built for specific cargoes. For dry cargo they average 1,500 tons capacity and measure 195 feet (60 metres) long by 35 feet (10 metres) wide; for liquid cargo the proportions are about 2,500 tons capacity and 295 feet (90 metres) by 50 feet (15 metres). To aid navigation, towboat captains have at their disposal electronic depth finders, radar, contraguide rudders, global positioning systems, a sophisticated system of riverbank lights and markers, and a radio telephone to warn other river users of their approach in narrow passages. Among the cargoes to be carried along the river in this fashion since about 1960 are the booster rockets for space research, which are so bulky as to be unsuitable for any other mode of transport.

Commercial use of the Mississippi waterway has shown sturdy growth. Leading cargoes, by bulk, are petroleum and derivative products, coal and coke, iron and steel, chemicals, sand and gravel, crushed rock, and sulfur. An increasing emphasis on bulk handling inevitably has meant the rapid growth of a few key port cities at the expense of their rivals.

Responsibility for overseeing the maintenance and improvement of the Mississippi as a commercial waterway, as well as the related tasks of flood control and bank protection ( see below), falls upon the Mississippi River Commission. Created by act of Congress in 1879, the commission has supervised a massive program of river work that has profoundly reshaped the character of the Mississippi. The main stages of the navigation-improvement program include a channel 9 feet (2.75 metres) deep and 250 feet (75 metres) wide at low water between Cairo, Illinois, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, authorized in 1896; a widening of this channel to 300 feet (90 metres), approved in 1928; and its deepening to 12 feet (3.65 metres), was begun in 1944. In addition, a ship channel 45 feet (14 metres) deep from Baton Rouge to the Gulf of Mexico has been under construction since its authorization by Congress in 1945. Farther upriver, the outstanding achievement has been the construction of 29 locks and dams on the upper river to take the 9-foot channel upstream to Minneapolis-St. Paul. Connecting into the Mississippi is a vast complex of related waterways-from the Intracoastal Waterway in the south, stretching between Florida and the Mexican border, to the channels that lead up the Ohio to its tributaries and through the Illinois waterway to the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway.

Flood control along the river dates to the foundation of New Orleans in 1717 by the French, who built a small levee to shelter their infant city. Over the next two centuries a complex array of riverbank structures was erected along the river to contain or divert floods. But it was not until after the catastrophic flood of 1927 that the federal government became committed to a definite program of flood control. The target has become an integrated flood-control system able to master a "project flood," the largest theoretical flood expected along the river. This program has altered the face of the river even more than the navigation program-with which it is linked-has altered its bed.

In principle, the Mississippi's floods are either constricted by levees, hastened out of danger zones by floodways and improved channels, dissipated down spillways and into reservoirs, or starved by the impounding of tributary floods. From Cape Girardeau, Missouri, to the Gulf of Mexico, the river is virtually "walled in" by a vast line of main-stem levees. This concrete barrier has, incidentally, isolated the river from much of the surrounding countryside; hence, many former riverbank towns are now severed from their natural setting. In the event that the main levees are threatened, the excess floodwater drains away down spillways (e.g., from north of New Orleans it is diverted past the city by spillways leading through Lake Pontchartrain to the Gulf of Mexico) or bursts "fuse plugs," the specially weakened sections of levee leading to harmless floodways or reservoirs. A major example of this type of floodway occurs at New Madrid, Missouri, just south of the Ohio confluence. At times the system is overwhelmed, such as in 2005 when low-lying New Orleans was flooded after the levees holding back Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River were unable to contain the storm surge waters accompanying Hurricane Katrina. Another such occurrence was in the spring of 2011 when snowmelt and heavy rains produced record high flood crests on the Mississippi that forced the opening of numerous floodgates and sluiceways and produced massive flooding of farmland and riverside towns.

Elsewhere a massive program of bank strengthening undertaken by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, using mattresses of concrete slabs, has reduced lateral erosion and increased channel stability. The careful positioning of underwater dikes to deflect the current, the cutting through of oxbow bends at their necks (i.e., straightening the channel), and a continuous dredging schedule have all helped to reduce flood levels and assist navigation. Although the system operated successfully against the high-water levels of 1945 and 1950, it could not contain the flood of 1973, the record inundation of 1993 of the upper and middle Mississippi and the lower Missouri, or the massive spring flooding of 2011. No matter how large, once flood-control reservoirs are full, they serve no additional function, since at that point all the water that enters must be immediately let through.

Thus, the Mississippi flood-control program is not without its problems. It has been increasingly necessary, now that the river is caught behind the main-stem levees, to attend to the isolated tributaries. In some cases, costly pumping stations have been installed to lift the impounded water over the levees and into the main river. More dramatic has been the penalty for using the Atchafalaya River as a convenient spillway for floods on the lower river. The Mississippi threatened to divert permanently into this secondary channel, inundating the lower Atchafalaya, bypassing New Orleans, and rendering useless millions of dollars of flood-control works and docks. Only at the cost of a vast and complex system of locks and barrages has the danger been averted. It has become increasingly clear that the river's delicate hydrology has been disturbed and that the program of river work must continue for many years. Perhaps because of the impacts of the 1993 Mississippi floods and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the importance of the long-term health of the riverine environment, flood-control management and prevention strategies continue to be reviewed and evaluated. Presumably, future floodplain management strategies will be designed more to limit land use on flood-prone areas to those kinds of uses that can tolerate flooding rather than to prevent or minimize flood damage in those areas by way of engineered structures.
Giles Timothy Severin Robert A. Muller Richard H. Kesel Randall J. Schaetzl The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Learn More in these related Britannica articles:

United States: The Eastern systems

rivers is the Mississippi, which, with its great tributaries, the Ohio and the Missouri, drains most of the midcontinent. The Mississippi is navigable to Minneapolis, nearly 1,200 miles (1,900 km) by air from the Gulf of Mexico, and along with the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence system it forms the...

... (Chang Jiang), Indus, Amazon, and Mississippi deliver quantities ranging from about 500,000,000 to approximately 350,000,000 tons a year. Suspended sediment transport on the Huang He equals a denudation rate of about 3,090 tons per square kilometre (8,000 tons per square mile) per year; the corresponding rate for the Ganges-Brahmaputra is...

The Mississippi system also is frequently swollen in spring as melting snows in the upper parts of the drainage basin are added to runoff from spring rains in the southern Great Plains and southeastern states; flooding can then become a major hazard. River water is kept...

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Mississippi River - Modern commercial activity

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Mississippi River - Mississippi River - Modern commercial activity: World War I produced a major resurgence in river trade. As other lines of transport became congested, the river was recognized as an increasingly valuable asset.

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The end of this article discusses the affects of flooding on the areas surrounding the Mississippi River. Attempts at flood control are also described and outlined in this article. #SafetyFirst

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World War I produced a major resurgence in river trade. As other lines of transport became congested, the river was recognized as an increasingly valuable asset. With federal initiative, new barge lines were organized, and by 1931 the annual barge traffic moving along the river was twice the volume moved in any single year during the previous century. In 1907, for instance, the steamer Sprague established a new world record for size of tow. Its raft of 60 coal barges weighed 67,307 tons and covered an area of 6.5 acres (2.6 hectares).

Sprague's record is unlikely to be matched by any other paddle wheeler, for the remaining steamboats are mostly showpieces, and the modern Mississippi towboat is of design radically different from its forebears. Screw-driven and diesel-engined, the modern towboat is made fast to the stern of its tow. Ahead stretches a rigid platform of barges as much as 1,500 feet (460 metres) long and with a designed draft of 9 feet (2.75 metres). Most barges are built for specific cargoes. For dry cargo they average 1,500 tons capacity and measure 195 feet (60 metres) long by 35 feet (10 metres) wide; for liquid cargo the proportions are about 2,500 tons capacity and 295 feet (90 metres) by 50 feet (15 metres). To aid navigation, towboat captains have at their disposal electronic depth finders, radar, contraguide rudders, global positioning systems, a sophisticated system of riverbank lights and markers, and a radio telephone to warn other river users of their approach in narrow passages. Among the cargoes to be carried along the river in this fashion since about 1960 are the booster rockets for space research, which are so bulky as to be unsuitable for any other mode of transport.

Commercial use of the Mississippi waterway has shown sturdy growth. Leading cargoes, by bulk, are petroleum and derivative products, coal and coke, iron and steel, chemicals, sand and gravel, crushed rock, and sulfur. An increasing emphasis on bulk handling inevitably has meant the rapid growth of a few key port cities at the expense of their rivals.

Responsibility for overseeing the maintenance and improvement of the Mississippi as a commercial waterway, as well as the related tasks of flood control and bank protection ( see below), falls upon the Mississippi River Commission. Created by act of Congress in 1879, the commission has supervised a massive program of river work that has profoundly reshaped the character of the Mississippi. The main stages of the navigation-improvement program include a channel 9 feet (2.75 metres) deep and 250 feet (75 metres) wide at low water between Cairo, Illinois, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, authorized in 1896; a widening of this channel to 300 feet (90 metres), approved in 1928; and its deepening to 12 feet (3.65 metres), was begun in 1944. In addition, a ship channel 45 feet (14 metres) deep from Baton Rouge to the Gulf of Mexico has been under construction since its authorization by Congress in 1945. Farther upriver, the outstanding achievement has been the construction of 29 locks and dams on the upper river to take the 9-foot channel upstream to Minneapolis-St. Paul. Connecting into the Mississippi is a vast complex of related waterways-from the Intracoastal Waterway in the south, stretching between Florida and the Mexican border, to the channels that lead up the Ohio to its tributaries and through the Illinois waterway to the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway.

Flood control along the river dates to the foundation of New Orleans in 1717 by the French, who built a small levee to shelter their infant city. Over the next two centuries a complex array of riverbank structures was erected along the river to contain or divert floods. But it was not until after the catastrophic flood of 1927 that the federal government became committed to a definite program of flood control. The target has become an integrated flood-control system able to master a "project flood," the largest theoretical flood expected along the river. This program has altered the face of the river even more than the navigation program-with which it is linked-has altered its bed.

In principle, the Mississippi's floods are either constricted by levees, hastened out of danger zones by floodways and improved channels, dissipated down spillways and into reservoirs, or starved by the impounding of tributary floods. From Cape Girardeau, Missouri, to the Gulf of Mexico, the river is virtually "walled in" by a vast line of main-stem levees. This concrete barrier has, incidentally, isolated the river from much of the surrounding countryside; hence, many former riverbank towns are now severed from their natural setting. In the event that the main levees are threatened, the excess floodwater drains away down spillways (e.g., from north of New Orleans it is diverted past the city by spillways leading through Lake Pontchartrain to the Gulf of Mexico) or bursts "fuse plugs," the specially weakened sections of levee leading to harmless floodways or reservoirs. A major example of this type of floodway occurs at New Madrid, Missouri, just south of the Ohio confluence. At times the system is overwhelmed, such as in 2005 when low-lying New Orleans was flooded after the levees holding back Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River were unable to contain the storm surge waters accompanying Hurricane Katrina. Another such occurrence was in the spring of 2011 when snowmelt and heavy rains produced record high flood crests on the Mississippi that forced the opening of numerous floodgates and sluiceways and produced massive flooding of farmland and riverside towns.

Elsewhere a massive program of bank strengthening undertaken by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, using mattresses of concrete slabs, has reduced lateral erosion and increased channel stability. The careful positioning of underwater dikes to deflect the current, the cutting through of oxbow bends at their necks (i.e., straightening the channel), and a continuous dredging schedule have all helped to reduce flood levels and assist navigation. Although the system operated successfully against the high-water levels of 1945 and 1950, it could not contain the flood of 1973, the record inundation of 1993 of the upper and middle Mississippi and the lower Missouri, or the massive spring flooding of 2011. No matter how large, once flood-control reservoirs are full, they serve no additional function, since at that point all the water that enters must be immediately let through.

Thus, the Mississippi flood-control program is not without its problems. It has been increasingly necessary, now that the river is caught behind the main-stem levees, to attend to the isolated tributaries. In some cases, costly pumping stations have been installed to lift the impounded water over the levees and into the main river. More dramatic has been the penalty for using the Atchafalaya River as a convenient spillway for floods on the lower river. The Mississippi threatened to divert permanently into this secondary channel, inundating the lower Atchafalaya, bypassing New Orleans, and rendering useless millions of dollars of flood-control works and docks. Only at the cost of a vast and complex system of locks and barrages has the danger been averted. It has become increasingly clear that the river's delicate hydrology has been disturbed and that the program of river work must continue for many years. Perhaps because of the impacts of the 1993 Mississippi floods and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the importance of the long-term health of the riverine environment, flood-control management and prevention strategies continue to be reviewed and evaluated. Presumably, future floodplain management strategies will be designed more to limit land use on flood-prone areas to those kinds of uses that can tolerate flooding rather than to prevent or minimize flood damage in those areas by way of engineered structures.
Giles Timothy Severin Robert A. Muller Richard H. Kesel Randall J. Schaetzl The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Learn More in these related Britannica articles:

United States: The Eastern systems

rivers is the Mississippi, which, with its great tributaries, the Ohio and the Missouri, drains most of the midcontinent. The Mississippi is navigable to Minneapolis, nearly 1,200 miles (1,900 km) by air from the Gulf of Mexico, and along with the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence system it forms the...

... (Chang Jiang), Indus, Amazon, and Mississippi deliver quantities ranging from about 500,000,000 to approximately 350,000,000 tons a year. Suspended sediment transport on the Huang He equals a denudation rate of about 3,090 tons per square kilometre (8,000 tons per square mile) per year; the corresponding rate for the Ganges-Brahmaputra is...

The Mississippi system also is frequently swollen in spring as melting snows in the upper parts of the drainage basin are added to runoff from spring rains in the southern Great Plains and southeastern states; flooding can then become a major hazard. River water is kept...

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Mississippi River - Modern commercial activity

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Mississippi River - Mississippi River - Modern commercial activity: World War I produced a major resurgence in river trade. As other lines of transport became congested, the river was recognized as an increasingly valuable asset.

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In this news article, the coast guard discusses the dangers that strong currents pose to vessels and swimmers.

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Mar 22nd, 2019 · Comments Off on High water on Mississippi River leads to dangerous currents

NEW ORLEANS - The Coast Guard urges boaters going out on the Lower Mississippi River to understand the risks associated with high water and strong currents.

Higher than average water levels create very strong and swift currents, which result in large amounts of debris, and can lead to dangerous situations on the Mississippi River.

The stronger than normal currents can create rips and eddies in places where they might not have been before, which can pull a boat or a person into a dangerous situation very quickly.

Watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector New Orleans received a report at 8:51 a.m. of two boaters aboard a disabled recreational vessel, which was being pushed downriver by strong currents on the Lower Mississippi River.

Sector New Orleans, Coast Guard Station New Orleans and Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans worked with Sea Tow to rescue the two people from their vessel.

"This is an example of how quickly these currents can put people's lives in danger," said Commander Michael Wolfe a search and rescue mission coordinator at Sector New Orleans. "We urge boaters to understand the dangers of high water and avoid transiting the Lower Mississippi River if at all possible."

Some simple safety measures boaters can take are to always wear a lifejacket when operating on or around the river, double-check required equipment such as visual and audio distress signals, personal flotation devices and a fire extinguisher are present and in working condition and never boat under the influence of alcohol.

For more safe boating information, please visit USCGBoating.org.
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High water on Mississippi River leads to dangerous currents

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Mar 22nd, 2019 · Comments Off on High water on Mississippi River leads to dangerous currents NEW ORLEANS - The Coast Guard urges boaters going out on the Lower Mississippi River to understand the risks associated with high water and strong currents.

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In Old Man River, the author describes the massive logging industry that took place on the Mississippi River. Since the river borders 10 states and is located at the center of the United States, it was the perfect water way for transporting lumber easily. Schneider wrote that “Enormous rafts of logs came down the rivers from anywhere there were trees to cut” (209). Additionally, according to Cramer’s Navigator, an astounding 7 million feet of lumber was transported down the Mississippi River through Pittsburg. Later in the 1800s, loggers began to harvest the vast forests of Wisconsin. Based on this, it is palpable that the logging industry was a major part of life on the Mississippi River.

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This website provides information about a company’s cruises on the Mississippi River. #Vacation

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Cruise down the Mississippi river in luxury aboard our authentic paddlewheelers. Browse American Queen Steamboat Company cruises to plan your next getaway!

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This article dives into the history of the Mississippi River and what vessels were used to navigate the river during American history. #Innovation

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Transforming the River I: Commerce and Navigation Improvements, 1823-1906

FIGURE 1. Port of St. Paul, head of navigation, 1853. Steamboats at
the Upper and Lower Landings.
Artist: Thompson Ritchie. American Memory Project, Library of Congress.

The Mississippi River gave birth to most cities along its banks, and those cities did all they could to ensure that the river would nurture their growth. From their pioneer days on, they insisted that the federal government should "improve" the river for navigation. St. Paul and Minneapolis pushed especially hard. Lying at the head of navigation, they demanded a river capable of delivering the immigrants needed to populate the land (not considering that they had taken it from Native Americans) and the tools and provisions needed to fully use it. They also demanded a navigable river so they could deliver the bounty of their labor and their new land to the country and the world. All this, they believed, was part of their manifest destiny. To fulfill that destiny, they would help transform the entire upper Mississippi River and make the reach between Hastings and St. Anthony Falls one of the river's most engineered. ( Figure 1)

The Twin Cities had to see that the entire Mississippi River was remade. They needed local navigation projects, but these did little good without a navigable river downstream. So they actively participated in local, regional and national campaigns for navigation improvement. In response to their lobbying, Congress authorized four broad projects to improve navigation on the upper river and a number of site-specific projects in the Twin Cities metropolitan area since 1866. The four broad projects are known as the 4-, 41/2-, 6- and 9-foot channel projects. Key local projects included Locks and Dams 1 (Ford Dam) and 2 (Hastings), Lower and Upper St. Anthony Falls Locks and Dams, and the little known Meeker Island Lock and Dam, which was the river's first and shortest-lived lock and dam ( Figure 2). In less than 100 years, these projects would radically transform the river that nature had created over millions of years and that Native Americans had hunted along, canoed on, and fished in for thousands of years.

FIGURE 2. To the residents of the growing metropolitan area, the Mississippi promised unlimited wealth if they could harness its power and make it navigable. The early dams, however, served only one purpose.

Navigation on the Natural River: 1823-1866

Early Navigation * Paddling upstream from St. Louis to St. Paul in 1823, the Virginia became the first steamboat to navigate the upper Mississippi River. It did so twice that year. Other boats had been plying the upper river-Indian canoes, piroques, flatboats and keelboats-but the Virginia announced a new era. Under steam power, people and goods could be transported upstream far more quickly and in greater numbers and quantities than on boats with sails or oars or poles. As steamboats evolved and as the region's population and production grew, the river's limitations as a navigation route would become unacceptable and Midwesterners would repeatedly call for its improvement as a commercial artery.

Steamboat traffic grew quickly after 1823. Between 1823 and 1847, most boats carried lead and worked around Galena, Illinois. Few boats plied the river above Galena. After 1847, as miners depleted the lead supply, the trade quickly declined. ¹ Despite the fall of lead shipping, steamboat traffic on the upper Mississippi boomed. One measure of this was the number of times steamboats docked at the upper river's port cities. Some steamboats might land only once, while others returned many times. St. Paul recorded 41 steamboat arrivals in 1844, and 95 in 1849. During the 1850s, traffic soared. By 1857, St. Paul had become a bustling port, with over 1,000 steamboat arrivals each year by some 62 to 99 boats. ²

Spurred by Indian land cessions that opened much of the Midwest between 1820 and 1860, by Iowa's statehood in 1846 and Wisconsin's in 1848 and by the creation of the Minnesota Territory in 1849, passenger traffic on the upper river boomed. Many passengers came from the East; others came from Europe, fleeing famine in Ireland and political unrest on the continent. While some arrived by way of the Great Lakes, many settlers entering Iowa, Minnesota and western Wisconsin made part of their journey on the upper river. ⁶ Historian Roald Tweet contends that, "The number of immigrants boarding boats at St. Louis and traveling upriver to St. Paul dwarfed the 1849 gold rush to California and Oregon." ⁷ More than one million passengers arrived at or left from St. Louis in 1855 alone. 8 As a result, the population of the four upper river states above Missouri ballooned between 1850 and 1860. Minnesota's population jumped from 6,077 to 172,023, Iowa's from 192,000 to 674,913, Wisconsin's from 305,391 to 775,881 and Illinois' from 851,470 to 1,711,951. ⁹ Passenger traffic became so important to the steamboat trade that by 1850 passenger receipts exceeded freight receipts. ¹⁰

The Natural River

Before 1866, during the heyday of steamboats, the upper Mississippi River still possessed most of its natural character. Trees filled and enshrouded it. Where steamboat pilots followed the deepest channel, as it hugged one shore or the other, leaning trees might sweep poorly placed cargo or an unwary passenger from a steamboat's deck. Many trees fell into the water to become snags. Snags skewered the careless and even the cautious steamboat. Snags were such frequent and treacherous hazards that steamboat pilots named them ( Figure 3). Those that swayed back and forth with the current they called sawyers. Those that bowed in and out of the water they labeled preachers. Planters were those that became lodged in the river's bottom, and sleepers hid beneath the water's surface. Snags could, in an instant, impale a steamboat or tear it apart. ¹¹ The natural river became surprisingly narrow in places. Zebulon Pike and Stephen Long both not only commented on how confined the river became above Hastings, they rowed its width to see how few strokes they needed. Pike took 40 strokes in his bateau and Long only 16 in his skiff. ¹²

Hundreds of islands, some forming and others being cut away, divided the natural river, dispersing its waters into innumerable side channels and backwaters. By dividing the river, islands limited the water available to the navigation channel and thereby its depth. Islands created dangerous currents. ¹³ From just below Hastings to St. Anthony Falls roughly 40 islands broke the river's flow. The number of islands, of course, varied with the season and the year, as many islands were temporary.

Sandbars posed the most persistent and frequent problem. They divided the upper Mississippi into a series of deep pools separated by wide shallows that sometimes stranded even the lightest steamboats. Sandbars determined the river's overall navigability. A bad bar could sever St. Paul's and Hastings' connection with St. Louis, the Gulf of Mexico and the world. ¹⁴ Normally, during the late summer or early fall, the river began falling and would enter the stage steamboat pilots and Corps engineers called low water. During low water, no continuous channel existed. Deep pools might run near one bank for a short reach and then jump to the other. Or a series of deeper pools separated by shallow sandbars could be scattered across the main channel. Deep was anything over three feet.

Sandbars determined the river's controlling depth-the minimum depth for navigation at low water. From St. Paul to the St. Croix River, the controlling depth at low water was 16 inches. From the St. Croix to the Illinois River it varied from 18 to 24 inches. ¹⁵ A few miles below St. Paul, the river sometimes became so shallow that boats would have to stop within sight of the city. ¹⁶ The folklore that people once waded across the Mississippi is true.

George Byron Merrick captures well the perils of sailing the natural river. Born in Niles, Michigan, on the St. Joseph River, Merrick watched steamboats go back and forth between South Bend, Indiana, and the town of St. Joseph on Lake Michigan. ¹⁷ When Merrick was 12 years old, his family left Michigan and traveled to Rock Island, Illinois. There they took a steamboat upriver to Prescott, Wisconsin, some 30 miles below St. Paul, arriving in June 1854. Merrick's father bought a warehouse on the levee from which he ran a storage and transshipping business. He also sold "boat-stores" and groceries to the steamboats that stopped at the levee. The family lived in the upper two stories, George sharing the attic with his brother. ¹⁸ From there the boys could see and hear every steamboat that stopped at or passed the levee. "And thus," Merrick recalled, "we grew into the very life of the river as we grew in years." ¹⁹ When old enough, Merrick began working on a steamboat as a cabin boy and after one season became a cub engineer. Over the next nine years he worked his way up to become a cub pilot. But in 1862, he left the river to fight in the Civil War. After the war, he settled in New York. In 1876, he returned to Wisconsin to become-fittingly-a railway agent. Subsequently he turned to newspaper editing and publishing. ²⁰

From his experiences, Merrick learned much about the natural river. Pilots, Merrick recounted, had to study the "nightmares" first. Three of those nightmares-the sandbars at Prescott, Grey Cloud, and Pig's Eye-received special note in Merrick's history. The dangers of navigating the natural river were so great, he said, that pilots had to memorize "every bluff, hill, rock, tree, stump, house, woodpile, and whatever else is to be noted along the banks of the river." ²¹ And pilots, he added, learned "The artistic quality in handling of a boat under the usual conditions-in making the multitudinous crossings, . . .dodging reefs and hunting the best water." ²² Poor hunters often fell prey to the river they hunted.

In 1862, Nathan Daly, the son of a Minnesota pioneer family fleeing from the Dakota Conflict in Minnesota, recounts the effect bars could have on a steamboat's hull. Traveling down the Mississippi to Illinois, Daly's family camped for a night a few miles below St. Paul. Here, the Northern Light, one of the largest steamers on the upper river, passed them just after sundown. The young Daly recalled in his memoir that he could "distinctly hear the grinding of her bottom on the gravel bar over which she was passing." ²³ Some boats ground to a halt on sandbars. To get off, pilots sometimes used spars, long wood poles on which the front and back of the boats would be alternately jacked up and pushed forward. In this way, pilots hoped to walk their boat over the bar. If lucky, they avoided "hogging" the boat; that is, warping or breaking its hull. ²⁴

Rocks and rapids were a greater problem for steamboats trying to ply the river above St. Paul. From St. Anthony Falls to downtown St. Paul, some 15 river miles, the river falls more than 100 feet. This steep slope, combined with a narrow gorge and limestone boulders left by the retreat of the falls, made the river through this reach too treacherous for steamboat navigation. ²⁵ Thus, St. Paul had become the head of navigation.

A Four-Foot Channel, 1866-1877

To steamboat pilots the natural river was too perilous, and Midwesterners feared an unreliable river might limit their region's destiny. That destiny, they believed, was to become a commercial and industrial power as strong as the East, as well as the nation's breadbasket. Before the Civil War, Congress authorized minor improvements for the upper Mississippi River but no work for the river above Hastings.

On June 23, 1866, Congress passed the first postwar River and Harbor Act. This act signaled a new era of internal improvements and the beginning of dramatic changes to the upper Mississippi River. Historians generally agree that with the Civil War's end the federal government took a very different position on internal improvements. Prior to the war, with a few exceptions, Congress and/or the President had opposed a federal role in internal improvements. ²⁶

The 1866 act provided for the first project to focus on the whole upper river. ²⁷ It directed the Corps to survey the Mississippi River between St. Anthony Falls and the Rock Island Rapids, "with a view to ascertain the feasible means, by economizing the water of the stream, of insuring the passage, at all navigable seasons, of boats drawing four feet of water. . . ." In other words, Congress asked the Corps to determine how to establish a continuous, 4-foot channel for the upper river at low water. Low water was based on the river's elevation in 1864, when a severe drought occurred. By a 4-foot channel, Congress meant a channel at least 4 feet deep if the river fell as low as it did in 1864. (The 9-foot channel today is based on the same benchmark.)

To create a 4-foot channel and deal with the Rock Island and Des Moines Rapids, the Corps established its first offices on the upper Mississippi River: one at St. Paul and one at Keokuk, Iowa (the latter would be moved to Rock Island in 1869). ²⁸ On July 31, 1866, A. A. Humphreys, the Chief of Engineers, ordered Brevet Major General and Major of Engineers Gouverneur K. Warren to St. Paul to begin the Corps' work on the upper Mississippi River (Figure 4). With Warren's arrival in St. Paul in August, the Corps established a permanent stake in how the upper Mississippi River would be managed and changed. From this time forward, the Corps' role in the river would become as deep and broad as the river itself. It came at the insistence of the states, farmers, business interests and the general public. All demanded the federal presence, the federal expertise and the federal dollars.

Between 1866 and 1869, Warren completed 30 survey maps of the upper Mississippi River, at the scale of 2 inches to the mile. Ten sheets formed a continuous map of the river from St. Anthony Falls to the mouth of the St. Croix River. The remaining maps focused on problem reaches or detailed the river near a specific town. ³² From these maps and from what he would learn about early navigation improvements, Warren began planning the 4-foot channel project.

Warren asked private companies and local interests what work they had done to improve the river's navigability. He learned that Minneapolis and St. Anthony (the community on the river's east bank that merged with Minneapolis in 1872) had funded the removal of boulders to encourage steamboats to travel above St. Paul. At Guttenberg, Iowa, an island split the river into two channels, one passing in front of the city and the other running along the Wisconsin side. Desiring to keep traffic flowing past their city, the citizens had attempted to close the Wisconsin channel but had been unsuccessful. Rafting companies and steamboat interests had employed wing dams to scour the channel at troublesome bars. These "slight dams," Warren commented, had been somewhat successful, "indicating a way of deepening the low-water channel worthy of special attention." But these measures had been only temporary; high water usually swept the dams away. Overall, Warren found that those who had been using the river "evince a shrewd knowledge of the action of running water and the means of temporarily controlling it, gained by their constant experience and observation." ³³ Warren listened to these knowledgeable sources, but came to his own conclusions.

Warren provided estimates for a variety of projects, in his first annual report in 1867. Responding in part to Minneapolis business and political interests, he requested $235,665 to construct a lock and dam at Meeker Island, which lay between Minneapolis and St. Paul. If built, this project would allow Minneapolis to become the head of navigation. Without a lock and dam, the river above St. Paul was too narrow, too shallow, too strewn with boulders and the current too fast for steamboat navigation. ³⁴ To create a safe and continuous 4-foot channel for the river between St. Paul and the Rock Island Rapids, Warren asked for $96,000 to acquire and operate two dredge and snag boats, $5,000 to construct an experimental closing dam at Prescott Island, about 26 miles below St. Paul, and $5,000 for another experimental closing dam for the Wacouta chute near Red Wing, Minnesota. ³⁵

Warren decided to deepen the upper Mississippi by dredging. It was a method that had proven successful in France and elsewhere. ³⁶ Mississippi River pilots had learned that by running their paddle wheels over the crest of a bar, they helped the river cut through it, allowing the flow from the pool to deepen the cut just enough for the boat to pass. As a result, Warren favored dredging. As long as the Corps ran the dredges, it could limit the depth of the cut on a bar and preserve much of the deeper pool behind it. "In view of the hold which this method has taken upon the minds of river men, and the difficulties, uncertainty, and expense which attend the use of dams," Warren concluded, "I have determined to recommend the employment of these dredging machines." ³⁷ In 1867 the Corps initiated a program of dredging sandbars, snagging, clearing overhanging trees and removing sunken vessels to create the 4-foot channel.

The 4-foot project did not greatly alter the river's physical or ecological character and did not improve the river much for navigation, but it initiated a series of navigation projects that would do both. The Corps simply did not have the funding, equipment, personnel or authority to make significant and permanent changes. Midwesterners, however, needed to transform the river, if they hoped to make it a commercial thoroughfare.

Demanding a Deeper Channel

Railroad Monopolies * The Midwest's need to receive and send out goods grew as rapidly as its population and agricultural production. Railroads, more than the river, would meet the region's need, but not without a price, a price much too high for some. In 1854 the first two railroads reached the Mississippi River: the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad at Rock Island, Illinois, and the Chicago and Alton at Alton, Illinois. In 1855 a railroad entered Galena. Quincy and Cairo, Illinois, became railheads in 1856, and East St. Louis, Illinois, and Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, in 1857. La Crosse, Wisconsin, joined these cities, becoming the terminus of the Milwaukee and La Crosse in 1858. At Rock Island in 1856, the Chicago and Rock Island became the first railroad to cross the Mississippi. But the economic panic of 1857 and the Civil War ended further railroad expansion across the Mississippi. Despite the growing menace of the railroads, river traffic remained strong. ³⁸

Railroad expansion following the Civil War accelerated the pace of the Midwest's unprecedented population and agricultural growth. Railroad trackage in the United States multiplied from 30,635 miles in 1860, to 52,914 in 1870, and 92,296 in 1880. ³⁹ Before the Civil War, only the Rock Island Railroad had bridged the upper Mississippi River from Illinois to Iowa. Between 1866 and 1869, three more railroads crossed the river to Iowa, and by 1877, thirteen railroad bridges spanned the upper river (Figure 5). ⁴⁰ Railroads greatly increased the country's ability to move commodities, and, yet, railroads would provoke and inflame a shipping crisis. In doing so, they would contribute to the drive for navigation improvement at the same time they were throttling shipping on the river.

While steamboat traffic had remained strong before the Civil War, steamboats had begun losing passengers and grain to railroads. Early railheads on the upper river's east bank fostered steamboat traffic, but they initiated its end as well. With each new rail connection, steamboats made shorter trips between ports. Instead of going to St. Louis or New Orleans, a steamboat from St. Paul might unload at La Crosse or Rock Island or at other railheads, and increasingly, most river commerce became local. ⁴¹

While the river had been hauling grain since the birth of Midwestern agriculture, railroads held too many advantages over the undeveloped waterways. Railroads moved their freight quicker, giving their users greater flexibility in responding to market changes. Rail lines were generally shorter, more direct, and could reach deep into lands served by no navigable rivers. Compatibility between rail lines made transshipment unnecessary. Trains ran when the river was high or low; they ran when the cold of winter froze it; for the most part, they ran throughout the year. ⁴² Those railroads that ran east to west-most importantly to Chicago-took advantage of complementary markets. Midwestern farmers sent grain to Chicago, and Chicago merchants and eastern manufacturers sent their goods back on the railroads. While railroads could send many cars in both directions with full cargoes, barges delivering their commodities at St. Louis or New Orleans or points in between too often returned empty. ⁴³

FIGURE 6. Oliver Kelley, founding member, Patrons of Husbandry or
the Grange.
Minnesota Historical Society.

The Granger Movement * As railroads spread throughout the upper Mississippi River valley and the Midwest, they began monopolizing the shipping of bulk commodities, especially grain. With river traffic failing and railroads monopolizing the region's transportation, many farmers and business interests believed they were facing a shipping crisis. In response, farmers in the Midwest and throughout the nation joined the first national farm movement, called the Grange or Patrons of Husbandry. Grangers sought to control railroad rates through state and federal regulation and through improved navigation on the nation's rivers. Formed in 1868 by Oliver Hudson Kelley, a Minnesota farmer who had moved to Washington, D.C., to work as a clerk in the Department of Agriculture, the Grange had established nearly 1,400 chapters in 25 states by 1873 (Figure 6). 44 The number of chapters multiplied to more than 10,000 by the end of the year. Over the next year, the Grange founded nearly 12,000 chapters and claimed over 858,000 members.

Solon J. Buck, who wrote the classic study of the Grange, observed that, although avowedly nonpolitical, "the phenomenal increase in the membership of the order during 1873 and 1874 awakened the liveliest interest, and sometimes apprehension, among politicians throughout the Union." ⁴⁵ As a result, he says, "the New York Tribune, referring to the Grange, declared that "'within a few weeks it has menaced the political equilibrium of the most steadfast states.'" 46 While the Grange refused to form a political party or actively participate in the established parties, its members did not. Farmers created third parties in states throughout the country during the mid-1870s, winning significant elections and threatening the established order.

Kelley and Grangers in the upper Mississippi River valley saw the river as an essential route to domestic and foreign markets. Demonstrating the Grange's early concern for improving the Mississippi River, the state Grange convention of 1869 featured the river. Printed in the Minnesota Monthly's July edition, the convention's preamble to its resolutions declared:
"The Mississippi River traverses for thousands of miles the noblest agricultural regions of the earth, running from North to South, . . . it is destined to become the most popular region of the world, and its waters should forever be kept free and untrammelled and open to the use of every citizen within the entire navigable length, and all obstructions, whether natural or of human device, are like impediments to the prosperity of the people who till the soil of the great valley."
In August 1870, Kelley left Minnesota by steamboat for St. Louis to secure direct trade arrangements between Minnesota and Missouri. During his trip, he fed the St. Paul Pioneer Press articles condemning railroads and the Chicago Board of Trade and promoting waterway improvement. He hoped to restore the dying river connection between St. Paul and St. Louis. "The Mississippi and her tributaries are natural outlets for the west and northwest," Kelley insisted, "but how little attention is given to their improvement." Railroads, he charged, "control the river front in every town on the river; their boats can land freight without paying wharfage and people consider it all right." While railroads had received huge land grants, steamboats had not. "Railroads have got enough for the present. . . ." he concluded, calling on Congress to appropriate funding "for every navigable stream in the West" and to "open the natural outlets free to all." 47 To restore river traffic, Kelley insisted that the Mississippi needed grants like those given to railroads, and the Grange had to establish an agent in St. Louis to buy and sell Minnesota's products.

As with the drive for railroad legislation, the push for waterway improvement was not just a farmers' movement. St. Louis merchants were among the Mississippi River's greatest advocates. Reeling from Chicago's increasing dominance over the region's trade, they saw the river as their best counteroffensive. In 1867, they held, according to one historian, the most important navigation improvement convention before 1873. "The keynote of the meeting was a determined effort to obtain federal money for the improvement of western waterways so that they might be used as reliable routes for cheap transportation." 48 Cheap transportation, delegates argued, would allow the United States to "monopolize the markets of the world." ⁴⁹

In May 1873, cheap transportation advocates held another convention in St. Louis-the Western Congressional Convention. It drew national Senators and Representatives from 22 states and the governors of Minnesota, Ohio, Kansas, Missouri, and Virginia. The conference organizers' goal was to impress upon these key political officials the depth of the shipping crisis. The solution, they insisted, lay in improving the nation's waterways, especially the Mississippi River and its tributaries. Such improvements were beyond the ability of the individual states and had to be undertaken by the federal government, they declared. ⁵⁰

The Windom Committee * Spurred by the Granger movement and navigation conventions-partly out of fear and partly out of a genuine concern to help farmers and businesses-Minnesota Senator William Windom asked the Senate to establish a committee to examine the transportation problem and recommend solutions to it. The threat of a railroad monopoly, the commercial decline of the Mississippi River and rising dissatisfaction with his Republican party were of particular concern to Senator Windom (Figure 7). Windom's hometown, Winona, lay on the Mississippi River in southeastern Minnesota. ⁵¹ Windom first became a senator when Republican Daniel S. Norton died in office in 1870 and Minnesota's governor appointed Windom to fill the seat. Windom had already served in the House for a decade. While the Minnesota legislature appointed someone else to finish Norton's term, Windom won the seat in 1871. He would become one of the Senate's strongest advocates for railroad regulation and navigation improvement. ⁵²

The rapidly growing strength of the Granger movement in Minnesota and the threat of railroad monopolies spurred Windom to address the transportation issue with zeal. Led by Ignatius Donnelly, Grange supporters had organized the People's Anti-Monopoly party, "with a platform striking at monopolies, advocating state railroad controls, and denouncing postwar corruption. . . ." ⁵³ Recognizing the Granger movement's growing strength and its discontent with the Republican party's failure to deal with monopolies and the farm crisis, Donnelly joined the movement in 1872. As Anti-Monopoly parties threatened to undermine the Republican party's dominance in the state and nationally, Windom and other Republicans began working for railroad reform and began seeking ways to solve the farm crisis. ⁵⁴

As chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Transportation to the Seaboard, Windom was in an especially good position to help both farmers and his party. In December 1872, he had introduced a resolution to address the transportation problem. And in a speech before the Senate, he asserted that "it was 'an admitted fact' that present transportation facilities between the interior and the seaboard were 'totally inadequate.' These transportation networks," he charged, "were controlled by 'powerful monopolies who dictate their own terms to the people. The burdens they impose upon both consumer and producer are too grievous to be long endured.'" ⁵⁵ On March 26, 1873, responding to Windom, the Grange and the transportation crisis, the Senate directed Windom's committee to study the problem. ⁵⁶

On April 24, 1874, Windom's committee submitted its report to the Senate. After reviewing various proposals, the committee recommended that Congress regulate some railroad operations and that it authorize an intense program of waterway improvements. The "remarkable physical adaptation of our country for cheap and ample water communications," the committee concluded, "point unerringly to the improvement of our great natural water-ways, and their connection by canals, or by short freight-railway portages under control of the government, as the obvious and certain solution of the problem of cheap transportation." ⁵⁷

Together, the Grange, shippers and merchants, boosters in river towns and the Windom committee persuaded Congress to authorize the 41/2-foot channel project. The works built under the 41/2-foot channel project embody these national movements and local efforts.

The Four and One-Half Foot Channel, 1878-1906

By authorizing the 41/2-foot channel project, Congress directed the Corps to remake the upper Mississippi. The Engineers were to create a permanent, continuous navigation channel, 41/2-feet deep at low-water, for the entire river between St. Paul and the mouth of the Illinois River at Alton. To do this, they would have to change the Mississippi's landscape and environment. They would have to eliminate the wide shallows and sandbars and the thou- sands of little pools that Warren had once sought to preserve. They would have to alter the pattern by which sand and silt moved along the river bottom. They would have to focus the river's current into one main channel and block off the myriad side channels. The focus of Corps work between 1878 and 1906, the 41/2-foot channel became the first system-wide, intensive navigation improvement project for the upper Mississippi River. It would alter the navigable portion of the river through the MNRRA corridor dramatically.

The Corps had experimented with channel constriction in 1874. As it had learned more about the upper Mississippi River, the Corps had recognized the futility of keeping the river navigable by dredging. 61 In 1874, when the Montana could not dredge due to high water, the Engineers refitted it with a pile driver and went to Pig's Eye Island, five miles below St. Paul ( Figure 8). The island divided the river, and the navigation channel sometimes ran on the east side and sometimes on the west. Below the island, no deep channel existed at low water. To eliminate the problem, the Engineers closed the upper end of the east channel. They did so by driving two tiers of piles nine feet apart and then filling between them with willow brush and placing sacks of sand on top to weigh the brush down. Overall the dam was 600 feet long and six to ten feet deep. 62 From this experimental dam, channel constriction would grow into a comprehensive and expansive project that would reconfigure the upper river's landscape and ecology.

To achieve the 1/2- foot channel, the Corps had to expand upon the channel constriction experiments. By narrowing the river and thereby increasing the main channel's velocity, the Corps hoped to scour one uninterrupted navigation channel the length of the upper river. 63 Wing dams, closing dams and shore protection required two simple components: willow saplings and rock. The Engineers or their contractors placed the rock and brush in layers until a dam rose above the water surface to a level that would guarantee a minimum 41/2-foot channel ( Figure 9). ⁶⁴

Alberta Kirchner Hill spent 19 summers (1898-1917) with her father's fleet as they built the dams for the government. Her father, Albert Kirchner, along with Jacob Richtman, both from Fountain City, Wisconsin, became the leading contractors for the Corps in wing dam construction. From the building boat, Alberta Kirchner recalled, ". . . I could even smell the delightfully blended odor of the willows and of the creosoted marline twine with which the bundles were held together. It came to me strongly every time the men hoisted a swishing bundle of brush to their gunny-sack-protected shoulders. . . ." 65 Once the willow mats had been laid in the water, the workers would sink them with rock. "No sooner had a barge of rocks been pulled up to the dam," Hill remembered, "than the symmetry of the load was destroyed as the men began the routine of sinking the mat. . . . From the quarterboats you could hear the big rocks hitting each other, like a rapid-fire rage. . . as the mat went down under the load . . . a splashing began. The sound grew in intensity as the mat sank lower and lower in the water." ⁶⁶

The wing dams' success depended upon the main channel's volume and velocity. During the late summer or early fall, when the Mississippi usually became a shallow, slow-moving stream, the wing dams could not direct enough water down the channel to scour it. Droughts had the same effect, but could last an entire season. The many islands dividing the river disbursed the little water available into side channels and sloughs. As the experiments with closing dams had shown, cutting off the side channels greatly increased the main channel's flow. The river passed over the closing dams when high, but for most of the year, the dams directed water into the main channel, denying flow to the river's side channels and backwaters ( Figure 10).

While the river naturally eroded its banks, closing dams and wing dams accelerated erosion by increasing the channel's velocity and volume. Wing dams especially caused bank erosion by forcing the river away from one shore and against the other. At Dibble's Point, the shoreline had eroded 15 to 20 feet in one year due to a wing dam built at Prescott Island, near Prescott. ⁶⁷ To protect shores from naturally eroding or from being undercut by the constricted channel, the Corps protected hundreds of miles of shoreline with brush mats and rock.

A 1903-1905 Corps navigation map shows the river ribbed with wing dams and closing dams and lined with hundreds of miles of riprap. Wing and closing dam construction began at Pike Island at the mouth of the Minnesota River. By 1905, the Engineers had built about 340 wing and closing dams from the Minnesota River to the southern end of the MNRRA corridor below Hastings. They had closed nearly all the side channels.

The Engineers did not build all the works depicted in one area at the same time. They would build as many wing dams, close as many side channels, and protect as much shoreline as needed to establish a 41/2-foot channel. Then, they would move to the next troublesome reach. In newly constricted reaches, the channel might be good for a season or two and then become difficult again, due to the river's natural tendencies or as a result of the improvement works themselves. Where necessary, the Engineers would return and add more wing dams, closing dams and shore protection. The density of channel constriction works and the degree to which they physically and ecologically changed the river increased gradually over the project's history.

Dams at the Headwaters

The desire to improve navigation on the upper river affected the river above the Twin Cities, as well. To further increase the water available for navigation, Congress authorized the Corps to construct six dams at the headwaters of the Mississippi, in northern Minnesota, between 1880 and 1907. Warren had recommended that Congress fund a survey of the upper Mississippi River's headwaters and tributaries in his 1869 report. In his next report, Warren had suggested a system of 41 reservoirs for the St. Croix, Chippewa, Wisconsin and Mississippi River basins. Subsequent engineers reduced this number to six.

Millers at St. Anthony Falls especially pushed for reservoirs above the falls. William Washburn went so far as to purchase land at one of the reservoir sites in anticipation of a private or federal project there and later gave the land to the government. The millers recognized that the release of water from the reservoirs for navigation in the later summer and fall would increase the flow of water to keep their mills turning longer and more consistently.

Congress initially balked at the project's pork-barrel appearance. In 1880, however, it finally authorized an experimental dam for Lake Winnibigoshish and authorized the remaining dams shortly afterwards. The Headwaters project provided for construction of the Winnibigoshish Dam in 1883-1884 and the completion of dams at Leech Lake (1884), Pokegama Falls (1884), Pine River (1886), Sandy Lake (1895), and Gull Lake (1912). In their 1895 Annual Report, the Engineers reported that releasing water from the Headwaters reservoirs had successfully raised the water level in the Twin Cities by 12 to 18 inches, helping navigation interests and the millers. Twenty-seven river miles downstream, at Hastings, they recorded a rise of about one foot and at Red Wing about one-half foot. To steamboats, even half a foot was important. Below Red Wing, water from the reservoirs had little effect. ⁶⁸

The Meeker Island Lock and Dam

From Minneapolis' perspective, the channel improvement works on the upper Mississippi River only benefitted its principal rival-St. Paul-until Congress did something about the rapids below St. Anthony Falls. Millers at St. Anthony were profiting from the release of water from the Headwaters Reservoirs, but Minneapolis civic and commercial boosters wanted more than milling. They yearned to make their city the head of navigation. So, commercial leaders in Minneapolis, supported by the State of Minnesota, sought federal support for navigation improvements in 1866. Their effort resulted in one of the most mysterious and ill-fated projects on the upper river. One dam would be blown up within 5 years of its completion and another would have to be redesigned and the completed part rebuilt. The project would permanently reshape the river between Lock and Dam 1 (the Ford Dam) and St. Anthony Falls. It is a story with local and national significance.

As early as 1850, Minneapolis business and civic leaders had tried to convince shippers that steamboats could reach the falls. To prove their point, they paid the steamer Lamartine $200 to journey from St. Paul to the cataract. They also raised funds during the 1850s to remove boulders and other obstacles. 69 Recognizing that the river's challenges required more than these futile measures, navigation boosters began discussing a lock and dam for the river above St. Paul as early as 1852. Over the next five years, the city's newspapers, civic leaders and the Territorial Legislature called for locks and dams to carry the booming steamboat trade to Minneapolis. In 1855, the St. Anthony Express proposed building two locks and dams. In 1858, when Minnesota became a state, the new legislature sent a petition to Congress requesting that the federal government improve the river for navigation above St. Paul. 70

While Minneapolis navigation boosters focused on shipping, others recognized the river's hydropower potential between the falls and St. Paul. Bradley B. Meeker and Dorilus Morrison formed the Mississippi River Improvement and Manufacturing Company in 1857, with a group of Minneapolis businessmen, to develop this potential. Playing on the desire of Minneapolis navigation boosters, they proposed building a lock and dam between the two cities to aid navigation and to secure the hydropower for themselves. ⁷¹

Meeker, a territorial judge and local entrepreneur, and Morrison, a St. Anthony Falls sawmill operator, lobbied for and obtained permission from the Minnesota Territorial Legislature to build their lock and dam near Meeker Island. Gone now, the island lay some three miles below the falls, in Minneapolis. Portending the coming conflict with Minneapolis, St. Paul citizens criticized the project, as it would steal from them their valuable position as the head of navigation. As with so many projects, the Economic Panic of 1857 and the Civil War stalled the Mississippi River Improvement and Manufacturing Company's plans, postponing the project and the intercity conflict. ⁷²

Minneapolis navigation boosters clearly saw that Meeker's project would extend navigation above St. Paul, which was their primary reason for supporting it. In its petition, the state stressed that boats had frequently landed within two and one-half miles of downtown Minneapolis, up until 1857. But, as a result of the economic panic beginning that year, a number of unprecedented droughts and the Civil War, navigation, they brashly claimed, "had receded some sixteen miles, to St. Paul, where all the freight destined to these cities, (Minneapolis and St. Anthony) and the vast regions north and west . . . must break bulk and be carried in wagons to their destination." A lock and dam, the state contended, would extend navigation "to its natural and proper terminus." ⁷⁶

Acknowledging the obvious local appearance of its request, the state touted the project's interregional benefits. The best market for the Midwest's corn, flour, pork, and beef, it claimed, was the South. And the Midwest needed the South's cotton, rice, sugar, and molasses. Whatever products the Midwest came to manufacture, like woolen and cotton fabrics, would find their chief market in the South and Southwest. The Mississippi River, the state insisted, provided the natural link. Echoing the beliefs of their counterparts downstream, Minneapolis boosters pointed to the divine purpose of their project. "Direct communication," they pleaded, "is both natural and necessary, and the all-beneficent Creator has graciously anticipated the wants and necessities of unborn millions in having given us exactly such a continuous means of supply and exchange from the Falls of St. Anthony to the Gulf of Mexico." The petition even cited editorials from the St. Paul papers stressing the importance of Minneapolis to the region's economy.

Finally, and recognizing the emerging power of railroads, the state asserted that the river "is now and ever will be and remain the great regulator and moderator of fares and freights among the rival carriers of the commerce of the west." Referring to the Civil War, the state implored Congress to "recollect with what haste and facility the various railroad lines combined to increase the cost of travel, and double, and in some instances triple and quadruple, the cost of transporting the produce of the west during the late non-intercourse measures in the Lower Mississippi." The river would bind the country together again. ⁷⁷

Navigation boosters in Minneapolis failed, however, to convince Congress of the importance of their project. Congress rejected Meeker's request and the Minnesota Legislature's petition for a land grant in support of a lock and dam in 1866. It did, however, authorize the Corps of Engineers to survey the reach between Fort Snelling and St. Anthony Falls, along with its general survey of the upper Mississippi River.

Warren brought new hope for the project, when, in his 1867 annual report, he requested $235,665 to construct a lock and dam at Meeker Island. ⁷⁸ Warren engaged Franklin Cook, a former employee of the Minneapolis Mill Company, to undertake the survey. Cadwallader C. Washburn and his brother William D., the Minneapolis Mill Company's owners and two of the city's most powerful and prominent millers, adamantly opposed locks and dams. As Cook had worked for the Washburns, Meeker expected a negative report. Cook completed his survey between 1866 and 1867 and, to Meeker's surprise, recommended that a lock and dam be constructed at Meeker Island, with a 13-foot lift. ⁷⁹ Cook's report and lobbying by Representative Donnelly and Senator Alexander Ramsey finally convinced Congress to give the State of Minnesota a 200,000-acre land grant to finance the dam, rather than having the Corps build it.

On March 6, 1869, the state awarded the land grant to the Mississippi River Improvement and Manufacturing Company. It required the company to spend $25,000 on the project before February 1, 1871. If the company failed to do so, the state threatened to rescind the grant and issue it to another company. Having accomplished nothing as the deadline approached, the company spent $26,000 during late 1870 and early 1871. It did not begin building the project, focusing instead on a provision in the grant that limited the company to selling no more than one section of land within a township. As this requirement had proven cumbersome, the company asked Congress to modify it to allow for the sale of more sections within a single township. To secure their objective, the company needed support from businessmen in Minneapolis, and for that support, Minneapolis interests won back control of the company. At this point, Minneapolitans began fighting among themselves over the project. 83

Millers feared a competing water power so close to St. Anthony Falls and believed that the project might jeopardize federal funding for repair work at the falls. Due to the milling operations at the falls, the cataract was in danger of deteriorating into a series of rapids. Sawmill owners also feared that they would not be able to continue dumping sawdust into the river, as it would obstruct navigation, and boom company operators did not want a dam obstructing the lumber rafts they sent downriver. Some opponents argued that it was the federal government's responsibility to improve the river, not private interests subsidized by the government. During its 1872 to 1873 session, Congress temporarily ended debate over the project, when it refused to amend the land grant. ⁸⁴

The lock and dam project hopelessly mired, the Corps, during its 1890 survey, evaluated removing boulders and rocks to encourage navigation. 88 Major Alexander Mackenzie, the Rock Island District commander who had taken over this part of the river with the change in funding in 1888, suspected that Congress might authorize the Corps to remove the boulders in lieu of building locks and dams, even though it had authorized $25,000 to plan for a lock and dam in 1873. He questioned the value of removing boulders, believing that the steep grade and rapid current required locks and dams. As Mackenzie anticipated, Congress, under pressure from Minneapolis to do something, provided $50,000 to the Corps to remove boulders, which the Engineers did during the summer of 1890 and in 1891. In 1892, Mackenzie again insisted that only locks and dams could regularly entice steamboats above Meeker Island; any other efforts, he charged, wasted time and money. ⁸⁹

Signaling a possible break, the Chief of Engineers, on February 15, 1893, directed Mackenzie "to prepare new and exact estimates for locks and dams for this portion of the river . . . ." Mackenzie made the surveys, including borings, during the low-water season of 1893 and concluded that the Corps would have to build two locks and dams to bring navigation to the old steamboat landing below the Washington Avenue Bridge. Lock and Dam 1 would have to be placed above Minnehaha Creek and have a lift of 13.3 feet. Lock and Dam 2 (the Meeker Island Lock and Dam) could then be placed about 2.9 miles upstream, below Meeker Island, and would have a lift of 13.8 feet. Mackenzie added that the Corps would have to build a third lock and dam with a 10.1-foot lift to bring navigation to St. Anthony Falls and a fourth lock to bring navigation above it. He estimated that Lock and Dam 1 would cost $568,222 and that Lock and Dam 2 would cost $598,235. Extending navigation above St. Anthony Falls with the other two locks and dams would total $1,538,702. ⁹⁰

Accepting Mackenzie's arguments and under continual pressure by navigation proponents in Minneapolis, Congress authorized the "Five-Foot Project in Aid of Navigation," in the River and Harbor Act of August 18, 1894. In this act, Congress directed the Corps to extend navigation to the Washington Avenue Bridge by constructing Lock and Dam 2. ⁹¹ While it did not mention Lock and Dam 1, Congress called for improving the river from near the mouth of the Minnesota River to the Washington Avenue Bridge, indicating that another lock and dam would be built below Meeker Island. Following through on the 1894 act, Congress provided for the construction of Lock and Dam 1 in the River and Harbor Act of March 3, 1899. By the fall of 1906 the Engineers had completed most of Lock and Dam 2, and on May 19, 1907, the Itura became the first steamboat to pass through the lock (Figure 11). At Lock and Dam 1, the Engineers had begun constructing the lock. ⁹² Few, if any, spectators watching the Itura paddle through Lock 2 imagined that the new facility would be destroyed within 5 years.

St. Paul suffered a double setback. Minneapolis had captured title to the head of navigation, but the low dams had eliminated St. Paul's hope for securing hydropower. Why Congress authorized two low dams, instead of one high dam that could have generated hydropower, is unknown. The St. Paul District commander, Major Francis R. Shunk, tried to explain the matter to Minneapolis Mayor J. C. Haynes on February 17, 1909. "Now as to the duplication of locks and dams; two instead of one. Connected with this matter is a secret history, upon which I proceed as discreetly as may be to cast a little light. There is the city of St. Paul, and there is the city of Minneapolis. For physical reasons, a single lock and dam must lie entirely within the limits of Minneapolis, or entirely within the limits of St. Paul. . . . Enough said. There are two locks." 93 Minneapolis had somehow won the debate over building one or two dams. While intense local issues had resulted in two dams, an equally intense national debate would lead to a new project for one.

Summary

By 1907, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Hastings and other river cities, through their successful lobbying and through the Corps, had changed the upper Mississippi River dramatically. Hundreds of wing dams and closing dams studded the river's banks from St. Paul to St. Louis. Hundreds of miles of riverbank had been secured with riprap. Five dams at the Headwaters stored the winter's snow, holding it for the summer and fall, when the millers at St. Anthony and the steamboats below would need it. And Congress had authorized, that year, a sixth dam for the Headwaters, the one at Gull Lake. A newly completed lock and dam and another one under construction promised to make Minneapolis the head of navigation. The river pioneers once forded with their wagons and livestock no longer existed. Maybe, at a few places, especially between St. Paul and Hastings, settlers could have waded across on some persistent bar during extremely low water. Congress, however, would soon authorize new projects for the upper Mississippi River that would make this impossible.

Endnotes

1. David A. Lanegran and Anne Mosher-Sheridan, "The European Settlement of the Upper Mississippi River Valley: Cairo, Illinois, to Lake Itasca, Minnesota-1540 to 1860," in John S. Wozniak ed., Historic Lifestyles in the Upper Mississippi River Valley, (New York: University Press of America, 1983), pp. 23-25; Tweet, A History of the Rock Island District, U.S. Army, Corps of Engineers, 1866-1983, (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1984), p. 39; William J. Petersen, Steamboating on the Upper Mississippi, (Iowa City: The State Historical Society of Iowa, 1968), pp. 206-09, 209, 246; William J. Petersen, "Captains and Cargoes of Early Upper Mississippi Steamboats," Wisconsin Magazine of History 13 (1929_30):227-32; Mildred Hartsough, From Canoe to Steel Barge, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1934), pp. 65-66; Roald Tweet, "A History of Navigation Improvements on the Rock Island Rapids," (Rock Island District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, April 1980):2; John O. Jensen, "Gently Down the Stream: An Inquiry into the History of Transportation on the Northern Mississippi River and the Potential for Submerged Cultural Resources," W isconsin Archeologist 73:1-2 (March-June, 1992):71, says that only about 20 boats were operating above Galena before 1847. Military supplies and furs would dominate the much smaller steamboat trade above Galena.

2. George Byron Merrick, Old Times on the Upper Mississippi: The Recollections of a Steamboat Pilot from 1854 to 1863, Appendix B, Opening of Navigation at St. Paul, 1844-1862, (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1987), p. 295. Merrick lists the number or arrivals and the number of boats at St. Paul for each of these years. His figures for arrivals differ slightly from those of Dixon in Table 2.1. He lists 99 boats counting for 965 arrivals in 1857 and 62 boats as accounting for the 1,090 arrivals in 1858.

3. Hartsough, Canoe, p. 103.

4. Ibid., pp. 101-2.

5. Merrick, Old Times, p. 162, says that "From 1852 to 1857 there were not boats enough to carry the people who were flocking into the newly-opened farmers' and lumbermans' paradise."

6. Tweet, "History of Transportation on the Upper Mississippi and Illinois Rivers," p. 22.

7. Frederick J. Dobney, River Engineers of the Middle Mississippi: A History of the St. Louis District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978), p. 33.

8. Donald B. Dodd and Wynelle S. Dodd, Historical Statistics of the United States, 1790-1970. Vol. II The Midwest, (The University of Alabama Press, 1973), pp. 2, 10, 22, 46.

9. Petersen, "Captains," p. 235; Tweet, "History of Transportation on the Upper Mississippi and Illinois Rivers," pp. 21-22.

10. Todd Shallat, Structures in the Stream, Water, Science, and the Rise of the U.S. Army Corps of Egineers, (Austin: University of Texas, 1994), p. 141.

11. Havighurst, A Wilderness Saga, p. 249; Merrick, Old Times, p. 232.

12. Annual Report, 1877, p. 528.

13. Merrick, Old Times, p. 15.

14. Ibid., pp. 18-19, 29-30.

15. Ibid., p. 35.

16. Ibid., pp. xii-xiii, 35, 80, 83, 240.

17. Ibid., pp. 93, 95.

18. Capt. "Nate" [Nathan] Daly, Tracks and Trails: Incidents in the Life of a Minnesota Pioneer, (Walker, Minnesota: Cass County Pioneer, 1931), p. 18. Havighurst, A Wilderness Saga, p. 161.

19. Shortly after the glaciers withdrew from southern Minnesota some 10,000 years ago, St. Anthony Falls stretched across the river valley near downtown St. Paul. A thick limestone mantle formed the riverbed. Just below this mantle lay a soft sandstone layer. As water and ice eroded the sandstone out from underneath the limestone at the edge of the falls, the limestone broke off in large slabs, and the falls receded.

20. Edward L. Pross, "A History of Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Bills, 1866-1933," Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University, 1938, p. 44.

21. U.S. Congress, House, Laws of the United States Relating to the Improvement of Rivers and Harbors, vol. 1, 62nd Cong., 3d sess., Doc. No. 1491, (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1913), pp. 152-53.

22. Raymond Merritt, Creativity, Conflict & Controversy: A History of the St. Paul District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1979); Roald Tweet, A History of Rock Island District, (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1984), pp. 67-68; Duties for the middle Mississippi stayed with the Office of Western Improvements in Cincinnati until 1873, when St. Louis became the new office for the middle river; see Dobney, River Engineers, pp. 44-45.

23. Annual Report, 1867, p. 262.

24. U.S. Congress, House, "Survey of Upper Mississippi River," 39th Congress, 2d sess., House Ex. Doc. No. 58, pp. 17-18.

25. Ibid., p. 18.

26. Annual Report, 1875, Part 2, Vol. 2, Appendix CC, "Reports on Transportation Routes to the Seaboard," p. 455.

27. U.S. Congress, House, "Survey of Upper Mississippi River, Letter from the Secretary of War in answer to a resolution of the House, of December 20, 1866, transmitting report of the Chief of Engineers, with General Warren's report of the surveys of the Upper Mississippi river and its tributaries," 39th Congress, 2d Session, Ex. Doc. No. 58, p. 5.

28. John O. Anfinson, "The Secret History of the Mississippi's Earliest Locks and Dams," Minnesota History 54:6 (Summer 1995):254-67.

29. Annual Report, 1867, p. 260.

30. House Ex. Doc. No. 58, "Survey of Upper Mississippi River," p. 25.

31. Ibid., p. 27.

32. Frank Haigh Dixon, A Traffic History of the Mississippi River System, National Waterways Commission, Document No. 11, (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1909), pp. 29-30; Frederic L. Paxson, "Railroads of the Old Northwest, before the Civil War, Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters 17 (1914):257-60, 269-71. William Cronon, Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, (New York:W. W. Norton & Company, 1991), p. 296, says that the first railroad to reach the Mississippi River was the Chicago, Alton and St. Louis in 1852-53. However, Paxson, whom he cites, shows that the railroad completed tracks from Alton to Springfield, Illinois, in 1852, and then from Springfield to Chicago, via a roundabout route, in 1853, but did not have the line in operation until 1854. Gary F. Browne, "The Railroads: Terminals and Nexus Points in the Upper Mississippi Valley," (in John S. Wozniak ed., Historic Lifestyles in the Upper Mississippi River Valley, (New York: University Press of America, 1983), p. 84, says the first railroad reached the Mississippi River at Rock Island on February 22, 1854. Petersen, Steamboating, p. 298, also recognizes the railroad at Rock Island as the first to reach the river.

33. Frederic Paxson, American Frontier, 1763-1893, (Chicago: The Riverside Press, 1924), p. 517.

34. Contrary to most histories that follow Dixon, A Traffic History, p. 48, in saying that there were thirteen bridges across the Mississippi River by 1880, Patrick Brunet, "The Corps of Engineers and Navigation Improvements on the Channel of Upper Mississippi River to 1939," Master's Thesis, (Austin, University of Texas, 1977), p. 46, says that there were fourteen bridges across the river by 1877, and he lists them.

35. Hartsough, Canoe, pp. 197, 203.

36. Buck, Granger Movement, p. 108.

37. Ibid., pp. 108-9.

38. Woods, Knights, pp. 138-39.

39. Harold B. Schonberger, Transportation to the Seaboard: The Communication Revolution and American Foreign Policy, 1860-1900, (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971), p. 21.

40. Ibid., p. 22.

41. St. Louis Democrat, May 14 and 15, 1873.

42. Woods, Knights, p. 141.

43. Blegen, Minnesota, A History of the State, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1975, 1963), p. 290.

44. Ibid., p. 293. While still in his twenties, Donnelly had become Minnesota's lieutenant governor. He moved on to represent Minnesota in the U.S. House for 6 years as a Republican. But in 1868, he quarreled with Minnesota's senior Republican leader, Alexander Ramsey, and failed to get reelected.

45. Salisbury, William Windom, p. 113.

46. The Senate also considered a warning from Republican President Ulysses Grant. Well aware of the agrarian unrest, he had warned the Senate that, "this issue would inevitably be forced on the Exec. branch, . . . [and] suggested that the Congress study the problem and find a solution." Windom, Select Committee, p. 7; Schonberger, Transportation to the Seaboard, p. 29.

47. Windom, Select Committee, p. 243.

48. Ibid., p. 213.

49. Ibid., p. 243; The Select Committee recommended a depth of 5 feet at low water for St. Paul to St. Louis. p. 213.

50. Ibid., p. 211.

51. In 1872, Captain J. Throckmorton argued that while wing dams would probably not work for the upper river, closing dams would. Annual Report, 1872, pp. 309-10.

52. Annual Report, 1875, p. 302. The Caffrey may have done some work with closing dams earlier. In his report for the 1871 season, Captain Wm. Hillhouse reported that the Caffrey's work had included 1,600 feet of wing dams. He does not provide a location for this work and there is no mention of it in later reports, however. Annual Report 1872, p. 310.

53. For wing dams, the suggested proportion of brush to rock was two to one, although where the current was strong, the ratio might increase to a ratio of three or four portions of brush for every one of rock. H. Doc. No. 341, p. 14; Annual Report, 1879, p. 111, see figures 1, 2, and 3 and Plate 3.

54. Alberta Kirchner Hill, "Out With the Fleet," Minnesota History, (1961):286.

55. Hill, "Out With the Fleet," p. 291. 65 Annual Report, 1880, p. 1495.

56. Annual Report, p. 1495.

57. Annual Report, 1895, pp. 2103-04; Annual Report, 1869, p. 237; Annual Report, 1901, p. 2309; Raymond H. Merritt, The Corps, the Environment, and the Upper Mississippi River Basin, (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1984), p. 1; Merritt, Creativity, pp. 68-74; Jane Carroll, "Dams and Damages: The Ojibway, the United States, and the Mississippi Headwaters Reservoirs," Minnesota History, (Spring, 1990):4-5.

58. Lucile M. Kane, "Rivalry for a River: the Twin Cities and the Mississippi, Minnesota History 37:8 (December 1961):309-23. 310-11.

59. Ibid., pp. 310-12.

60. Ibid., p. 311.

61. Merritt, Creativity, 140; Lucile M. Kane, The Falls of St. Anthony: The Waterfall that Built Minneapolis, (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1987), pp. 92-93; Kane, "Rivalry," pp. 311-12; Kane adds that during these years Meeker had sought to get the required completion date extended. This also caused some delay.

62. U.S. Congress, House, Survey of the Upper Mississippi River, Exec. Doc. 58, 39th Cong., 2d sess., p. 46; Kane, St. Anthony, pp. 92-93; Kane, "Rivalry," p. 312.

63. H. Exec. Doc. 58, pp. 45-46.

64. Kane, St. Anthony, p. 93.

65. House Ex. Doc. 58, p. 45.

66. Ibid., p. 47.

67. Anfinson, "Secret History," Minnesota History 54:6 (Summer 1995):254-67.

68. Annual Reports, 1867, pp. 259, 262; Laws of the United States, pp., 155-56; H. Exec. Doc. 58, pp. 30, 50-52. In his next report to the Chief of Engineers, Warren stated that new surveys showed that the Corps would have to build a second lock and dam, locating it near the mouth of Minnehaha Creek, about one-half mile below Lock and Dam No. 1; see U.S. Congress, House, Survey of the Upper Mississippi River, Exec. Doc. 247, 40th Cong., 2d sess., p. 9.

69. Kane, "Rivalry," pp. 312-15, quote from p. 315; Kane, St. Anthony, p. 94.

70. Kane, "Rivalry," p. 316.

71. Ibid. The St. Paul businessmen included William E. McNair, Eugene M. Wilson, William S. King, Edward Murphy, and Isaac Atwater. Meeker, Kane says, retained some shares of the company for himself, as did his friends.

72. Ibid., pp. 318-19. Opponents to the amendment included waterpower magnates William D. Washburn and Richard Chute. Allied with them were sawmill operators and boom company operators William W. Eastman, John Martin, Sumner W. Farnham, James A. Lovejoy, and Joel B. Bassett. Support for the project came from the company's stockholders, navigation boosters and city business leaders. Kane, St. Anthony, p. 96, points out that the state never transferred the grant to the company.

73. Kane, "Rivalry," pp. 319-320; Kane, St. Anthony, p. 96. In 1869, a tunnel from the toe of the falls to Nicollet Island collapsed just below the island. Due to the collapse of this tunnel, St. Anthony Falls was in danger of eroding away. The Corps of Engineers was working on a project to save the falls.

74. Kane, "Rivalry," p. 322, suggests that the federal government recognized its obligation for improving navigation in 1873 by authorizing $25,000 for the project. Merritt, Creativity, p. 141, says that "When it appeared that the Mississippi River Improvement and Manufacturing Company would not be able to resolve its internal conflicts, Congress decided to give the project over to the Corps of Engineers." Neither author discusses who pushed Congress to authorize the project.

75. Annual Report, 1873, p. 411; Annual Report, 1874, p. 287.

76. Merritt, Creativity, p. 141

77. Annual Report, 1894, pp. 1682-83; U.S. Congress, Senate, "Construction of Locks and Dams in the Mississippi River," 53d Cong., 2d sess., Exec. Doc. No. 109, pp. 7-8.

78. U.S. Congress, House, Laws of the United States Relating to the Improvement of Rivers and Harbors, vol. 2, 62nd Cong., 3d sess., Doc. No. 1491, (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1913), p. 704. Kane, St. Anthony, p. 175, says "Deprived of the navigation facilities they coveted, persuasive Minneapolitans continued to urge the federal government to act. United States army engineers responded in 1894 by announcing plans for two locks and dams . . . ." This misplaces the authority for authorizing the project with the Corps instead of Congress and makes the Corps a proactive proponent of the project, which she does not demonstrate they were. Granted, Mackenzie repeatedly called for locks and dams. Kane jumps to the construction of Lock and Dam 2, without discussing who made the final push for the project.

79. Annual Report, 1908, pp. 530, 1649-50; Annual Report, 1907, pp. 1578-79.

80. Major Francis R. Shunk to Minneapolis Mayor J. C. Haynes, February 17, 1909. St. Paul District records, St. Paul, Minnesota.

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River of History - Chapter 4 - Mississippi National River and Recreation Area (U.S. National Park Service)

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Transforming the River I: Commerce and Navigation Improvements, 1823-1906 The Mississippi River gave birth to most cities along its banks, and those cities did all they could to ensure that the river would nurture their growth. From their pioneer days on, they insisted that the federal government should "improve" the river for navigation.

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This historical article explores the use of ferries in the early 19th century around the area of New Orleans.

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Since the founding of New Orleans in 1718, the Mississippi River proved crucial in the city's development as a colonial French and Spanish port. Crossing the river was essential from the outset. The first enslaved Africans brought to the colony during the John Law Company period (1717-1731) were housed directly across from the settlement on the West Bank in what is now Algiers Point. Smallpox patients and others suffering from contagious diseases were quarantined on what was then known as the "Left Bank."

Ferries and skiffs moved goods and people across the river to Algiers. In the early 1800s, city officials awarded steam ferry service contracts to convey passengers and goods on a regular schedule between the two banks. The first regularly scheduled ferry service between Canal Street and Algiers was established in 1827.

Several other public ferry crossings developed as the city spread up- and downriver from its original site. Six ferries served the New Orleans area in the 1930's. Three other ferries continue to serve the metropolitan area today: Chalmette to Lower Coast Algiers; Gretna to Canal Street; and East to West Point-a-la Hache.

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Early Ferry Service across the Mississippi River | New Orleans Historical

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Since the founding of New Orleans in 1718, the Mississippi River proved crucial in the city's development as a colonial French and Spanish port. Crossing the river was essential from the outset. The first enslaved Africans brought to the colony during the John Law Company period (1717-1731) were housed directly across from the settlement on the West Bank in what is now Algiers Point.

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In Old Man River, Paul Schneider describes the flatboat, which was the most common vessel on the river during the early 1800s. According to the book, the flatboat was “not much more than a rectangular box of planks, fifteen feet wide and up to a hundred feet long, caulked with pitch or tar” (Schneider 208). Schneider then goes on to explain the uses of the flatboats; blacksmiths and general stores floated down the Mississippi rivers on these massive flatboats, taking their products with them as they encountered new customers. #VesselOrigins

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Within his book, Paul Schneider provides readers with an account of Cave-In-Rock, which is a notorious ambush area for pirates on the Mississippi River. Schneider informs readers of stories that have been told about the famous spot by travelers who have become a victim of the pirates. One man recounts a story of his crew being captured and the captain being stabbed to death in front of the entire crew. Unfortunately, the man who told the story was the only one to escape the attack alive, for he jumped from the rocks and deceived the pirates into thinking that he had committed suicide. The author then elaborates further, saying that Cave-In-Rock is a perfect spot for a pirate lair because it has a great view of incoming boats on the river. Various vessels have been lured into the cave where the people aboard would meet an untimely demise at the hands of the pirates. #SteerClear

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During this he 1830’s, the slave population in Mississippi increased by almost 200 percent. Most of these slaves came from Virginia and Maryland. They were moved due to weak markets for cash crop production in the North. While some slaves were taken to southern slave markets in New Orleans and Natchez along the east coast or  were marched across land, other slaves were taken down the Mississippi River to reach these markets. Approximately 100,000 slaves were brought into Mississippi in the 1830’s. http://www.mshistorynow.mdah.ms.gov/articles/395/antebellum-mississippi

#Greedy

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In 1830, Andrew Jackson passed the Indian Removal Act. This act let the federal government take all Native American land that was east of the Mississippi River and relocate the natives into land west of the Mississippi. The Cherokee tribe resisted this act and as a result, they were forcibly moved. This this relocation became known as the trail of tears and resulted in the death of about 4,000 Cherokees.

#Despicable

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Research Guides: Indian Removal Act: Primary Documents in American History: Introduction

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This guide contains digital materials at the Library of Congress related to the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and its after-effects, as well as links to external websites and a selected print bibliography.

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This article depicts the events of some of the most famous Mississippi River boat races in United States’ history, including the famous 1870 race between John Cannon’s Robert E. Lee and Thomas Leathers’ Natchez. #NeedForSpeed

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The early barges on the Mississippi provided many common men with jobs on the River. In Life on the Mississippi, the author describes these sailors as: drunkards, poor, immoral, foolish, rough, and uneducated, but they were also described as: courageous, reliable, truthful, and fully committed to their duties. #BargeLife

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Full Length podcast on the history of the Mississippi River 

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Full Length podcast on the history of the Mississippi River 

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#LearnMore

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Chicago: "BackStory; That Lawless Stream: A History of the Mississippi River," 2013-00-00, BackStory, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed April 22, 2021, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-532-rn3028qw6g.

MLA: "BackStory; That Lawless Stream: A History of the Mississippi River." 2013-00-00. BackStory, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. April 22, 2021. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-532-rn3028qw6g>.

APA: BackStory; That Lawless Stream: A History of the Mississippi River. Boston, MA: BackStory, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-532-rn3028qw6g

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BackStory; That Lawless Stream: A History of the Mississippi River

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The Mississippi River is central to the American landscape and imagination. And for centuries, it has served as a battlefield in which our most complicated social and economic struggles have played out. So in this episode, the Guys set out to explore the Mississippi's mighty imprint on American life.

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The Mississippi River is home to many venomous snakes. These snakes include the Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake, the Carolina Pigmy Rattlesnake, the Eastern Cottonmouth Moccasin, and more!
http://www.msdh.state.ms.us/msdhsite/index.cfm/48,2662,322,pdf/VenomousAnimals.pdf

#Poisonous

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What's the most dangerous Mississippi River snake? Find out in this World Book Explains video

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