The Mighty Missouri

Most people aren't aware that the Missouri River can be thought of as the Mississippi's big brother. At the time the Mississippi was mapped and named, the Missouri was still an unknown river. At the confluence of the two rivers just above St. Louis, the Missouri is the bigger river; its flow is greater and its length is greater than the entire length of the Mississippi. According to all mapping conventions, the river that then flows to the Gulf should either take the name of the Missouri or a new name altogether. The Mississippi is mistakenly named, but then what's done is done. But wait! One hundred miles further south the same thing happens again! At Cairo Illinois the Mississippi meets the Ohio. The flow from the Ohio is greater than the flow of the Mississippi and Missouri combined! The Ohio begins in Pittsburgh PA. where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers meet. If instead, the Allegheny carried its name forward, it would be longer than the Mississippi at the Cairo confluence. Given the first mistake, maybe the river that flows to the Gulf should be named the Allegheny! But then what's done is done.

In the Corn belt above, as lesser rivers bolster its flow, I said the Mississippi grows strong. Here in the Midwest, with its flow increased more than 400% by the addition of the Missouri and Ohio rivers, the Mississippi becomes mighty. There's a park in Cairo at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio where you can walk down to a point at the precise meeting of the rivers and look out over the renewed Mississippi. The experience is thrilling. It's not the same as standing at the shore of a large lake although visually it's similar. This water is moving. When you become aware of the rivers' current, and a sense of the volume and force of the water passing before you begins to startle your otherwise complacent mind, the experience is electrifying. You sense the power of the river and instinctively take a few steps back. Standing so close to such immense energy can be shocking.

As you look out over the water you will likely see one or more tows on the rivers. Most people have no idea that more tonnage on any given day passes by this confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi than passes through the Panama Canal in a day. The river tows move by so slowly they are rarely noticed as we conduct our day to day business. Yet they are a vital component of our national economy. On the Mississippi above St. Louis a full tow is fifteen barges long. Below St. Louis tows can be thirty barges long. Each barge holds the equivalent of sixty full size trucks or fifteen railroad cars--in other words 1,500 tons. A fifteen barge tow carries 22,500 tons. In a twenty four hour period, fifteen or more tows may pass by St. Louis. Do the math and your chin will hit the floor. Commercial tow traffic on the Mississippi River moves approximately 400 million tons of predominately food, fuel and ore per year. And that's not all: a truck can move a ton of goods 59 miles on a gallon of diesel fuel. A Mississippi river tow moves that same ton 514 miles on a gallon of diesel fuel--an efficiency improvement of 875 percent! Keep thinking about it and you'll realize that similar efficiency improvements are probably also gained in areas like pounds of air pollutants released et cetera. The Minnesota Department of Transportation did a study that determined Midwest highway corridors would require as many as 1,333 additional trucks per day on the roads to compensate should the tow traffic stop.

The Midwest section of the river is a great place to visit if you're a history buff. Starting way back with prehistory, Cahokia Mounds, directly across the river from St. Louis, was the ancient center of the Mississippian culture. The Cahokia Mounds Historical Site is the best of its kind on the river. The climb to the top of Monks Mound is a fabulous experience. Standing at the top you can easily imagine how the ancient ruler of this place must have felt elevated to the highest position visible between horizons. This region of the river is also the location of the first European settlements in the Mississippi valley. The French, in the late 17th century first established permanent settlements here in what they called the Illinois country. Holy Family church, also in Cahokia is still standing. This log church was built over two hundred years ago on the site of the original church. The first church on the site, which unfortunately burned down, was erected in 1699. There has been an active parish there for an uninterrupted 300 years. The first French settlement in the region, Kaskaskia, had to be moved when the river decided to claim it. Eventually the relocated Kaskaskia became the first state capitol of Illinois, then the river changed course and moved the whole town to the Missouri side. Although no longer the state capitol, you can still visit Kaskaskia (population 18) in Illinois on the west side of the river. Early French settlements in Prairie du Rocher (1722) and St. Genevieve (1715) are a delight to visit, although St. Genevieve has been getting a little touristy of late. In Columbia Kentucky you can see remnants of the iron chain that the Confederates strung across the river to stop Union ships. In Hannibal Missouri you can visit the boyhood home of Mark Twain and even see the fence that Tom Sawyer tricked his friends into whitewashing (more than a bit touristy). At Trail of Tears State Park you can visit the site where the Cherokee Nation crossed the Mississippi on their forced relocation to Oklahoma. In New Madrid you can visit the site of the 1811-12 earthquake (the most severe earthquake ever noted in this country). Fort de Chartres in Illinois (the French military stronghold in the region) has been rebuilt, and then of course there's St. Louis the gateway to westward expansion.

The Midwest is also home to our nation's best loved super heros. In an afternoon you can visit both Chester and Metropolis Illinois, home of Popeye and Superman respectively. Chester is right on the Mississippi where every year the whole town has a Popeye Picnic in September -- spinach no doubt is on the menu. Popeye's statue is wonderfully situated on the bluff overlooking the river just at the point where the Chester bridge crosses the Mississippi. Metropolis Illinios is a few miles away from the Mississippi up the Ohio River. Superman is right at home here in the Midwest where a twelve year old boy can still say, "Truth, Justice, and The American Way," with a straight face, a note of pride in his voice, and the expectation for a life in which villains are vanquished and the good guy gets Lois.

Isaac and I live here in the Midwest in St. Louis which is the largest city on the river. For a pair of river rats like ourselves the location is ideal. We're about 800 driving miles from either end of the river. The river here in St. Louis is at its least attractive anywhere in its 2,300 mile length. When Isaac and I tell St. Louisians about our interest in the river, we are often met with twisted faces and comments like, "yuuuck, the Mississippi?" As the river approaches its confluence with the Missouri the water is fairly clear and on a sunny day it shines blue. The Missouri however is loaded with mud; it is so full of mud that if you stuck your hand in up to your wrist you couldn't see your fingers. This mud is the collected total of over two thousand miles of agricultural runoff as the Missouri flows through prime U.S. farm land in Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska and Missouri. In the U.S. Geological Survey aerial photo to the right you can see the Missouri's mud meeting the clearer waters of the Mississippi. A few miles further south as the Mississippi flows past downtown St. Louis, the Missouri's mud has carried the day and the river is an ugly yellowish brown caldron of swirling goo. The river here is also at its most dangerous. In the one hundred mile stretch of the Mississippi between St. Louis and Cairo lie the hulks of over 800 steam ships buried in the muck. This section of the river is known as the graveyard--not a good place to go swimming. The current is furious. The eddies at the tips of the submerged wing dikes can easily suck an adult right under and keep him/her. I doubt that a life vest would be of any help at all.

The people who live here are hard to describe except to say that they typify the U.S. ideal of a melting pot. You can't point to a dominant ethnic heritage or dominant religion like you can in other regions of the river. It's sad, but the region is culturally rather indistinct. American popular culture dominates. This would make it unpleasant for me to continue living here as I prefer to be exposed to as many different cultural traditions as possible. Fortunately we've managed to locate ourselves in St. Louis' most distinct (and what used to be only) ethnic neighborhood. We live on what's known as Italian hill and so, without a drop of Italian blood in me, I've adopted my neighborhood culture--chianti, pasta and Placido singing Puccini make me a happy man. I'm delighted to report that, at least St. Louis, is experiencing a new wave of immigration that has begun to change the character of the city. We now have two new Asian neighborhoods in the city, a Latin American neighborhood, and a large group of immigrants from the Balkans along with Indians and other Eastern Europeans.

Folks here are more conservative than not; it pains me to admit that I live in the same region of the Midwest that spawned Rush Limbaugh. It is, as they say, an ideal location to raise a family. This is where you can find all those family values you hear the politicians talking about. Did I mention Rush Limbaugh? Heck (notice I wrote heck), we've got Phyllis Schafley! In St. Louis, with a population of nearly three million, you have to look hard and long to find any really hot action on a Saturday night. New Yorkers who move here start going stir crazy in a few months. Which is fine by the locals who'd just as soon see them pack up and go back to New York. Not that folks here aren't friendly, but New Yorkers represent a threat to the regions moral underpinnings. Midwestern conservatism is always just on the brink of outright prudishness. This is after all the part of the country that won the Scopes Monkey trial and is still trying to enforce that decision.