In this episode, I talk with Dr. David Beadenharn, a river engineer who has spent over 45 years studying the lower Mississippi River. David grew up in Vicksburg, Mississippi, stumbled into river work after leaving the Air Force, and never really managed to leave.

Our conversation starts with a picture of what the Mississippi looked like a couple hundred years ago, when the river was wide, shallow, full of sandbars, islands, and massive logjams. Back then, the river was constantly on the move, eating away at its banks and shifting course. That erosion was producing an almost unimaginable amount of sediment — around 600 million tons a year. In comparison, the river today carries somewhere around 120 to 150 million tons.

Then we transition to the engineering projects. The Army Corps of Engineers has spent decades trying to get the river under control — first for navigation, then for flood control after the catastrophic 1927 flood. They built levees, tried to stop the river from naturally shortening itself, and eventually decided to deliberately cut off some of those big sweeping bends. The immediate effect was dramatic — water levels at some spots dropped 10 to 15 feet almost overnight.

But shortening the river made it faster and more powerful, and the Mississippi started scouring its own bed looking for more sediment to carry. That process is still rippling through the system today, decades later, slowly working its way upstream toward Cairo, Illinois.

On top of the cutoffs, the Corps locked the riverbanks in place with concrete mattresses in the 1950s and 60s, essentially freezing the river’s shape. That stopped the bank erosion — but it also cut off the river’s natural sediment supply almost entirely.

David’s big takeaway after all these years? You can’t just fix one spot on a river and call it a day. Every change you make sends ripples — upstream, downstream, decades into the future. The Mississippi has a long memory, and it’s still responding to decisions made 80 or 90 years ago. Understanding that complexity, he says, is what keeps him coming back to the river year after year.

US Army Corps of Engineers, Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC)

US Army Corps of Engineers, Geomorphology & Potamology

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Mon, Jun 01, 2026 5:22PM • 1:18:13

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Mississippi River, hydrology, flood control, sediment load, meander cutoffs, levees, channel response, stream power, river engineering, geomorphic assessments, navigation channels, erosion, aggradation, degradation, river management.

SPEAKERS

Dr. David Biedenharn, Dean Klinkenberg

Dr. David Biedenharn 00:00

And so when we look at the river pre 1930s it was a completely different river regime than what we have today, it was, it was more islands, bars dominated, dominated system, log jams, it was it was it was a mess, it was wide, shallow, more shallow, and maybe slightly aggradtional, maybe slightly building up. So that was the river that we had in the 17, 1800s as the nation was growing and trying to use this this river for navigation.

Dean Klinkenberg 00:58

Welcome to the Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast. I’m Dean Klinkenberg, and I’ve been exploring the deep history and rich culture of the people and places along America’s greatest river, the Mississippi, since 2007. Join me as I go deep into the characters and places along the river, and occasionally wander into other stories from the Midwest and other rivers. Read the episode show notes and get more information on the Mississippi at MississippiValleyTraveler.com. Let’s get going.

Dean Klinkenberg 01:30

Welcome to episode 78 of the Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast. Well, as this episode goes out, we are in the second week of River Days of Action. I’m hoping you’re all finding a good way to celebrate the river, maybe give a little bit back to the river, but certainly spread the word about the joys of spending time along the Mississippi River, and why it’s such a special place. If you’re looking for ideas on things you can do during the remaining days of River Days of Action, head to MississippiRiver.org and you’ll find a complete schedule there.

Dean Klinkenberg 02:06

So, in this episode, we are going to take a deep dive into the dynamics of the lower Mississippi River with Dr. David Biedenharn, who’s a professional engineer and has spent over 45 years of his career trying to understand the dynamics of this mighty, mighty river, the Lower Mississippi. He’s a Vicksburg native, and we talked briefly about his history growing up with the river and what it meant to him as growing up. Then we get into some of the basics of how river engineers approach trying to understand the flow and dynamics of this mighty river. We talk about the historic flow characteristics of the Mississippi, for example, and how we’ve changed it through the engineering structures. The river’s sort of fundamental push toward equilibrium, and how that plays out. We go into some depth talking about meanders and how they develop and what they can tell us about the river state. We talk about the concept of stream power, what that means in engineering terms, and engineers, and we talk some about the river’s sediment load and factors that influence the size and volume of sediment carried by the river, and why that matters.

Dean Klinkenberg 03:14

Then we’ll spend a little bit of time talking about the history of flood control in the Lower Mississippi, and how those efforts have altered the river, and how the river has often responded to our attempts to confine it into a narrower channel by finding other ways to meet its needs for equilibrium. At least, as I understand it,. This is not my specialty, but I really enjoyed talking with David about this stuff. I have a feeling we could go on for a long time into the depths of this, but I think this is a really good general introduction, and he does a great job explaining these concepts and explaining them in a way that I think, if I can understand it, I assume just about anybody could.

Dean Klinkenberg 03:54

As usual, thanks to those of you who show me some love through Patreon. Your support keeps this podcast rolling along. If you want to join the Patreon community, go to patreon.com/deanklinkenberg. You can join for as little as $1 a month, and that gives you early access to these episodes, as well as just the satisfaction of knowing you’re helping keep this podcast alive. Patreon, not your thing. Yeah, you can buy me a coffee. Go to MississippiValleyTraveler.com/podcast and from there you’ll find out how you can buy me a coffee. And at that same place, MississippiValleyTraveler.com/podcast you will get access to all previous 77 episodes. You can pick and choose an episode to listen to, or you can just go crazy and binge them all if you wish.

Dean Klinkenberg 04:43

And let me just remind folks, as this goes out, that the Kickstarter campaign for my new book, a travel memoir called ‘Better Safe Than Sorry: Slow Boats, Chicken Busses, and the Radical Choice to Trust the World,’ the Kickstarter campaign for that is just about to go live. You can currently sign up for a pre-launch page, where you’ll be notified as soon as the campaign goes live, or you can wait till June 15 when it goes live, and then you can go there and buy yourself a copy of the book, if you wish. If you’re interested in more, go to DeanKlinkenberg.com/BetterSafeThanSorry.

Dean Klinkenberg 05:23

All right, let’s get on with the interview. Dr. David Biedenharn is a professional engineer with over 45 years of experience in hydraulics, river engineering, sediment transport, and fluvial geomorphology with the US Army Corps of Engineers, Vicksburg District, specifically the Engineer Research Development Center, or ERDC, at the Waterways Experiment Station in the Lower Mississippi Valley Division Office, as well as with the Biedenharn Group. He’s presently a research hydraulic engineer with the River Engineering Branch at ERDC. His work experience includes the hydraulic design of flood control and navigation channels, levees, geomorphic assessments, bank stabilization measures, and grade control structures, channel restoration projects, and regional sediment management, and we will get into some of these topics specifically in just a minute.

Dean Klinkenberg 06:25

David, welcome to the podcast.

Dr. David Biedenharn 06:28

Thank you, Dean. It’s really good to be here today.

Dean Klinkenberg 06:31

Why don’t we just kind of start with a step back and tell me how you got interested in the Mississippi River in the first place?

Dr. David Biedenharn 06:37

Well, I actually grew up in Vicksburg. So I’m from Vicksburg. Never thought I would end up staying here for most of my life, but I joined the Air Force in 1969 and when I got out in 1973 the Corps of Engineers Vicksburg District was hiring at that time, so they hired me as a hydrologic technician, and I was actually doing sampling on the Mississippi River, sampling water and sediment, and also a lot of the smaller tributaries. So that was my first real, I guess, introduction to the Mississippi River. Other than when I was in high school, it was a place to go and boat and drink beer and have a good time. But, so that was my first step into the river and got me interested in it, and then I went back to school and I got my engineering degree, civil engineering, and I came back to work for the Vicksburg District and I was working in what was known at that time as the potamology section and I imagine there’ll be a lot of people wondering what potamology is.

Dean Klinkenberg 07:46

Including me.

Dr. David Biedenharn 07:47

Yeah, exactly. I mean, and potamology is the science of rivers, and at that time, in the late ’70s, I was working for a man named Brian Winkley, who was my mentor. He’s the one that really got me interested and excited about rivers, and basically at that time we were trying to understand how the Mississippi River was responding to everything man and nature had thrown at it over the last several 100 years, and so that’s how I really got started looking at rivers, and then I branched out into doing a lot of small stream work as well, and then after about four or five years they changed the name of potamology, because nobody knew what it was, and we started calling it river engineering, so now it’s the river engineering groups, and I’m still working in river engineering today, so that’s really how I got interested in it, and, and it’s, it’s been kind of a passion of mine. I actually retired from the Corps almost 20 years ago, and I ran my own engineering company for about nine years, and then one day I realized that I had this real jerk for a boss, and that was me. My wife said, “You need to do something different,” and I had the opportunity to come back to work at ERDC here in Vicksburg, and I’m getting to work with all the young engineers and scientists here, and I’ve been doing that for the past six years, and this, and it’s really a lot of fun. It keeps me going.

Dean Klinkenberg 09:29

I don’t think you’d be the first person in history who started doing some work on the Mississippi, and then had a hard time stepping away from it.

Dr. David Biedenharn 09:36

Yeah, it’s not, it’s not easy. I can, I can attest to that.

Dean Klinkenberg 09:41

Well, one of the things I’m interested in is sort of looking at the river, the lower river in particular, before we started making a lot of changes to it, and then how the engineering has affected that river, and it seems like that’s a bit, as you just hinted, is sort of a big part of the work that you’re doing. Why don’t you start by painting us a picture of the river a few 100 years ago?

Dr. David Biedenharn 10:06

Okay. Well, if we look back, and I’ll talk about the. I’m really going to be focusing on the Lower Mississippi River, which is really starts around Cairo, Illinois, where the junction of the Ohio and the Middle Miss come together, and so that’s the area the river I’ll be focusing on today, and really from Cairo down to about Old River, and that’s where the Atchafalaya, the Mississippi diverts out into the Atchafalaya, and then flows on down through Baton Rouge in New Orleans, and there’s a, that’s a whole nother river downstream of Old River, and maybe we’ll leave that for another day, and maybe another person to discuss that. But that’s the reach of the river I’m going to be talking about today.

Dr. David Biedenharn 10:55

And if we look back in time over the last 6, 7, 800 years from Cairo to the Gulf, the Mississippi River had an approximate length of around 1100 miles, and it’s interesting when you look at those changes every, every century they had, they had mapping that they could estimate the length, and it would, it would gain in length through some periods, they would lose length in others, but it, it hovered around 1100 miles. It might, it might increase 50 to 75 miles in one one century, then decrease again, but it maintained that length, and it did that by meandering, and that’s how rivers actually maintain their health, but when I say meandering, I’m talking about, you know, the outer banks of the river are eroding, and the river is migrating laterally, point bars are building, the floodplain is getting sediment in there, and what happens through time as that river meanders is gaining length, it’s getting longer. But then they’ll make, the river will make natural cut offs, and we’ll call these neck cut offs, and these – this is where the river cuts across the neck of the of the bend, and it leaves these old large oxbow lakes that you see in the floodplain, so the river may be shortening in one area and lengthening in another, but overall it was trying to maintain the same length over that time period.

Dean Klinkenberg 12:29

Just for clarity, to when we say 1100 miles in length, we’re talking about river miles, not as the crow flies, right?

Dr. David Biedenharn 12:35

Correct, 1100 river miles, yes, the but the channel is trying to keep that same length, and if you think about it, it has the same elevation drop from Cairo to the Gulf, so it’s trying to maintain its slope, and that’s where we get into this whole question of sediment and the movement of sediment through streams that is a function of the the energy in the river, which is what we call stream power, which comes from just the how much water is moving in the channel, how many, how many million cubic feet per second is passing Vicksburg, you know, per second. And then what’s the slope of the river, so the product of the discharge, the water, and the slope of the river is what we call stream power. That’s where the energy of the river, where it gets its energy to do work, and by do work, it can cave the banks, it can scour the bed, it can move sediment. So that’s when we think about sediment and all the things we’ll talk about on the Mississippi over the next couple 100 years, it’s going to be related to how that stream power is changing and the movement of sediment. So, the higher the stream power, the more slope you have, the higher the discharge, the more sediment that it can move. We can get, we could drill into the details of that, but I don’t want to bore people too bad right off the bat, but that’s the, but that is the way getting back to this link, that’s the way the river maintains its, its health and its stability. If it, if it has just the stream power to move the sediment that’s coming into the river, then it’s not going to be filling up with sediment, and we call that aggradation, or it’s not going to be searching for more sediment and scouring the bed and the banks and enlarging, that’s called degradation. And so it’s sort of in a balance, it’s balanced that stream power with the sediment supply coming into it.

Dean Klinkenberg 14:42

I was thinking, too, like part of what must be another variable in this factor is the nature of the soil that the river is passing through, like if the river is passing through rock, obviously that’s different than dirt, but can you describe sort of what the soil context is like for that section of the Mississippi?

Dr. David Biedenharn 15:05

Right, in fact, that’s exactly the next part of this relationship. This balance is not only how much sediment is moving, the load, and we usually call that the sediment load, and that might be measured in tons per day of sediment, but the other part of that is, what size sediment is it? Is it moving sands, gravel? It’s like the Mississippi River that we’re talking about. The dominant dead material that we have out in the stream is going to be fine, medium core sands and gravels. If we go up into the mountainous streams, it may be moving gravel, cobbles, boulders, so all streams are different, but they’re all trying to, they’re all related to this stream power and sediment balance, but the sediment size plays a big part of that, for sure.

Dean Klinkenberg 16:02

And historically speaking, Where did most of that sediment in the Mississippi come from?

Dr. David Biedenharn 16:11

From the watershed all the way to the mountains. I mean, the Mississippi River drains, I think, 41% of the United States. So all that sediment, you know, from the watershed comes in, coming from the watershed itself, from the tributaries, and then it’s in the floodplain itself, and the river is meandering through that floodplain over 1000s of years, you know, reconnecting with older sediments and moving that through, so it’s a complex mix from a lot of different sources, but to understand how rivers behave, we have to think about those sources. Where is that sediment coming from? How is it moving through the channel itself to to where it ultimately drops out in some place that we might call a sink area. It could be the Gulf, or it could be in a reservoir boundary or it could be in the channel itself.

Dean Klinkenberg 17:06

So if we were going to pick a point along the Mississippi, let’s just say, like Memphis, like a couple 100 years ago, about can you ballpark like about what percent of the sediment passing by that spot a couple 100 years ago might have come from the Missouri River and the Great Plains versus how much would have been picked up locally?

Dr. David Biedenharn 17:28

The short answer is no. I should say the honest answer would be no. It’s, it’s with everything you know. We joke about this a lot, we teach a lot of classes in river engineering, and, and oftentimes the answer is, and this irritates a lot of engineers, but the answer is, it depends. We found that it’s often the best answer. It could be a lot of the, and this, this gets into the, the type of sediment load, and without getting into too much detail, there’s sediment that we call wash load, and this would be the very fine sediments. If we think about the Mississippi River, say at Memphis, the wash load would be those fine sediments, silts, clays, very fine sands that are pretty much in suspension all the time that don’t really settle out in the channel itself to any appreciable amount. They may deposit when it gets into the overbank flood plain or into some side channels, but for the most part that sediment is is purely a function of the supply, what’s coming in from upstream, and in that case, some of that sediment could, could be coming from the Missouri River, because it moves through the system very quickly.

Dr. David Biedenharn 18:51

There’s also what we call bed material sediment load, and that’s the sediment load that’s made up of the sediments that make up the bed of the river, and that would be the coarser sediments in Memphis, that would be fine, medium course sands, maybe some gravels, and it’s that bed material load that moves much differently than the wash load, because it’s moving as a result of the energy of the stream, it moves slower and that is the load that we focus on when we start thinking about channel response to some alteration we do in a river system. If we make a change in a river system, we’re thinking about how that affects that that coarser sediment, whereas the wash load is really not, not figured into that calculation, to is it’s only to a limited degree. So there, and it’s, it’s not often, it’s not always easy to differentiate sometimes for what’s wash load and what’s bed material, but in general at the 100,000 foot view, you could say the silts and clays and very fine sands just move through the system until they hit down below New Orleans somewhere, then they drop out. And whereas the bed material is that coarser sediment, so that bed material sediments at Memphis 200 years ago was probably sourced from just upstream coming in the channel itself, because that sediment is not moving as far or as fast, and again I hesitate to get into too much more details about bed material and wash load, but it is a critical component of understanding sediment loads on the river, because they’re completely different loads, and the river system reacts differently to both of those.

Dean Klinkenberg 20:48

Right. And I guess, like, you know, flood events, you know, flood pulses would have a big impact too on what sediments are being carried and where they’re dropped. And I guess with that earlier question, kind of what I was thinking too, is I remember seeing charts that kind of compare what we believe the historic sediment load of the Mississippi was before the Missouri River was dammed up the way it is today, and what that sediment load looks like today, and it sort of implied that the bulk of the sediment was coming down the Missouri River. It seems like you’re saying maybe there’s some truth to that, but it’s more complicated than that too.

Dr. David Biedenharn 21:28

Yes, that’s exactly the way I would say it. There is truth to that. There is that, is that’s a very widespread figure. I think I know the figure you’re, you’re talking about. I think that it’s, I think they call it a Secchi diagram or something, but it’s kind of like Napoleon’s march from Russia, how they, you know, it got smaller and smaller as he got toward, you know, Paris, whereby all the soldiers dying off. Well, they show the same thing with the Mississippi with that, that chart, the width of the of the chart, you know, kind of describes the amount of loads, and and these are these are estimates that have been made based on measured suspended sediment data in the river, and they have a lot of people have documented this and shown that the sediment loads on the Mississippi River have reduced anywhere from 50 to 85% today versus what they were maybe 60, 70 years ago.

Dr. David Biedenharn 22:33

And when you look at that data, that is correct, that is, that’s what the data shows. Where it get and so that suggests that there’s a significant decreased load sediment load on the Mississippi River today, and while that is true, we have to think about what sediments we’re talking about there, and that’s rarely discussed, and this is these estimates all come from measured suspended sediment data, which is, which is really good data. We use it all the time on rivers all over the world, but it’s, it has a limitation that most of it typically they’re capturing that finer sediment load, the silts, the clays, maybe the very fine sands, and it’s not a very good, in my view, a very good representation of the bed material load on the river, and we can, I can talk about this later, but in my view, as a result of a lot of things that have happened to the river, which we, we can discuss in a few minutes, that the stream power on the Mississippi River today is much, much higher than it was 50, 60, 70 years ago, and therefore I believe that the actual bed material loads, that coarser sediment is actually there’s higher loads of that today than there were 60 or 70 years ago. But maybe we’ll, we’ll hold off some of that discussion to later after we talked about why I believe some of those loads might be higher.

Dean Klinkenberg 24:14

Yeah, go for it. Go ahead and get into that.

Dr. David Biedenharn 24:17

Okay. Well, let me just start, kind of walk through, take us from where the river was maybe a couple of 100 years ago to where it is today, because there’s a lot of things that have happened to it, and I think if we’re going to understand the Mississippi River, we need to understand where it was and how it got to where it is today. And so if we look back, some of the I’m really going to start, maybe in the late 1700s, that’s 1765 is one of our first mapping of the Mississippi River, and we have others in 1820s, 1890s, and so forth, and we can compare the river through those time periods to see how it’s changed, but I think about this, this, the early 1800s that’s about the time that our nation was expanding in into the to the western part of the nation, and in a way we kind of picked a bad time to move into this area, because the Mississippi River in 1811, 1812 we had what is known as the – I’m sure you’re aware of this – the New Madrid earthquakes that really just shook the heck out of the Mississippi River. Supposedly it rung the church bells in Boston. I’m not sure about that, but we had anecdotal information that you know, islands and bars just completely disappeared. It just shook the heck out of the system as far down as Vicksburg. The river flowed backwards and created lakes, introduced a heck of a lot of sediment into the river system.

Dr. David Biedenharn 25:58

So, right off the bat, we’ve got Mother Nature working against us a little bit, and then we think about all the boats that were navigating the river back in 1800s, the steamboats. Most of these were wood burning steamboats, and for a lot of reasons, because there was plenty of locations to get that fuel all along the river, and so you can look at a lot of the old maps from the 1800s and you’ll see they’ll mention these wood yards that grew up all up and down the river, and these, these folks would actually go clear all the trees off the banks, put them on barges, float down into the river, and sell it to some captain going up or down the river, and they pull back in, cut some more trees, and so they were completely denuding the banks of the river at that time, which were were taking away some of the vegetation, which kind of helps with some of that bank erosion, and at the same time some of the banks were being cleared for agriculture. If people wanted to farm up on the natural levees around the river, which were higher ground, so they’re cutting all the trees, so we’re removing all the trees, and so the river was extremely dynamic at that time, and some of our studies here in the last several years, we looked at some of those historical surveys from the 1700s, 18 to 1930s and only on up to present day, and one of the things we found, and when we looked at the meander migration, how, how fast, and how what kind of rate of erosion these meander bins had, they could range anywhere from 30 an average of 30 feet per year to close to 100 feet per year, and that’s just an average.

Dean Klinkenberg 27:48

Wow.

Dr. David Biedenharn 27:49

And as a result, we made some calculations of how much, how what the total volume of sediment being eroded from the stream banks between Cairo and Baton Rouge was in that pre 1930s period, and it was about 600 million tons per year. And I think 600 million tons, I can’t even get my head around what, what that number means, but if we look at the total measured suspended loads on the Mississippi River today, say, you know, at Vicksburg or somewhere, is probably 120 to 150 million tons per year. So this was one heck of a lot of sediment that was being generated from those that bank caving, and where does that sediment go, and that gets into that sources the pathways and sinks again. A lot of that, a lot of that sediment coming out of the banks would have been fine sediments, silts and clays, and that could have been just pushed into the river and transported quickly downstream to the Gulf, or somewhere, you know, close to that. But a lot of that was coarser sediments, the bed material size sediments that would be deposited on the bars, and so when we look at the river pre 1930s it was a completely different river regime than what we have today. It was, it was more islands, bars dominated, dominated system log jams. It was, it was, it was a mess. It was wide, shall more shallow, and maybe slightly aggradational, maybe slightly building up. So that was the river that we had in the 17, 1800s as the nation was growing and trying to use this river for navigation. I often like to read Charles Dickens’ quote. I don’t know if you’ve read that he made a trip down the Mississippi River in 1840s. I don’t know, Dean, if you had a chance to read that before.

Dean Klinkenberg 30:01

I am familiar with that. Yeah, go ahead.

Dr. David Biedenharn 30:04

Yeah, well, I’m not going to read the whole quote, but I will pull an excerpt or two from it. And this was just his impressions, and they weren’t really good impressions.

Dean Klinkenberg 30:14

He wasn’t exactly a big fan.

Dr. David Biedenharn 30:16

No, no, he was not. I’ll just read you a few things, but it really does. It gives a very good description of what the Mississippi River was like back in that time. So that’s why I like to read it. I wish I could do it with a good English accent, then my IQ might go up about 10 or 20 points, but but he says, “at the junction of the two rivers,” and he’s talking about the Ohio and the Middle Miss, there around Cairo, “lies a breeding place of fever, ague, and death, a dismal swamp,” says, “a place without one single quality in earth or air or water to commend it, such as this dismal Cairo.” He says it’s “an enormous ditch, sometimes two or three miles wide, running liquid mud six miles an hour is strong and frothy current choked and obstructed everywhere by huge logs and whole forest trees now twining themselves together at great rafts. For two days we toiled up this foul stream striking constantly against the floating timber or stopping to avoid those more dangerous obstacles, the snags or sawyers, which are the hidden trunks of trees that have their roots below the tide.” Well, obviously, there’s a little sarcasm in Dickens’ view of the river, but I like that quote, in that it really describes what our rivers looked like back then. And it was, it was wide, more shallow, bars, islands, just debris, log jams all through it, and that’s the river we were trying to maintain for navigation at that time.

Dean Klinkenberg 32:02

If I’m kind of understanding you correctly too then, it sounds like you’re almost arguing that this was kind of an exceptional period in the river’s history, that because of combination of factors, including the New Madrid earthquakes, the deforestation along the riverbanks, that we kind of created or had created this river that was particularly difficult to navigate in that period of time, and maybe 100 years before that, maybe the river characteristics might have been a little bit different, or maybe not quite as unfriendly to boats.

Dr. David Biedenharn 32:36

Yeah, it’s hard to say exactly, but you raise a really good point that’s been discussed a lot, that when we compare, for instance, sediment loads again, we’re saying sediment loads today are 80% less than what they were 100 years ago. Well, it could have been that the sediment loads 100 or 200 years ago were accelerated, they were higher than normal, can’t say that, you know, with any certainty, but obviously there were other things going on in this period, and I think it was obviously prior to that the river was very dynamic, obviously, but this could have been a been the stability or instability could have been exacerbated by some of these, the deforestation and some of the natural, the New Madrid earthquake, and some of these things.

Dr. David Biedenharn 33:27

So, I like saying it was a tough time to be thinking about trying to navigate the river. If you read Mark Twain, you really understand that. And, but what. So, the Corps of Engineers was involved with this, and then in 1879 they formed the Mississippi River Commission, which was a commission. It was actually located here in Vicksburg, and the it was the MRC was given the charge of managing the Mississippi River for navigation. We’re really only talking about navigation at that time. Flood control was not really part of the authorization here.

Dr. David Biedenharn 34:10

So, when the Mississippi River Commission started looking at how are we going to maintain this river for navigation, they considered a lot of different approaches, and they looked at building levees, and the idea there was they could build levees and restrict the river and not allow it to break out or crevasse down into some of these outlets, they would keep all the energy in the channel system itself, and not let the water escape through these, these crevasses. Then they could keep the channel self-scouring, was was the idea there. That was one of the alternatives. They also considered it maybe going up and building reservoirs, dams to reduce some of the flow. They looked at some outlets, they thought about, you know, maybe providing some outlets in different places, and probably the most controversial discussion was the making meander cutoffs, and so, as I understand it, there was some pretty heated discussions and arguments about what the approach was, and in the end, the MRC settled on what is known as the “levees only” policy, and maybe I’ll discuss this in some previous podcasts, I’m not sure. And basically, as I said, the idea there was keeping more of the energy within the levees to keep the channel self scouring, so they wouldn’t have to dredge as much to keep the channel open for navigation. And that was in the 1880s that they established that.

Dr. David Biedenharn 35:55

A lesser known part of that policy, well, they actually had a “no cutoffs” policy and I think that grew out of this debate about having cutoffs on the river, and cutoffs are a lightning rod for debate among river engineers, because there’s pros and cons to making artificial or man-made cutoffs. I’m not talking about natural cutoffs. And the advantages are you can actually increase the slope, and you can have more of a getting the water out faster, you can scour the channel, and the negative aspects is you increase the slope, and you have scouring, and it also can create what we call head cutting, and head cutting is where the over steep and degradational zone in a river migrates upstream through time, and as it’s doing that, it’s pulsing more and more sediments, bed material sediments downstream, which aggravates the aggradational problems, so there was a lot of that debate, and I think because of that they decided we’re not even gonna allow the river to make its own natural cutoffs, and so from 1880 to 1929 the Corps did not allow the Mississippi River to make any natural meander cutoffs. These neck cutoffs.

Dean Klinkenberg 37:27

How would it physically intervene to stop that?

Dr. David Biedenharn 37:30

Yeah, the, you know, we didn’t have some of the techniques that we have today with the art, the articulated concrete mattresses, but what they would do, they would come into a meander bin, and where they knew that it was getting close to a cut off, and they would come in, and they would build these, these willow mats, woven willow mats that they would weave together 1000s and 1000s of willow trees into a mattress along the bank, and then they would sink it with stone to sink it down onto the stream bank. And that was actually a very successful technique, and these mattresses, if you keep, you keep wood submerged and wet, it can last for an awfully long time, and so that’s the way they did it, and so between I think 1880 and 1929 there were no neck cutoffs, natural cutoffs on the Mississippi.

Dr. David Biedenharn 38:36

Interesting enough, and this has always fascinated me, so you think about it, we didn’t allow the river to shorten itself, and it was continuing to erode and meander in other places, so you would think that the river would be much longer in 1929 than it was in 1880 when we stopped it, and the thing is, it wasn’t. And the reason is there’s another type of cutoff we call a chute cutoff, which is where the river just widens out a bit, and the channel will will make a shortcut across the point bar, and that’s called a chute cutoff. And whereas a neck cutoff might, a single neck cutoff might remove 20 miles from the stream, a chute cutoff might only remove a mile, shorten the river a mile, maybe two miles, three miles. But what happened, they didn’t stop the chute cutoffs, and the the number of chute cutoffs went up dramatically during that time period, and I always kind of think of that as Mother Nature saying, “all right, guys, I’ve got a bigger dredge than you do, you’re trying not to let me make these cutoffs, I’m going to go ahead and shorten it up because I need to keep my slope, you know, in the right, you know, regime,” and so it actually increased the number of chute cutoffs by almost a factor of three, and that by 1929 the river wasn’t much longer than it had been in 1880. So I guess it’s sometimes, you know, not nice to fool with Mother Nature, she’s, she can, she can overwhelm us sometimes.

Dean Klinkenberg 40:17

But it’s a fascinating dynamic, because it sort of suggests this overall, or this systemic homeostasis, like there’s a, there’s a balance in place in this whole system, and maybe you’ll touch on this a little bit later too, but like when you start monkeying around a little bit with the dynamics in this one area, then there are reverberations throughout the entire system.

Dr. David Biedenharn 40:40

Yeah, we’re going to talk a lot about the system.

Dean Klinkenberg 40:44

Before we get too deep, as I thought, I want to come back to the cutoffs, because there were cutoffs before 1880 though, right? Like Henry Shreve famously was his the first cut off?

Dr. David Biedenharn 40:55

No, they’re maybe one of the first artificial or man-made ones.

Dean Klinkenberg 41:00

Right.

Dr. David Biedenharn 41:00

Natural cutoffs, they, the Mississippi averaged about 15 natural cutoffs every century. Just that’s just an average, so that’s that’s kind of the natural sequence or frequency of cutoffs that the river had, and so these were always occurring, and then, like you say, Captain Shreve and others made some cutoffs down Roanoke River and other places, so there were some of those there, so there were some artificial cutoffs before these, these in 1930s which we really haven’t talked about too much yet, so.

Dean Klinkenberg 41:42

Hey, Dean Klinkenberg here. Interrupting myself. Just wanted to remind you that if you’d like to know more about the Mississippi River, check out my books. I write the Mississippi Valley Traveler guidebooks for people who want to get to know the Mississippi better. I also wrote “The Wild Mississippi,” a guide that goes deep into the complex ecosystem supported by the Mississippi, the plant and animal life that depends on them, and where you can go to experience it all. If you like fiction, check out my Frank Dodge mystery series. Each book is set in places along the Mississippi River. My newest book is a travel memoir called “Better Safe Than Sorry: Slow Boats, Chicken Busses, and the Radical Choice to Trust the World.” The book explores a simple question: What happens when you stop asking what if something goes wrong and start asking what if everything goes right? Find out more at deanklinkenberg.com/bettersafethansorry.

Dean Klinkenberg 42:43

So the in that debate, then around 1880 when the Corps is deciding not to do any more artificial cutoffs, were those earlier cutoffs in their minds, was that where they was something about those cutoffs prescient for them that they caused them worry about doing more?

Dr. David Biedenharn 42:59

You know, there was there was a quite a bit of literature all around the world, European experiences with cutoffs, and I’m, and I guess I should be clear, I’m talking about their concern at that time, their debate was about making artificial or man-made cutoffs. And so there had been quite a bit of knowledge about the impacts of cutoffs, and that’s what they were debating. But I believe what happened with their “no cutoff” policy, they, they took that even further and said we’re not only going to not going to make artificial cutoffs, we’re not even going to let the natural cutoffs occur.

Dean Klinkenberg 43:41

All right, so all right, so take us to the next chapter, then.

Dr. David Biedenharn 43:44

Yeah, okay. Well, I gotta remember where I was now.

Dean Klinkenberg 43:49

I guess we’re probably post 1927 flood at this point.

Dr. David Biedenharn 43:53

We’re getting to that. So we’ve got the levees only policy and no cutoffs, and then everything really was moving along pretty well until the 1927 flood. And I know that you probably had discussions of the 1927 flood. It was one of the worst natural disasters in our country’s history. Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced, several hundred people, probably more than that, were were killed. It was a, it was just a major event, and, but what it did, it kind of galvanized the country, and really started us thinking more about the systematic approaches for flood control, as well as navigation. We started moving into flood control a little bit before that, but as a result of the 1927 flood, there was the 1928 Flood Control Act, and in that act they created the Mississippi River and Tributaries Project. And that is the authority and the projects, the project that we’re actually working under on the Lower Mississippi River today. So that’s the genesis of that project.

Dr. David Biedenharn 45:07

When they started thinking about this, what would the MR&T project entail, again they had to start thinking about all these other options, and because now they’re talking about flood control and as well as navigation, and so they looked at a lot of different features, and they started thinking about more of a comprehensive approach. And so they incorporated four major components to the MR&T project. They included levees, so they recognized levees were definitely kind of the the backbone from a flood control perspective, they were going to have to have levees. Then they also included some floodways, allow some some water to go out at certain locations, and they also gave authority to work up into the tributaries, which was, which was a first for the river, too. So now they could go up and work into the tributaries themselves. And then the big change was the channel improvement features, and the channel improvement features included all the work in the channel itself, and that that included revetments. We’re going to talk about that in a minute, the dyke systems, local maintenance, dredging, and the cut off program of the 1930s and ’40s. So that was the the four features that they had in this MR&T project, which is completely different than the levees only approach that they had prior to that.

Dr. David Biedenharn 46:47

And as I said, the levees were the backbone for the flood control part of the MR&T, and it’s interesting when you look at the levees, a lot of people I’ve had this discussion with a number of people over the years, and I think, where do a lot of people see the Mississippi River? And most of the time they’ve seen it in New Orleans, because a lot of people go to New Orleans, and then they go out and they look at the river, and it’s a mile wide, and they have levees on right there on the top banks, and they’ve got this view of the entire Mississippi River, is this very narrow river with these levees on top banks. But when you look above Baton Rouge, the actual width between the levees, or the levees and the valley wall, we call that the batture. The average width is around seven miles, and in places it’s only a couple of miles. There’s a few places in next down, and in some places it’s almost 15 miles wide.

Dr. David Biedenharn 47:53

So we, with the levee system, we definitely reduce the width of our floodplain, and you know, prior to the levees, there are places the the width could have been 80 miles or more. Well, we don’t have that anymore, so but it’s not like we have a one or two mile levee width running all the way to Cairo. We’ve got quite a bit of batture and floodplain area there, and in fact, I suspect Jack Kilgore may have talked about the importance of the secondary channels in the floodplain, and that is something that we’re looking at a lot more today than we used to, is how can we, can we work in that, that batture area. Since we have a lot of area there, we can still get a lot of benefits from that. So that’s that was the levee system, and that was growing as part of the MR&T, and then we come to the cutoffs.

Dr. David Biedenharn 48:54

As I said, there’d been this no cutoff program, and it lasted up until 1929 and there was the division engineer with the Corps at that time, was a man named General Ferguson, and he was watching this, the river, and just south of Vicksburg, there’s the river, actually, and it was actually occurred in September, kind of in a lower flow time period, but the Mississippi River meandered into a small tributary called the Big Black River, and it captured the Big Black, and it went through it, just went through the Big Black channel and made a meander cutoff through the using the Big Black channel. And so they allowed that to happen. So that was the first natural cutoff since 1880 and they watched it for a couple of years, and they monitored it, and they didn’t see any major problems, didn’t see accelerated erosion or changes in flow lines and water service, and so they made a decision. Okay, well, that we can go ahead and make more cutoffs, and so they, General Ferguson, met with the chief engineers, and they discussed it, and he said, okay, we’re going to use cutoffs to lower the flows, the water surface elevations in the river.

Dr. David Biedenharn 50:24

So before, before I talk about the actual cutoffs, the reason they were considering making these meander cutoffs is by shortening the river, they increase the slope, they lower the flow lines, the water surface elevations. So this was a time when they were building those levees, and so for every foot of flow line lowering they could get with the cutoffs, that was a huge savings in the size and the height of the levees. So they saw that as a really big economic benefit, and which it was, it was also a much shorter distance for the boats to navigate, as it turned out. Below Memphis, it was they reduced the length about 150 miles. So they moved ahead, and I call these a Ferguson cutoffs, and the there were you know below Memphis down to just below Natchez, Mississippi, between about 1933 and 1942, they constructed 15 more cut offs. Actually one of those occurred naturally up around Greenville. And so these these cutoffs, these, these 16 cut offs, including the natural cutoff in 1929, shortened that river about 150 miles, that was about a 30% decrease in length, and that was a tremendous increase in the slope of the river, and as a result of that decreased length. And they saw some immediate drops in water surface elevations, and we have gage readings at a number of places along the river, like at Vicksburg and Memphis, and up around Greenville, Mississippi, and in some places we saw an immediate drop in water surface elevations of 10 to 15 feet.

Dean Klinkenberg 52:32

Wow.

Dr. David Biedenharn 52:32

I mean immediately over a period of year or two, and you never see that dramatic of a change in big river systems, that, and that’s the biggest, most dramatic change of anything I’ve seen on the Mississippi River was the effect in the response of those cutoffs initially, you know, south of Memphis. As a result of that, that shortening of the river, the slopes increased anywhere from 30% to about 90% That’s the water surface slopes. So I’m getting back to my stream power with an increase of 30 to 90% slopes,the stream powers probably increased, you know, accordingly, and with that amount of stream power, the river is, and the sediment supply coming in hasn’t changed. Then the river has got a lot more stream power than it does sediment coming into it, so it’s the river starts thinking about I’ve gotta go find some more sediment to move, and that’s what happens. You now can, it’ll start scouring the bed, scouring the banks, it’ll start trying to remeander, and this is what was happening. And so we had tremendous increases in the sediment transport capacity, and that triggered what we call head cutting, which I mentioned earlier. You get these over steepened slopes, and that starts migrating upstream through time.

Dr. David Biedenharn 54:12

The other side of that is that increased slope and sediment transport is now pulsing accelerated sediment loads downstream, and so it gets to the system effect. We’ve got to think about how all this sediment is being transported and how it relates downstream as well as upstream. And just to complicate this issue a little bit, above Memphis, and this is rarely talked about, but above Memphis, there were a number of chute cutoffs, these smaller chute cutoffs that occurred in the 1930s through the 1950s and there were about 20 of these chute cutoffs that had been documented that shorten the river 20, 25 miles. And so now we had response upstream of Memphis to those shoot cutoffs, which could have been pulsing more sediment downstream into the cutoff, reaches downstream of Memphis, which could actually dampen the head cutting processes, because we’re over supplying sediment from upstream.

Dr. David Biedenharn 55:23

So again, when that’s what I’m just trying to, to emphasize how complex these these channel responses get, and we can’t just focus at one location, we have to look at that whole system. So, so even today, that was, we made those cutoffs 80, 90 years ago. We are still seeing response on the river today, you know, 80 or 90 years later, moving up toward Cairo. So we’re seeing that degradational trend migrate upstream, and that’s one of the areas of research that we have is trying to understand, well, how much more degradation is going to migrate up toward Cairo and beyond, how much it’s going to go up the Ohio, it could go up the Middle Miss, and what happens then. So that’s a, that’s an area of research that we have right now.

Dr. David Biedenharn 56:20

So that was, that’s about as quick as I could talk about the cutoff, I usually talk forever on them, but the, but to add on to the cutoffs, as I mentioned, after the cutoffs were made, the last cutoff, Ferguson cutoff was in 1942, but the river was actually trying to remeander. It was trying to regain that length, and that’s what rivers do. And so there was a period from the 1940s until the Corps got the banks revetted. So, beginning in the 1950s the Corps of Engineers started to revet the banks, putting – when I say revet the banks, we’re talking about putting concrete mattresses now, is what we’re using to revet and protect the meanders to not allow them to erode anymore.

Dr. David Biedenharn 57:12

So, by the 1960s the mid early 1960s the pretty much all the meander bins from Cairo down to the Gulf are locked in place with revetments. So we’ve now taken away that degree of freedom that the river used to have, because you know you mentioned earlier about, you know, changes in how the river responds, and the river is still going to respond to the cutoffs and but now we don’t allow the river to meander, so all the all the adjustments are occurring in the vertical, they can’t go lateral anymore, so it just, the river is still going, going to try to respond, it just going to be a different response than it would have been under a more natural condition.

Dean Klinkenberg 58:04

What does that response look like now then?

Dr. David Biedenharn 58:06

Well, the basically the river is is degrading, have degradation regime say upstream of the Arkansas River, from there up moving toward Cairo, and we see that that degradation is just now getting into the region just south of Cairo, so it’s migrating upstream. We have downstream of the Arkansas River, the river is actually transitions to equilibrium, or maybe slightly aggradational down toward Vicksburg and Natchez. So it’s a, it’s a complex response, but it’s really a typical response to a series of cutoffs. But these, but that response is not just the cutoffs, and that’s where I was going, is that it’s the cutoffs are probably the most dramatic immediate change on the river, increasing that slope that dramatically, but now we’ve got the revetments. We’ve now stopped the river from meandering, and if you recall, I said prior to the 1930s the average annual supply of sediment from the banks between Cairo and Baton Rouge was about 600 million tons per year. Well, now it’s essentially zero. It’s no longer being supplied to the river.

Dr. David Biedenharn 59:30

So, what’s the consequences of that? The, you know, a lot of that sediment is fine sediments, the silts and clays, the wash load. Well, that’s a reduction in that wash load is delivered down to the Gulf. There’s impacts there. There’s a lot of environmental habitat water quality issues with that. There’s also a lot of core sediments, sands, gravels in these banks. That’s no longer being supplied. How is the river responding to that reduced sediment supply coming from the bank. So that can contribute to the channel response as well. So that’s just one issue.

Dr. David Biedenharn 1:00:10

There’s also beginning in the 1960s we began constructing the dike systems on the river. These are transverse riprap structures that extend out into the channel, and these are navigation structures, and they’re designed to cut off the side channels and the secondary channels, and to force more of the water into the main channel to reduce maintenance dredging. And with that, with respect to reducing maintenance dredging, they’ve been a huge success. We’ve really cut dredging down, you know, dramatically, but with like everything else in rivers, you, you always have one effect, but you also have secondary effects, and some of the negative impacts might be that we’re actually closing off some of these side channels, and from a habitat perspective, that’s a negative issue.

Dr. David Biedenharn 1:01:08

So now, and I’m sure Jack Kilgore talked about this, some of the restoration work that’s being done in these side channels in these dike fields, we’re actually going in since the 1990s and we’re making, we’re basically cutting holes in the dikes to allow more water to come through those, those secondary channels from a habitat perspective. So, the Corps is working pretty close with the fish and wildlife to construct these dike notches. But there’s a lot of sediment that’s been trapped in these dike fields, which again we’re removing some sediment from the system.

Dr. David Biedenharn 1:01:47

So all of these features are combining are being integrated to to capture that, or to that cause this channel response that we’re seeing degradation migrating upstream, aggradation and stability downstream. It’s hard to single out, you know, how much relative impact the cutoffs, the revetments, the dikes, the levees. You know, it’s hard to actually quantify, you know, what relative percent each of these is contributing, and I actually try not to, because it just almost gives me a headache trying to think about how to do that, but you know, cumulatively the river is responding to all of this, and and so the present day river is completely different than Charles Dickens’ river, that he saw, and hopefully he would see a better river today. Maybe he would see it even worse. I don’t know.

Dr. David Biedenharn 1:02:47

But we’ve actually transformed a kind of wider bar island dominated slightly aggradational system to a more single channel, more efficient channel that’s designed for flood control navigation. The interesting part of it is even today our channel slopes in the present day river are still anywhere from 10 to 15 to upwards of 60% higher than they were pre 1930s and as a result, we’ve got a lot more stream power in the river. As I mentioned, we have degradation occurring upstream of the Arkansas River, but downstream the river is actually aggradational or in equilibrium, and that comes back to that one of their initial questions you had about the reduction in the sediment loads on the river and it being complex, we talked about the sediment loads being reduced 50 to 85% and that’s primarily that that fine sediment loads that I mentioned that’s measured in suspended sediment calculations, but this is where I’m saying that the bed material sediment loads at core settlement loads are actually higher than they used to be, because our slopes and stream power are so much higher in the river, and we have plenty of sand and gravel in the river for supply, it’s there to be moved, and we have reaches, for instance, here at Vicksburg, the slopes on the river are maybe 15 to 20% higher than they used to be, yet the river is actually slightly aggradational. That means it’s filling up with sediment, so if this, if the slopes were 20%, 15 to 20% higher, yet the sediment loads had reduced 85% we’d be scouring to China here at Vicksburg, we’d be, it would be eroding like crazy.

Dr. David Biedenharn 1:05:00

But it’s not, and that’s where I come from, saying we need to think about the core sediments when we think about these, these bed material or wash load reductions in the sediment loads.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:05:13

So I just want to make sure I’m clear on a couple of terms here again, too, so when you’re talking about the degradation, degradational tendency on the above Memphis, around Memphis, so talking about a deeper channel at that point, essentially.

Dr. David Biedenharn 1:05:29

Yeah, the channel is, it’s very complicated. The degradation we see, you know, you can have the channel bed decreasing, water surfaces are coming down, a lot of it’s just because of the increased slopes that, but yeah, typically you would see the channel enlarging, and we see that when we compare comparative surveys through time, we’ve seen an increase in that area, and a lot of that has to be through the bed deepening, is you know, because the banks are revetted and diked on the other side, but we are seeing an increase in area and channel volume.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:06:11

So the reverse of that, then does that mean there’s a tendency for some parts below there for the channel bed to be rising a little bit?

Dr. David Biedenharn 1:06:21

Yes. The downstream, when we compare the channel surveys, we see a loss of area, cross-sectional area volume in the river. So we’re seeing a loss of volume and area in the river downstream, an increase upstream.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:06:37

And then, so that loss of volume downstream certainly would have some implications for flood control, I would imagine.

Dr. David Biedenharn 1:06:43

Exactly, yes. And that’s where you have to look at that and say, all right, how is this going to impact long-term flood control, levee height, that type of thing. Right now we’re in good shape, but you know what’s it going to be like in 100 years, 200 years.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:06:59

Yeah, interesting. I’ve had, I’ve been lucky enough to walk on some gravel bars on the Lower Mississippi. They’re fascinating places, but so I guess that’s part of the, that is some of the source of those bigger chunks of sediment. Some of the gravel bars, when the river’s higher, it can pick up content from the gravel bars, or you know, maybe rocks that are stuck into the banks and move that further downriver, so because of the increased velocity of the river, now we can carry some of those further down river because of that,

Dr. David Biedenharn 1:07:32

Right, and and then we have to think about, as I mentioned, what is the long term future of the river going to look like with all these changes and complications, and that’s where it gets really interesting. And a number of years ago, the Corps created a program within the MR&T called the Mississippi River Geomorphology and Potamology Program, and that’s what it’s aimed at doing, is trying to understand all these complex processes and interactions that I’ve discussed, and how is that going to affect the future of the river, and when I say the future, I’m thinking 50, 100 years, 200 years. I think we need to be thinking out that far, and it’s we don’t always have tools and ways to be to quantify things 100 or 200 years from now, but we need to start trying to look in that direction, and that’s that’s one of the things we’re trying to do with MRGMP program is to think about what’s the river system going to be 100 years from now, or 200 years, you know.

Dr. David Biedenharn 1:08:47

My, my goal is I want the engineers and scientists 100 or 200 years from now to look back on us and say they may not have really known everything that was going on, and they probably missed and were wrong on a number of things, but at least they established a program and a protocol for moving forward that we’re today in a better position to manage the river, you know, for another 200 years. So that’s that’s my long-term goal.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:09:14

So if we don’t do anything differently for the next couple decades or 50 years or whatever, what would you picture the Mississippi would be like 50 years from now if we didn’t change anything?

Dr. David Biedenharn 1:09:27

Well, in 50 years, I think you know, 50 years for me is a long time, but for the Mississippi is not that long. But I think we would see a continuation of the trends that we’re seeing, a long slow degradational process moving upstream, the degradation moving up toward Cairo. I think will continue. It’s going to be at a slow rate. We might lose another few feet in degradation. We’ll probably see some more aggradation on the downstream, and so we’ll see kind of a continuation of those existing trends, that’s what I would envision.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:10:09

Yeah, I think one of the things that’s really interesting to me, as somebody who doesn’t have to make these decisions, is how difficult it is to develop a plan when you have so many competing, or not necessarily competing, but so many factors that aren’t necessarily complementary. You pull a lever over here, and you get this consequence down here. We can create a river that flows faster and self-scours to some degree, and makes it better for navigation, but then we’ve degraded some of the ecosystems for the life off the main channel, and all of this is relatively expensive as well. Dredging, dredging, the dredging budget is pretty enormous for the Corps, and most of that’s on the Lower Mississippi. Maintaining these structures is not cheap, so like from from your point of view, like what can you tell me, I know there are congressional mandates, but like how in an ideal world, how do we go about balancing all these different factors and making decisions about how to manage this beast of a river?

Dr. David Biedenharn 1:11:21

Wow.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:11:21

Above your pay grade?

Dr. David Biedenharn 1:11:23

Above my pay grade, Dean, but, but that’s a more complication, more complicated question than some of the technical questions. We can technically, you know, if you tell me we, we want flood control and nothing else, we can give you flood control, you know, for whatever event, almost we can make that happen. But that’s probably not going to sit well with a lot of the users and the other people in the valley, which we have to think about, you know, their their viewpoints and impacts to their lives and their livelihoods, and that’s where it gets to be very complicated.

Dr. David Biedenharn 1:12:01

As we mentioned, we can change things to, you know, if it’s just a single goal, single, you know, objective. That’s simple, but it’s no longer single objectives. We’ve got multiple objectives, and most of them are not moving along the same path, and that’s where it gets so complicated, and we almost always run into that. You know, we could, we could restore the entire Mississippi River, we could, we could do away with the revetments and the levees, and let the valley have the floodplain again. That, you know, of course, that would have consequences. We’d probably lose navigation, flood control wouldn’t exist. We’d have us natural, more natural environment out there, but that’s probably not going to happen. And so it’s just, it’s just, it’s hard to satisfy all the different groups, and that’s that’s where I’m glad I’m not the one having to make those decisions, I’m just a technical geek trying to understand the river.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:13:07

Well, as a technical geek who’s been doing this for, for quite a while now, like, what are some of the higher level lessons you’ve learned about the Mississippi from all these years?

Dr. David Biedenharn 1:13:17

The gosh, I think just the connectivity of the system, and understand, and this translates, not just the Mississippi, translates to small streams everywhere, is that we can’t just drop into the river at one location where there’s a problem and put our blinders on and think about fixing that particular problem without thinking about how that reach fits into the system upstream and downstream and how what we might do to change something at that local reach is going to have impacts upstream and downstream. And then how those secondary impacts will have longer term trends as well, so we have this complex response that we see. We see it because we have such a long record on the Mississippi. We can see that complex response, and that’s always been a learning thing for me, and it applies, you know, in streams all over the country and all over the world.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:14:26

Fantastic. So, do you have a favorite spot to go to on the river, like for fishing or partying, or just hanging out?

Dr. David Biedenharn 1:14:37

Not really. We used to have a nice lounge on the Mississippi, called Delta, the Delta Point, I think was the name. It was right there above the bridge at Vicksburg, and had this really nice lounge that you could sit and just look out through these windows, and you can sit there in the evenings and have a have a drink and watch the river flow, and then the casino came in, and then they tore that down, and so my favorite spot is gone. So I don’t have that spot anymore.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:15:08

Bummer.

Dr. David Biedenharn 1:15:09

Yeah, it is.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:15:12

It’s been a while since I’ve been down there. I remember really enjoying St. Catherine Creek National Wildlife Refuge, but that’s a little further south.

Dr. David Biedenharn 1:15:20

Yeah.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:15:21

But I thought that was a beautiful area.

Dr. David Biedenharn 1:15:25

Yeah.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:15:26

Well, David, is there anything else you feel like we didn’t cover that you want to add before we wrap this up?

Dr. David Biedenharn 1:15:34

Gosh, I’m trying to remember what I, what I said in the last hour so.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:15:39

We just got a master class, I think, so.

Dr. David Biedenharn 1:15:41

I don’t know, we got something, but hope I didn’t ramble and babble too much, so.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:15:49

No, that was fantastic, and you explained it very clearly, so I deeply appreciate your time and sharing your expertise with us, and thank you again, like hopefully this, you know, maybe it’ll raise a few questions, maybe people will reach out and have some questions. Is there a place where people can follow the work that you’re doing?

Dr. David Biedenharn 1:16:11

There is. If they go, I don’t have the link to tell you right now, but if you go on to the Corps of Engineers Mississippi Valley Division Office, there’s a Mississippi River Geomorphology and Potamology site there, and there’s a lot of information there about some of the studies that have that have gone on. That’s one place, there’s also the here at ERDC, we have a library, you can go to the ERDC library, and if you have particular authors or people or topics you’re interested in, you might can research and find some publications there.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:16:58

All right, we will search those out, and I can put links to those in the show notes for folks. So, well, thank you very much, David. Grateful, deeply appreciate your time today.

Dr. David Biedenharn 1:17:10

All right, if you ever get to Vicksburg, come see us.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:17:13

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the series on your favorite podcast app, so you don’t miss out on future episodes. I offer the podcast for free, but when you support the show with a few bucks through Patreon you help keep the program going. Just go to patreon.com/deanklinkenberg. If you want to know more about the Mississippi River, check out my books. I write the Mississippi Valley Traveler guidebooks for people who want to get to know the Mississippi better. I also write the Frank Dodge Mystery Series that’s set in places along the river. Find them wherever books are sold. The Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast is written and produced by me, Dean Klinkenberg. Original music by Noah Fence. See you next time.

Travel has played an outsized role in my life, has shaped it in overwhelmingly positive ways. In this episode, I share the story behind my new memoir, Better Safe Than Sorry? Slow Boats, Chicken Buses, and the Radical Choice to Trust the World. Drawing from 25 years of independent travel, this book is a raw, honest collection of travel stories that will challenge what you think about playing it safe.

These are stories with real highs and lows that showcase my drive to get past the reflexive fears and anxieties that once kept my world small. These stories illustrate how choosing curiosity over caution transformed me and fueled travel to places across the planet. From canoeing to the Gulf of Mexico with John Ruskey to exploring Southeast Asia, Madagascar, and Guatemala, these 18 stories celebrate the joy of saying yes.

The book launches exclusively on Kickstarter on June 15, 2026, and includes the option to buy a hardcover edition featuring 63 full-color photos that won’t be available anywhere else. The paperback, audiobook, and ebook will release widely in late summer 2026. Stick around to hear a sample from the audiobook edition, the Introductory chapter to the book.

More about the book, Better Safe Than Sorry (Will redirect to Kickstarter while the campaign is active in summer 2026)

If you are enjoying the podcast, please consider showing your support by making a one-time contribution or by supporting as a regular contributor through Patreon. Every dollar you contribute makes it possible for me to continue sharing stories about America’s Greatest River.

 

Don’t want to deal with Patreon? No worries. You can show some love by buying me a coffee (which I drink a lot of!). Just click on the link below.

Wed, May 27, 2026 1:42PM • 28:32

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Mississippi Valley Traveler, Dean Klinkenberg, travel memoir, Better Safe Than Sorry, independent travel, travel fears, safety first, curiosity first, Kickstarter campaign, travel experiences, cultural immersion, personal growth, travel challenges, travel stories, Patreon support.

SPEAKERS

Dean Klinkenberg

Dean Klinkenberg 00:27

Welcome to the Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast. I’m Dean Klinkenberg, and I’ve been exploring the deep history and rich culture of the people and places along America’s greatest river, the Mississippi, since 2007. Join me as I go deep into the characters and places along the river, and occasionally wander into other stories from the Midwest and other rivers. Read the episode show notes and get more information on the Mississippi at MississippiValleyTraveler.com Let’s get going.

Dean Klinkenberg 00:59

Welcome to episode 77 of the Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast. In 2015 I had the chance to canoe from New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico with John Ruskey and the Quapaw Canoe Company. The expedition gave me the chance to finally, after nearly a decade as the Mississippi Valley Traveler, get to the end of the river to the spot where the Mississippi merges with the sea. The story about that trip is one of 18 in my new book, a travel memoir called ‘Better Safe Than Sorry: Slow Boats, Chicken Busses, and the Radical Choice to Trust the World.’

Dean Klinkenberg 01:35

The stories come from some 25 years of independent travel around the United States, including many trips along the Mississippi, as well as from some international trips. I’ve been an avid traveler most of my life. I’ve got some great memories of summer road trips with my family, where we’d pack up a car and hit the road for a while. My parents absolutely love traveling, and it’s a passion they passed on to their children, including me. I continued to travel as a young man, even when my budget was tight, and I needed to find creative ways to eat cheaply or find a place to crash for the night.

Dean Klinkenberg 02:10

Still, even as I traveled, I regularly battled fears and anxieties about taking chances on something new or traveling to unfamiliar places. Is someone going to rob me? What if I get lost or look stupid? Worrying about looking stupid is a lifelong affliction. What will happen if my car breaks down? Which one of them did often in those pre-cell phone days. What if the trip is an utter complete failure, and I hate everything about it?

Dean Klinkenberg 02:41

I didn’t move through my regular life with much confidence, and that certainly didn’t change when I traveled. I generally took trips that kept me in the familiar zone. I eventually realized that worrying about safety first had come with a price, that letting my fears dictate decisions for me was depriving me of joy and discovery. It was making my world smaller and smaller, so I decided to find out what would happen if I had listened to that voice of caution less often and took more chances. Travel, I realized, was and still is a good way to do just that.

Dean Klinkenberg 03:20

On the road, I have an easier time taking chances I’d never take at home. Eat something radically unfamiliar, camp on isolated sandbars, even let people dress me up. People like dressing me up. After all, even if I was embarrassed by it, I’d never see these folks again. I’m amazed at how well it’s actually worked out. How much travel has changed me. Slowly, certainly over time, but changed me for sure. So that’s what this book is about. How I use travel to open myself to new experiences, to challenge the safety first mindset, and replace it with curiosity first.

Dean Klinkenberg 04:00

This isn’t a self-help book. I want to be clear about that. This is a collection of travel stories where you’ll read about how I recognize the fears and anxieties I felt, picked them apart, then took a step ahead anyway, and what happened when I did. Hint, I’ve had some great experiences. I’ve enjoyed eye-opening boat trips on the Tonle Sap River in Cambodia and the Tsiribihina in Madagascar. I studied Spanish for two weeks in a small Honduran village, where my husband, John, and I became groupies for a band from El Salvador. We got to watch the sun set over the Guatemalan jungle from atop an ancient Mayan pyramid after all the tour busses left us with the quiet of the jungle. And I got to the end of the Mississippi River with John Ruskey. I didn’t have much experience with wilderness camping before that trip, and fretted a lot up front about how well I’d adapt to the loss of daily conveniences, but I went anyway, and because I did, I checked off a bucket list item, and had one of the best travel experiences of my life.

Dean Klinkenberg 05:06

You’re going to learn an awful lot about me in this book. The stories are really personal, some of them from travel experiences I just haven’t talked about all that much, and I don’t sugarcoat what happened. I hate travel books that make every travel experience look like a trip to Pleasantville or the plot of a Hallmark movie. I’ve got some good stories, plenty of happy endings for sure, but I don’t shy away from writing about the struggles too. Still, travel has brought me tremendous joy, helped me connect to people and places around the world, challenged me to try things I never would have otherwise, tested my patience, taken me inside worlds I never expected to see, and ultimately made me a stronger, more confident, and resilient person.

Dean Klinkenberg 05:52

I think we underestimate how invigorating, how life-affirming it can be to travel to unfamiliar places, meet new people and see the world in a slightly different way than we did before. I’m not saying that the way I travel, independently, is easy. Sometimes it’s damn hard, especially when you arrive in an unfamiliar town after dark and have a hard time finding an available room. But it’s nearly impossible to experience these life-affirming moments when we let safety concerns squash our curiosity.

Dean Klinkenberg 06:25

So I hope these stories will fire up your curiosity and steel your courage too, or at the very least that you find them entertaining, even if you have no intention of taking a chicken bus through El Salvador.

Dean Klinkenberg 06:40

I’m releasing this book initially through Kickstarter only. You may be wondering why it’s a fair question. But it’s pretty simple, actually. Kickstarter offers a new way for indie authors like me to release books and connect directly with people who are interested in our work, and I get to offer something different from what you’ll find on the typical retail platforms.

Dean Klinkenberg 07:02

In this case, I’ve created a hardcover edition of the book with full color photos, 63 of them. I’m only offering the hardcover through Kickstarter. You won’t find it anywhere else. Besides that, Kickstarter gives me a chance to offer other editions of the book before they go on sale anywhere else. You’ll be able to get the paper back with those same 63 photos, but in black and white. The ebook and the audiobook narrated by me weeks before they go on sale anywhere else. The campaign will go live on June 15, but you can sign up now with the pre-launch page to get updates about the campaign, including a note on the day it officially kicks off.

Dean Klinkenberg 07:43

Even if you don’t think you’ll be interested in this book yourself, maybe you know someone who might be. If so, I’d be grateful if you’d help me spread the word about the book and this Kickstarter campaign to your friends and family who are interested in travel stories. You can visit the pre-launch page and sign up for updates at https://deanklinkenberg.com/better-safe-than-sorry and unfortunately, when I created that URL, there are hyphens between better safe than sorry, so it’s better, hyphen safe, hyphen than, hyphen sorry. Yeah, sorry about that.

Dean Klinkenberg 08:16

If that’s too much, you can also just go to the show notes for this episode at MississippiValleyTraveler.com/podcast and I’ll have a link there as well. And also in the show notes I’ll put up there a copy of the book cover, and probably a few trips from probably a few photos from trips as well, so you can see what’s in the book.

Dean Klinkenberg 08:40

But before you go away, I want to offer a flavor of what’s actually in the book. Stick around after this introduction, and you can hear a chapter from the audiobook, the introductory chapter narrated by me.

Dean Klinkenberg 08:53

As always, thank you for your interest in my work, and thank you to those of you who have shown support through Patreon. For as little as $1 a month, you can join that Patreon community, get the early access to episodes, and just generally get the satisfaction of knowing you are part of the community that keeps this podcast going. If you want to join the Patreon community, just go to patreon.com/deanklinkenberg, and you can find instructions there. Patreon not your thing. Buy me a coffee. Again, you can go to MississippiValleyTraveler.com/podcast and there you will find instructions on how to buy me a coffee. As always, thanks for your ongoing support. And now let’s get on to the introduction from ‘Better Safe Than Sorry: Slow Boats, Chicken Busses, and the Radical Choice to Trust the World’.

Dean Klinkenberg 09:52

Introduction. Epigraph “For what gives value to travel. Is fear it breaks down the kind of inner structure we have. One can no longer cheat, hide behind the hours spent at the office or at the plant.” Albert Camus.

Dean Klinkenberg 10:15

At the age of 21 I got accepted into a program to study in France for a semester. I was a French minor in college, so studying in Grenoble at the foot of the Alps would be a great way for me to advance my language skills, as well as an exciting alternative to enduring another Wisconsin winter. I was an insecure, hesitant young man, so the trip offered a chance to break out of my shell, develop confidence, get a crash course in wine and learn about how people live in another part of the world. The trip could have been all of those things and more. I’ll never know, because when the day arrived to make my travel arrangements, I backed out.

Dean Klinkenberg 10:56

I’m not naturally confident, quite the opposite, truth be told. I invented 100 reasons to skip the semester abroad, but it boiled down to this. I was afraid I’d fail. I felt anxious I wouldn’t fit in, worried I couldn’t speak French well enough, and the program would expose my inadequacy. Scared I’d be lonely. So much fear. Rather than test myself, I invented excuses to stay home to avoid the potential embarrassment of failing. The irony, of course, is that by backing out of the trip because of my fears, I failed spectacularly.

Dean Klinkenberg 11:36

I sometimes think back to that moment, to my backing out of the program, and wonder what experiences I might have had living near the Alps in southeastern France for six months. What path might my life have taken? I might never have come back from Europe. Would I ever have an opportunity like that again?

Dean Klinkenberg 12:00

My parents introduced me to the possibilities of travel. When I was a kid my family vacationed almost every summer. We’d get up well before sunrise to avoid traffic. Dad would load and unload luggage and supplies until it all fit perfectly in the trunk. I’d settle into the worn back seat of a station wagon or sedan, pull out the license plate game board or a book, and we’d hit the road. As I stared out the window and watched the world roll by, my imagination kicked into gear.

Dean Klinkenberg 12:22

Travel Fires Up My Curiosity.

Dean Klinkenberg 12:33

Our family lived on a tight budget when I was a kid, but we still got in a summer road trip nearly every year. Sometimes my dad turned an extended work trip into a family vacation. We lived in a motel in San Francisco for four weeks one summer, Atlanta for a few weeks the next. My sister and I traveled with Dad to Los Angeles. While he worked, we played at Disneyland. Besides the frequent vacations, we moved a lot. I went to grade school in four different cities, the world I knew extended far beyond whatever neighborhood we lived in. As young adults, my husband, John and I, traveled from coast to coast. We lived frugally, like my parents had, but fears of traveling around unfamiliar places limited my imagination more than concerns about money.

Dean Klinkenberg 13:25

Taking a long road trip to New England was fine. We understood American culture, but Spain or China? At the same time, the sense that I’d missed out on something important by backing out of the study abroad program in college loomed in the back of my mind. Still, I couldn’t tamp down my desire to travel. John and I got hooked on travel shows, including ‘Lonely Planet’ and Anthony Bourdain’s ‘No Reservations.’ Those shows opened my eyes to the possibilities of independent travel around the world, of visiting places I might never have otherwise considered or had been afraid to travel to. The vicarious experience of watching hosts make their way around the world gave me concrete examples to follow and boosted my confidence to take on the challenges of traveling outside the US myself. And they showed me experiences I was missing out on by giving in to the same fears that had kept me from studying abroad.

Dean Klinkenberg 14:22

Years later I’ve traveled to every US state and 45 countries. I’ve seen great works of art, the Sistine Chapel, Picasso’s ‘Guernica,’ and intricate mandalas. I’ve admired such astounding engineering feats as the temples at Angkor in Cambodia, the pre-Columbian mounds at Cahokia and the stone citadel of Machu Picchu. I celebrated King’s Day on the streets of Amsterdam with thousands of new Dutch friends and walked 13 miles along Yamanobe-no-michi in Japan, one of the oldest roads in the world. But I’ve also shared conversation and slivovitz with survivors of the siege of Sarajevo, sold beer from a booth at an Easter festival in Honduras, and sat 10 feet from a pride of lions as they walked by the safari vehicle I sat in.

Dean Klinkenberg 15:13

Travel indulges my curiosity, helps me feel alive. Through travel, I’ve met people who have made my life richer and more meaningful, and I’d like to think they felt the same way. The connections I made while traveling helped me feel like I’d found a home away from home, or maybe more accurately, a home that extended well beyond the boundaries of the place where I kept my stuff. I’ve learned there’s more than one way to fry a potato, and that mayo is delicious on french fries. I’ve seen firsthand the different ways cultures try to balance the needs of the individual with the needs of society at large, and I better appreciate the trade-offs because of that. I understand the world as an overwhelmingly beautiful place with far more good people than touts.

Dean Klinkenberg 16:02

Travel helps me put my life in perspective. It clarifies where I fit in. (Hint: it turns out life isn’t all about me, dammit!). Travel brings me joy and stimulates gratitude. Spend some time in a country where most people don’t have access to decent health care or clean water, and tell me you don’t feel lucky you were born where you were.

Dean Klinkenberg 16:24

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had plenty of moments on the road that made me wonder if I would have been better off staying home. Some train stations and airports are confusing. I’m looking at you, Addis Ababa, especially after the third security pat down, and when none of the signs were in my native language. A couple of times I’ve gotten into a new town late at night, only to discover that open rooms were in short supply, which was frustrating and scary. I’ve trembled from the vulnerability of needing help, but being forced to communicate what I was looking for by pointing or acting it out. Still, travel has offered a great way to get past my fears and retrain my brain to get excited about potential benefits rather than worrying about unlikely risks, but, oy, first I had to get past those fears, like the ones that kept me from studying in France.

Dean Klinkenberg 17:23

Fear.

Dean Klinkenberg 17:24

The night before we left for Thailand, I woke up in a panic. My heart raced, and I struggled to catch my breath as the images echoed in my head. I couldn’t find my passport. The person who’d promised to take us to the airport didn’t show up. We stood behind 100 people to check in and get our boarding passes. I couldn’t figure out which gate we were supposed to go to. I couldn’t find the gate. The plane was oversold and the airline had given away my seat because I checked in late. After we landed, I got singled out at customs for a full body inspection. I lost the name of our hotel. The taxi driver charged us double the expected price. The hotel was overbooked and had given away our room. So many things that could go wrong, and thinking about them all sure fires up the anxiety and fear. I know I’m not alone. For plenty of people, the idea of traveling somewhere unfamiliar triggers anxieties about safety.

Dean Klinkenberg 18:25

A few years ago, as John and I enjoyed drinks with friends and a couple of strangers, we shared stories from a trip where we’d spent two months traveling around Central America. As I described the pleasure of enjoying the Mayan ruins at Tikal, after the hordes of tourists had left and the sun slowly set, one of the strangers interrupted, “Is it safe?”

Dean Klinkenberg 18:47

“Is what safe?”

Dean Klinkenberg 18:49

“Being there at night, traveling in Guatemala, all of it.”

Dean Klinkenberg 18:53

She didn’t ask “What’s there to do in Guatemala?”, or “How was the food, or even how easy is it to get laid there?” No, her first question was, “Is it safe?”

Dean Klinkenberg 19:07

In all my travels, after months on the road and thousands of interactions with people around the world, I can think of only a handful of times when something undesirable happened. A couple of times I ate something that made me sick. Another time, pickpockets robbed my sister of her passport and credit cards. A couple of other times, John thwarted a thief when he felt a hand in his pocket. Sometimes we were charged more than we should have been, or more than locals were paying. The overwhelming majority of the time, though, we have found people all over the world to be helpful, gracious, and curious, or at worst indifferent.

Dean Klinkenberg 19:49

I don’t mean to dismiss the idea that travel comes with risk, of course it does, and two middle-aged gay men face risks different from those faced by a single woman or other travelers. It’s awfully easy to conflate legitimate risks with what we’re told to fear. We can’t be everywhere all the time and know everything, so we rely on others to alert us to potential dangers. That’s part of the problem. News and social media feed us a steady diet of tragedy and conflict. You’ve probably heard the unofficial motto that drives much of the media: “If it bleeds, it leads.” Stories that stoke our fears draw us to 24/7 cable news channels and keep us watching. Features about assaults and murders draw viewers to local news channels, which enables TV stations to sell profitable ads, posts that rile up our anger or incite fear keep us scrolling through social media feeds. Politicians who want our vote use the same tools, (immigrants are rapists!), as do automobile companies trying to sell us bigger, more expensive vehicles. Keep your family safe. We are vulnerable to fear-based messages, all of us. “If it bleeds, it leads, and we’ll watch.”

Dean Klinkenberg 21:13

Our attraction to stories that amplify the unsavory side of humanity takes a toll. Not only does all that exposure to death and mayhem make us believe the world is far more dangerous than it really is. It ultimately makes us feel more wary around strangers and in unfamiliar places.

Dean Klinkenberg 21:31

Travel, like life, isn’t risk-free, but our fears have grown way out of proportion to the actual risks. Social media posts oversimplify reality. News outlets cover only a sliver of what’s happening in the world. You may ask, “So what? I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

Dean Klinkenberg 21:52

Better safe than sorry. We act as if a safety-first mindset doesn’t cost us anything. It absolutely does. When fear rules our lives, we retreat in every shadow. We see harm instead of shade. Our neighbors look like threats instead of allies. The world looks like a minefield instead of flower-covered meadows. We find comfort in social media algorithms that feed us only what we want to see and believe, we don’t leave our safety bubble (or we might be sorry!) so our world grows smaller and smaller, or we back out of studying for a semester in Grenoble, France, and spend another winter in Wisconsin.

Dean Klinkenberg 22:40

The Promise of Travel.

Dean Klinkenberg 22:45

I eventually learned to use time away from home to challenge myself to get past fears and anxieties. After all, I’d be around people I’d never see again, an insight I found liberating. I became more willing to try things I’d never do at home. After I understood this, travel became unexpectedly therapeutic. I tried out new versions of who I wanted to be. I struck up conversations with strangers while standing in line. I ordered food I’d never heard of. I mispronounced my way through phrase books. I learned salsa dancing in a neighborhood bar. I walked into taverns and restaurants in neighborhoods where no one looked like me. I wore silly hats. I tried and sometimes failed, but along the way I developed confidence in my ability to handle unfamiliar situations and to bounce back better after mistakes.

Dean Klinkenberg 23:43

I’m surprised at how much travel has over time changed my life. Not all at once, or during a single crisis-fueled expedition. I didn’t magically discover truth and happiness by traveling to the right place for the perfect amount of time and letting the town square work its magic. The changes have been subtle, gradual, and sometimes hard to perceive from moment to moment. But when I think back to who I was in my twenties and who I am today, the differences amaze me.

Dean Klinkenberg 24:15

Travel hasn’t inoculated me against fear and anxiety. I’m just better at taking them along for the ride instead of letting them lead. I learned I have some control over how I respond to adversity. We can’t get tickets to see that famous painting that everyone wants to see? Well, there are a dozen other museums that showcase great art. Or maybe it’s time to take a break and sip coffee and people watch for a couple of hours. Our flight home got canceled and it is raining too hard to explore the city? We will enjoy a nice meal in the hotel with a good bottle of wine, courtesy of the airline. Don’t like the look of the street ahead of us? We can turn around, walk another route, or call an Uber.

Dean Klinkenberg 25:02

I’m not saying I look forward to feeling like a fool when I ask in an unfamiliar language, “Where’s the bathroom?” It’s not that I don’t worry about getting mugged, I’m hardly immune to the fear-based messages the doom-industrial complex bombards us with. I’ve just learned to push through my initial fears. Something will always go wrong. Always. Regardless of how much planning I’ve done. Flights run late. Inns are full. Strikes shut down trains. Someone is trying to make a buck off me, and they don’t care how. But now I trust my ability to cope and adjust when the shit hits the fan.

Dean Klinkenberg 25:43

So yeah, travel has absolutely changed me. Even if no single travel experience moved mountains in my life. Rather, travel experiences have shaped me like wind blowing over a sand dune. Each time I go somewhere new, my ideas about myself, the world, and other people shift, even if just a little. Sometimes I feel those changes while I’m traveling, but most of the time they only sink in after I’m back home, and my mind has had time to catch up with the experiences.

Dean Klinkenberg 26:16

In the stories that follow, I end up on an overcrowded boat for seven hours, get lost in a marsh on a solo canoe trip. Trust the wrong people, dodge scams, embarrass myself in front of strangers, and have my travel plans upended when a new friend’s mother dies unexpectedly. And how many times did I regret not following the advice “better safe than sorry”? Zero. Well, maybe in Tangier…

Dean Klinkenberg 26:47

Well, as I mentioned before, that was the introduction from my new travel memoir, ‘Better Safe Than Sorry: Slow Boats, Chicken Busses, and the Radical Choice to Trust the World.’ Let me know what you think. You can drop a comment in the show notes, or email me at dean@deanklinkenberg.com. And if you want to know more, like if you want to follow the Kickstarter release, contribute to the Kickstarter campaign, you can find that again by going to https://deanklinkenberg.com/better-safe-than-sorry, and the Better Safe Than Sorry, unfortunately has hyphens between each of those words, so you put those in, or you can just go to the show notes, where you’ll find a link directly there.

Dean Klinkenberg 27:26

Thank you very much for your interest, and for following my work.

Dean Klinkenberg 27:32

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the series on your favorite podcast app, so you don’t miss out on future episodes. I offer the podcast for free, but when you support the show with a few bucks through Patreon you help keep the program going. Just go to patreon.com/deanklinkenberg. If you want to know more about the Mississippi River, check out my books. I write the Mississippi Valley Traveler Guidebooks for people who want to get to know the Mississippi better. I also write the Frank Dodge Mystery Series that’s set in places along the river. Find them wherever books are sold. The Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast is written and produced by me, Dean Klinkenberg. Original music by Noah Fence. See you next time.

The weather is warming in our part of the world, which means many of us are working on plans to spend time on or near the Mississippi River. And now we’ve got a couple of excellent ways to kick it off, two events that have quickly become central to celebrating the river and doing our part to help restore the health and beauty of the river: River Days of Action (June 1-15) and National Mississippi River Day (June 2).

In this episode, I talk with Michael Anderson, the Director of Outreach and Education for One Mississippi, and one of the prime forces making them happen. He describes each event’s unique focus, what events are happening to mark them, why these events are important to the present and future of the River, and what he’s learned from his years working so diligently on issues related to the Mississippi River.

After the discussion with Michael, you’ll hear a couple of other people describe why the Mississippi matters to them and the organizations they are affiliated with, and why they believe carving out time to celebrate the Mississippi and give something back to the river are important. You’ll hear from Amanda Wigen from Owámniyomni Okhódayapi and avid kayaker Perry Whitaker who also volunteers with many river-related groups, including the Mississippi River Water Association.

To find out more about these events and to see the full schedule of events and opportunities to help the river, head to mississippiriver.org.

More about National Mississippi River Day with info on helping with proclamations

Learn more about River Days of Action

Learn more about Owámniyomni Okhódayapi

If you are enjoying the podcast, please consider showing your support by making a one-time contribution or by supporting as a regular contributor through Patreon. Every dollar you contribute makes it possible for me to continue sharing stories about America’s Greatest River.

 

Don’t want to deal with Patreon? No worries. You can show some love by buying me a coffee (which I drink a lot of!). Just click on the link below.

Sun, May 10, 2026 3:19PM • 58:27

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

National Mississippi River Day, River Days of Action, Mississippi River, water quality, environmental stewardship, community engagement, cultural significance, agricultural runoff, flooding, proclamations, river restoration, Native American history, river cleanups, river events, river conservation.

SPEAKERS

Dean Klinkenberg, Michael Anderson, Perry Whitaker, Amanda Wigen

Michael Anderson 00:00

But it’s a day to give back to the river that made us, right? One Mississippi, we are on a mission to protect, strengthen and restore the Mississippi River, not just for today, but as a vital resource for future generations. And so this day is a key day that raises the profile or raises awareness of the Mississippi River. It’s a day to acknowledge some of the serious threats and and issues and problems that we are experiencing. And so this day emphasizes the urgent need for collective action on behalf of the river.

Dean Klinkenberg 00:55

Welcome to the Mississippi Valley Traveler Podcast. I’m Dean Klinkenberg, and I’ve been exploring the deep history and rich culture of the people and places along America’s greatest river, the Mississippi, since 2007. Join me as I go deep into the characters and places along the river, and occasionally wander into other stories from the Midwest and other rivers. Read the episode show notes and get more information on the Mississippi at MississippiValleyTraveler.com. Let’s get going.

Dean Klinkenberg 01:27

Welcome to Episode 76 of the Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast. Well, the ice has finally melted everywhere, even up north off of Lake Bemidji and Lake Pepin, the river is running free of ice, finally, after a long winter, which means a lot of us are beginning to dream about days and evenings on the river, enjoying sunsets next to the river, cookouts on sandbars, going for a little refreshing swim in the summer heat. Well, there’s no better way to kick off the summer rivertime season then with a couple of events that are just around the corner, River Days of Action and National Mississippi River Day. In this episode, we’re going to talk about both of those, but we’re going to focus mostly on National Mississippi River Day.

Dean Klinkenberg 02:15

For those of you who haven’t been keeping track, River Days of Action will run from June 1st to 15th, and National Mississippi River Day is on June 2nd. For both of these there are events and commemorations happening all along the length of the main stem of the Mississippi from northern Minnesota down to Louisiana. So in this episode, to kick things off, I talked with Michael Anderson, my second Michael Anderson to interview this year about why these events matter, what’s going on, and how we can both celebrate the river while also taking steps to deal with threats facing the river’s health and future. And there are plenty of those. You can find out more about both River Days of Action and National Mississippi River Days at MississippiRiver.org and then, after my discussion with Michael, you’ll hear from two more people who talk about the importance of the river to them and to the organizations they work with. You’ll hear first from Amanda Wigen, from Owámniyomni Okhódayapi and Perry Whitaker, an avid kayaker from St Louis. But I’ll be back with a quick introduction for the two of them after we hear from Michael.

Dean Klinkenberg 03:31

If you want to know more about what’s happening, if you want other links to what’s going along on the river, for River Days of Action, if you want to see some pretty pictures of the river, go to the show notes, which are at MississippiValleyTraveler.com/podcast. At that same link, you will find links to all previous 75 episodes so you can go crazy binging about the Mississippi River to help celebrate National Mississippi River Day and River Days of Action.

Dean Klinkenberg 04:02

Thanks to those of you who continue to show me some love through Patreon. For as little as $1 a month, you can join the community. Go to patreon.com/deanklinkenberg. For that modest contribution, you get early access to each of those episodes and the satisfaction of knowing you are one of the people keeping this podcast alive. Not into Patreon, buy me a cup of coffee. You can go to MississippiValleyTraveler.com/podcast and there you will also find out how to buy me a cup of coffee. All right, let’s get on with the interviews.

Dean Klinkenberg 04:48

Michael Anderson is a lifelong student of the Mississippi and 16 years ago, the river literally saved his life. If you get a chance, ask him how and sit back for an inspiring story and finding solace during a mental health crisis. Michael’s happy place is out in his canoe, and he’s paddled the river from Minnesota to Louisiana while removing over 7000 pounds of trash along the way. As a river guide and educator, he’s connected over 10,000 people with the river through work with outfits including the National Park Service and Wilderness Inquiry. Over the last seven years, Michael has served as the Director of Outreach and Education for One Mississippi where he helps lead a community of 20,000 river citizens and coordinates the 80 member Mississippi River Network. He’s also the driving force behind River Days of Action, happening June 1 through June 15, and the newest annual tradition, National Mississippi River Day on June 2nd. Michael, welcome back to the podcast.

Michael Anderson 05:49

Thank you so much, Dean. It’s good to be back.

Dean Klinkenberg 05:52

Hard to believe this is your third time on the podcast. You are now the current record holder for most appearances. I think so maybe we’ll get you a gold star or something for that.

Michael Anderson 06:03

Oh, well, that’s a fun fact. Thank you so much, Dean. Just send me a book in the mail then I can put it on the shelf and show it to people.

Dean Klinkenberg 06:10

Yes, certainly people named Michael Anderson will be the clear cut winner on all these since I just last week, had a chance to interview it the other Michael Anderson and talk about Lake Pepin. Well, let’s get right into the purpose of this today. We are here to talk about, mostly about National Mississippi River Day, which is coming up on June 2, because it happens every year now on June 2. Tell us why does the Mississippi need its own day?

Michael Anderson 06:39

Yeah, wonderful Dean, well, let me just zoom out for a second here. Okay, because the significance of the Mighty Mississippi is often it’s often not get receiving the credit it deserves. Okay? The as you all know, and I’m sure folks listening to this podcast would would agree with, the Mississippi River is not just a waterway. It is a lifeline. Right? This Mississippi River, it’s in the heart of America, spanning approximately 2350 miles, flowing through or bordering 10 states while draining 32 states in its basin, from the Rocky Mountains in the west to the Appalachia to Appalachia in the east the Mississippi River provides home and habitat for hundreds and hundreds of fish, bird and other wildlife and plant species, and, of course, drinking water for over 20 million people. Throughout time, the river has also been has had extreme cultural significance, right? For 1000s of years, Mississippi has been integral to indigenous communities through through providing sustenance, trade, connection. However, the river faces problems. The river has its issues. Water quality. We have big pollution issues, of course, namely from agriculture runoff that creating these harmful algal blooms, particularly where the Mississippi River drains into the Gulf of Mexico, creating a dead zone. These blooms are these algal blooms are areas where no oxygen remains, causing fish and marine life to either suffocate or have to flee. We are experiencing extreme flooding and drought like never before. In fact, we’re just a few years from the 2019 flood, which was the longest flood in recorded history of the Mississippi River, running from late December of 2018 well into April of 2019 and it ended up having over a billion dollar economic impact to our communities up and down, up and down the Mississippi. But solutions exist, Dean, as you well know, solutions exist, and so the National Mississippi River Day is one of our newest ideas, and now has become a cemented tradition for the Mighty Mississippi, and I’m looking forward to sharing more about that today.

Dean Klinkenberg 09:06

Fantastic. So So tell us a little bit about what to expect from this day. Then, what are some of the things that are going on to mark the the river’s special day?

Michael Anderson 09:17

Yeah, thanks, Dean. So launched in 2025 just last year, National Mississippi River Day is celebrated now annually on June 2. This day invites communities to come together to honor this vital waterway and its significance to our nation, right? It’s a day to recognize the river’s cultural, economic and ecological importance. It’s a day to foster community engagement and environmental stewardship. In a few minutes here, I’ll share ways that people can get involved in every and things that people can do on June 2 and throughout their day to day life to make a difference. But it’s a day to give back to the river that made us, right? One Mississippi, we are on a mission to protect, strengthen and restore the Mississippi River, not just for today, but as a vital resource for future generations. And so this day is a key day that raises the profile or raises awareness of the Mississippi River. It’s a day to acknowledge some of the serious threats and and issues and problems that we are experiencing. I mentioned a couple of them, but as well as water quality standpoint and impacts to our communities, and so this day emphasizes the urgent need for collective action on behalf of the river, and we have a couple neat tactics that we’ve been deploying as part of, as part of this new initiative.

Dean Klinkenberg 10:44

Do tell.

Michael Anderson 10:47

All right, thanks, Dean. Well, you know, at a time where division seems to be ever present in our day to day lives, this day is about finding common ground or common water, if you will. Okay. It’s about protecting clean water. It’s about celebrating the river that unites us as individuals and communities across diverse backgrounds. It’s a day to turn back toward each other and toward what we have in common around our shared values. We all, of course, need clean water. We know the significance that this river provides, in that sense, with over 20 million people getting their drinking water, and so it’s strategically placed on June 2 as well, because it kicks off two weeks of events and opportunities called River Days of Action. This is a program that One Mississippi delivers in coordination with our 80 plus organization, Mississippi River Network members of which, Dean, the Mississippi Valley traveler, you yourself are very engaged member, I might add. And so we work together right this, this River Days of Action framework provides an opportunity for us to work together, from headwaters to gulf through a series of hands on restoration events, recreation events, educational opportunities, online captivating webinars, as well as more in person opportunities to take action and make a difference. I will just add that over the past six years that River Days has been in effect, we’ve brought together more than 8,000 people at nearly 200 events hosted by approximately 250 partner organizations. And so it just showcases the real need and appetite that people have to work together to make a difference. And we couldn’t be more thrilled with this centerpiece that is now National Mississippi River Day on June 2nd, which again kicks off these two weeks of River Days of Action.

Dean Klinkenberg 12:53

So give us some idea of the different kinds of activities. I know, like the National Mississippi River Day is important in and of to itself, and we’ll come back to that in just a minute. But in these past few years, the variety of activities that have happened during this whole period of time, these couple of weeks, is pretty impressive. Can you just give a sense of some of the highlights, maybe a little bit from previous years, but also what we know is going to be happening for this year, for those first couple of weeks in June?

Michael Anderson 13:21

Yeah, absolutely. So things that have occurred in previous years again as part of these nearly 200 events. I mean, we’ve had everything from farm tours right taking out in particular elected officials to farm tours so they can see the the impact that sustainable or regenerative agricultural practices, what they look like in the field, how they are improving water quality. Because, of course, let’s just remind everyone what happens on the land is what ends up in the river, what’s what ends up in our waterways. And so as I mentioned earlier, agricultural runoff, urban runoff, these, these, these different types of pollutions running off the land, goes into our water, ultimately ends up in the Mississippi. So having these farm tours has been really instrumental. We’ve had a lot of online webinars that I’ll just uplift for a moment here, because I think they’ve been really interesting. Everything from environmental justice focused panels. We’ve had folks from the upper, middle and lower river coming together to talk about environmental justice specific issues that they’re facing in their communities. We’ve talked about legislative solutions, right? We’ve had some great panels, I think of some of our Gulf Coast members talking about sort of the lay of the land in Louisiana, and the different issues and solutions that they are really working on from a legislative standpoint. We’ve held a in person town hall focused on Mississippi River issues and solutions we have every year recreation events, people taking out canoes and kayaks. Often the National Park Service gets involved up here in Minnesota, providing accessible paddling opportunities for folks to get out on the river. We’ve had plant walks with Dakota Native American leaders here in Minnesota and as well as other parts of the river. Oh, what else? I could just keep going and going, pretty much, if there is an opportunity that’s related to making a difference for the people, land, water and wildlife of the Mississippi River, it can end up in River Days of Action.

Dean Klinkenberg 15:36

Absolutely. And I know, like, off the top of my head this, these aren’t all necessarily time for River Days of Action. But I know in St Paul the Wakáŋ Tipi Center, the brand new center, Bruce Vento / Wakáŋ Tipi Centerwalk, that is a beautiful area restoration in progress, but they have a brand new visitor center that’s opening up at the end of May, close to River Days of Action. I know down here in St Louis, the Mississippi River Water Trail is partnering with the St Louis Aquarium to get some people out for a paddle. Down in New Orleans at the Hip Hop Caucus and other there must be some events in New Orleans going on as well. So it’s amazing to me how we have gotten to a point where, for these couple of weeks of time, we can concentrate activity along the entire length of the river. So if you’re if you’re living in Memphis or New Orleans or the Quad Cities or someplace, where should they go to find out of what events are happening in their area?

Michael Anderson 16:38

Yeah, wonderful. Thank you so much, Dean. Thanks for adding some more like good examples as well of where, where this program has been. Go to MississippiRiver.org. You’ll have a pop up that is River Days of Action and National Mississippi River Day. Click that. It’ll bring you right to the events calendar. We already have 10 events on there. This is we’re still a couple months out. The deadline for event submission is coming up here. So do expect by the time folks are listening to this episode that that events calendar will be completely full. And I’ll just share a quick story, because it’s getting to the point where I receive random emails, like, literally, one I just received last week was from someone that is planning a road trip from Minneapolis to St Louis during the beginning of June, and they’ve heard about river days of action, and they’re like, Okay, tell me the key events that are happening along the way. I’m literally going to make my road trip to coincide and stop and attend as many events as possible, and so.

Dean Klinkenberg 17:42

Awesome.

Michael Anderson 17:42

You know, stories like that just really bring show how this is, this is coming to life and rooting down in our communities and having the impact that that we all seek.

Dean Klinkenberg 17:51

So I guess I probably should emphasize too, like you don’t have to go to a specific event to do something for the river or to show your appreciation for the river. Folks are certainly welcome do anything on their own as well, if they just want to stop by and say hi to the river, pay tribute, you know, or if they want to go out on the river for a paddle on their own or hike somewhere next to the river, of course, please feel free to do so. You don’t need a group of people to do that, to celebrate that with you. And so what about back to the National Mississippi River Day in particular, you do have a couple of very specific things happening for that day, so tell us about that.

Michael Anderson 18:31

Yeah, that’s right. So one way that we are continuing to establish and grow the momentum for National Mississippi River Day is by having governing bodies issue proclamations or resolutions declaring June 2nd as National Mississippi River Day for their community. And so last year again was the inaugural year of National Mississippi River Day, and we had a goal. We’re like, okay, if we could get one proclamation passed in like one city, one town on the river, then it’s that’d be a success. Well, Dean, as you well know, we ended up with 15 in its inaugural year that included four states, Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin and Missouri, your home state, of course, all did make declarations or proclamations for National Mississippi River Day, and we just saw that and that response of like, okay, this is this is going to catch. This is really taking, taking has the opportunity to just take off like wildfire. So this year we’re aiming even higher. We are doubling, not even doubling our goal, because it’s a huge from last year of just one. We are aiming for 30 this year, 30 proclamations in cities, towns and states along the Mississippi River or in its basin, and in particular this year. We are focused on passing proclamations in all 10 of the main stem states of the Mississippi River. Pop quiz to your to everyone listening today. Pause this episode and in your head say out loud, or just say the 10 states if you know them. Write them down, if not, look them up, or go to MississippiRiver.org to find out. And so, yeah, we’re really it’s ambitious this year. We think we can move in that direction and reach this goal. And this is only possible if people get on board. Okay, because communities really need to own this, right? This really needs to be a thing that we rally around and we let grow from year to year. So, for example, Earth Day, I believe, was last year, the year before, celebrated its 50th anniversary of having having Earth Days. Well, Dean, what could this? What could National Mississippi River day look like in 50 years from now?

Dean Klinkenberg 21:06

Right.

Michael Anderson 21:07

And so let’s, let’s, we’re going to keep building that year after year. And yeah, toward the end of our program here today, I’ll share some more ways that folks can can participate. But the proclamation piece has been really vital of growing this day and also decentralizing the movement, right? If one organization, say, One Mississippi, you know, wanted to declare this, and you know this National Mississippi River Day and make it happen, it’s only going to get so far. And the reality is that this needs to be a decentralized, grassroots movement to grow this and proclamations are a great way that municipalities, meaning cities, towns and counties as well as states, and working with tribal governments and the federal government as well to issue these proclamations, because when we when those are issued, it signals that it’s a priority for that governing body, right? They say the river is important to our community. We understand the issues it’s facing. We reaffirm our commitments to working together to make it make make a difference.

Dean Klinkenberg 22:14

As we like to say, It elevates the visibility of the river. It emphasizes how much it matters, rather than taking it for granted. You took the words out of my mouth there, because one of the things I was just thinking as you were talking, as part of what I like about this, this day in particular, but also all River Days of Action, is that there’s not one organization telling everybody how to celebrate. It’s up to individual communities to decide what makes most sense for you to mark this day to you know what, how you want to show your appreciation, you know, the river might mean something different to you down in New Orleans than it does in Minneapolis, and that’s fine. So the celebrations or the events are going to look different. And I really like that, that there’s not this puppet master directing the show, so thanks for that, and thanks for emphasizing that decentralized and people centric approach to this. I’m kind of mindful of the time we were kind of setting a time limit for ourselves because we’ve got other people we’ll be talking to as well for this episode. I’m just kind of curious now you’ve been with One Mississippi for over seven years, and I’m curious in this time, how has your relationship with the river changed, or your perceptions of the river changed during those seven years of working so closely on river related issues?

Michael Anderson 23:39

Whew, yeah, that is a question that definitely warrants a lot of journaling and reflection, but yeah, Dean, really good question. Thank you. I think that a key piece is what you just shared right before, when talking about the decentralized approach and just really how different all of these different places are, yes, we’re connected by this river, right, this lifeline of the nation, this, this blue and brown ribbon running through the center of the country, connecting, you know, the East and the West. But it would be very silly kind of to your point, to think that it’s exactly the same in New Orleans as is in St Louis, as is Minneapolis, as it is in the rural setting, in the urban setting, like the it’s very important. Something I’ve learned in this work is that these regional differences matter, and the way that communities and individuals connect with the river matter, and they are important. And it’s really, I think, just to broaden it way out, just in the field of conservation, it’s really vital at this moment, and as we move into the future, to be much more welcoming in our movement, to really realize that there are different issues that matter most to people, and even as environmentalists, part of our job, you know, if someone’s more concerned with housing, like a housing crisis, or, you know, lead pipes, or, I don’t know, these different, these different things, where does the where does water, and where does the river intersect with that? Because it does, because these things aren’t in isolation. Issues that our communities are facing are issues that the river is facing, and vice versa. And so that’s something I just continue to learn about in this work, and no doubt we’ll have a lot more to learn. And just thrilled to have the opportunity to keep keep meeting people and keep learning and growing.

Dean Klinkenberg 25:42

Fantastic. Well, we need a lot more Michael Anderson’s to help keep bending the curve and in bringing the health of the river back up to where we’d like to we would all like to see it. So thank you for all that. Before we wrap up, any last things you want to say about the National Mississippi River Day or River Days of Action. I will post links in the show notes to One Mississippi site for those events so people can look up what’s going on there. But any final thoughts,

Michael Anderson 26:09

Well, I wouldn’t be a good Director of Outreach if I didn’t leave everyone with a call to action. Okay? And so I want to leave folks with some key ways that they can get involved with River Days of Action, June 1 through June 15, as well as the centerpiece that is National Mississippi River Day on June 2. And spoiler, a lot of these things I’m about to say you can do year round, okay, but join in during this concerted time period, because our collective our collective action really makes a difference. So first and foremost, I’ve already mentioned this, participate in River Days of Action events. We have them online and in person. That these events inspire action for the river, from cleanups to educational webinars. MississippiRiver.org, River Days of Action is going to be your spot to find those events. Number two, I talked about passing proclamations. That opportunity this year is now available to anyone. Okay, so go to the website, find my contact. Dean can put in the show notes, email, email me to get involved. Okay, we have the proclamation submission guide we’ve put together, as well as a template proclamation. And I promise you, it is so much easier than I would have ever imagined, and it just takes a short bit of time, really, to take this action, and now just a few other ways that folks can get involved and make a difference. On June 2nd, we really believe in an all angles approach to conservation in which no effort is too small or too simple. And the first one I want to share here is what you said, Dean, about connecting with the river, right? We know that people take action and care about what, what they what they know, right? And so if you are building a relationship with the Mississippi, whether that be through visiting it, walking along it, bird watching, reading Dean’s, reading Mississippi Valley Traveler books about it, and the travel guides and the Frank Dodge, you know, mystery series. All of these are different ways to really understand the impact that the Mississippi River has in our lives and in our culture and in our society. It’s, it’s, it cannot be understated the the role that it plays. So there’s so many ways to connect with the river, more than you might just think, more than just like, let’s go down to go down to the banks and go for a walk. That, of course, is wonderful, but there are so many ways to build that relationship. A couple other quick ones. We’ve talked about water quality today. Some great ways that you can help with that. Is cutting back on lawn and garden fertilizers. I know if you are going to use them like this, is not a shame thing. Do your research about applying the right amount at the right time. It’ll benefit whatever you’re trying to grow, as well as our water quality. This goes hand in hand with planting native species. A lot of native plants actually have much deeper roots, which are vital for water filtration and purifying the water and reducing flooding and droughts, as we’ve talked about. Keep the river clean by cleaning up trash in your neighborhood. Yes, go down to the riverbanks, of course, whether that’s the Mississippi or your local tributary, local stream, whatever it may be, get out there. Pick up trash. This is a great way to help, and I think I’ll leave it there for now, Dean. Yeah, those are some great ways that folks can just make a difference in their day to day life, as well as specific things to do on June 2nd, National Mississippi River Day.

Dean Klinkenberg 29:45

Thank you very much. Michael, great ideas. People can have some practical, easy steps they can take for themselves and their own lives that will make a difference. I love those tips. Well, always delight. Michael, great to see you. Thanks for coming and sharing the word about what’s coming up this summer for National Mississippi River Day and River Days of Action.

Michael Anderson 30:08

Thank you so much, Dean.

Dean Klinkenberg 30:11

Hey. Dean Klinkenberg here, interrupting myself, just wanted to remind you that if you’d like to know more about the Mississippi River, check out my books, I write the Mississippi Valley Traveler guide books for people who want to get to know the Mississippi better. I also write the Frank Dodge mystery series that is set in places along the Mississippi. My newest book, The Wild Mississippi, goes deep into the world of Old Man River learn about the varied and complex ecosystems supported by the Mississippi, the plant and animal life that depends on them, and where you can go to experience it all. Find any of these wherever books are sold.

Dean Klinkenberg 30:51

All right, as I said, Now you get to hear from two other people about National Mississippi River Day and why it matters to them. I have clipped out the questions that I ask so you will hear from these two people without me interrupting them. First up is Amanda Wigen, who leads communications, public relations and storytelling efforts at Owámniyomni Okhódayapi, changing the narrative about Dakota history and living culture in Minnesota in the process. She brings extensive experience in nonprofit management, strategic planning, program development, brand building and fundraising. She’s also a board member of the Mississippi Park connection, a nonprofit partner to the National Park Service. Owámniyomni Okhódayapi is transforming Minneapolis, most iconic riverfront location, St. Anthony Falls from a desecrated industrial site into a living monument that says, “This is Dakota land”. The Owámniyomni Okhódayapi project will restore native plantings, uplift Dakota land management and cultural practices and rebuild connections to the water. Perry Whitaker is an avid kayaker who lives in St Louis and is active in many river themed or river adjacent organizations, including the Mississippi River Water Trail Association. Every summer, he leads a group of scouts on a paddling trip down the Mississippi River from St Louis to Cape Girardeau, where they cover a lot of history and ecology along the way. Like I said, you won’t hear again from me. So enjoy hearing these two folks talk about what the Mississippi and National Mississippi River Day means to them.

Amanda Wigen 32:36

So I’m Amanda Wigen. I’m communications director and non native staff for Owámniyomni Okhódayapi, so I work quite a bit with our programming team, but also our project team to be able to communicate with our stakeholders about how the project is developing, and get their input and really understand how people can connect to the river in a different way, and how we can help make Dakota people more connected to the river in particular. Owámniyomni, the falls here is the largest elevation drop on the entire length of the Mississippi. It’s about 50 feet high, and the original falls would have been about 1250 feet wide. It’s now about a third of that size, and has really been narrowed and engineered through the lock and dam process, and also some of the tunneling and damage that happened during industrialization. The falls was also is also a living being, and moved and evolved and changed through time and over, you know, 1000s of years move from what is now St Paul to its current location in downtown Minneapolis. The concrete apron there is holding her in place now, but she’s looking to move. She’s looking to flow where she wants to flow, and that’s part of what we’re trying to respect in our design is that some things can be prescriptive, but really we need to let the water speak for itself and go where it wants to go.

Amanda Wigen 34:11

Well, we talk about restoring a story disrupted, but really, I think the vision is to bring back some of the energy and love that really was into the river before colonization and industrialization. We are doing environmental and cultural restoration at the site. So there’s certainly a planting element, a landscape element, but there’s also a real cultural component about how people care for and maintain the land and connect with each other. And that’s where I think the love piece comes in. It’s it’s not necessarily about the visual change of the site, but how we are interacting with each other and our other relatives.

Amanda Wigen 34:53

My understanding through oral history and connecting through others is it was really a gathering place. For many tribes, a place of trade, but also a place of power. The falls itself just a very powerful being. The water, certainly the lifeblood for Dakota people coming from the waters here in Minnesota. And I think what we recognize is colonizers, industrializers saw that power too, but through a very different lens, and unfortunately, were looking to extract that power for their own benefit. So we think a lot about the language and what those words mean from a Dakota perspective and from a more traditional western perspective.

Amanda Wigen 35:43

Well, our site in particular is located next to the upper lock. This is a lock that is no longer used for commercial navigation, and so there’s quite a bit of excess property that’s owned by the federal government. In general terms, it’s a parking lot, it’s a lot of concrete and stone, it’s a lot of fencing and brick. And so part of what we’re trying to do is remove that layer that’s been put on top of the land, but to also think about what was there before. And in our case, the location of the lock would have been an island. And so one of the key changes we’re trying to make is to have water flow again between the shoreline and that piece of land, and to a certain extent, recreate the feeling of the waterfall there. There is a piece of the original escarpment. And so we’re able to kind of reconnect the water and get a sense of what that would have felt like. It’ll be about a 25 foot drop, not a 50 foot drop, but we do expect you’ll be able to hear the water and hear kind of the rumbling, tumbling sound that that the original falls would have had.

Amanda Wigen 36:57

Located between here in Minneapolis, what we call Water Works Park and Mill Ruins Park, but it’s really just steps from the downtown, just near the location of the stone arch bridge. So it’s incredibly highly trafficked area for the Twin Cities. It’s a big visitor location. As a as an out of towner, you may see it in the pan over when they do sports scenes and news and those sorts of things. So this is not only a key site for the City of Minneapolis, but it’s this key site for Dakota people. And in that sense, that kind of the confluence of those two things makes it incredibly visible and incredibly powerful to connect with both audiences, native and non native alike.

Amanda Wigen 37:45

We are in our 10th year, celebrating our 10th Anniversary. But you’re right. It has been a very long time coming and a lot of evolution. We were actually founded, the nonprofit, as the Saint Anthony Falls Lock and Dam Conservancy. And I like to mention that because I think it shows really the mindset of the organization. At the time we were thinking about the lock, we were thinking about how we could repurpose that space, and we are thinking about the structure itself. Over time the organization. I’ll keep showing the names, because I think it helps. But we transition to Friends of the Lock and Dam, and then Friends of the Falls, really recognizing our attention needed to be on the water. What does the river need? How can we really nurture her? And finally, in 2023 our name changed to Owámniyomni Okhódayapi, and that was under our new leadership, Shelly Buck. She’s a Prairie Island tribal member, also a former president of Prairie Island. But recognizing that we need to lead with Dakota language to Dakota place, and it needs to be recognized as such in our own vernacular.

Amanda Wigen 38:56

It translates to “friends of the falls.” So Owámniyomni is really a name for the area, not necessarily the falls itself, and Okhódaya iis to befriend or be friendly. And so it’s still very much the spirit of the organization. But embedded in it is the fact that organization is Dakota lead. Our board is over 50% Dakota representatives. Our president is Dakota, and that voice really comes first in all the work that we do.

Amanda Wigen 39:30

There are a number of people providing input for the project, not only community members, but we also have civic partners who are involved as well. City of Minneapolis. Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board are key players and how we were able to transition the land from the federal government to our own ownership, which will really complete at the end of this year. But it is, it’s it’s a project for everyone. I think the the thought that we can all have a better relationship with the land is something that it’s not solely a Dakota thought. And one of my colleagues says, “When Dakota eat, everybody eat.” So it’s it’s the goal is to broaden the table and just really bring the voices that have been silenced in a race to the fore.

Amanda Wigen 40:16

First and foremost, we’re working with the federal government. So even the idea of a land transfer required an act of Congress. There’s years of work to really bring all the stakeholders along at every level of government to be able to do that. Another challenge is, no, I think we and many others want this to be a land back project. We want this to represent the Dakota people, the Dakota tribes. We presented that to the four Dakota Nations in Minnesota, and they weren’t ready to accept ownership. They said, it’s not our job to restore stolen land. So we needed to find a solution that really gave them the voice and the power, but where there was no financial liability, there’s no legal liability, and we still met all the requirements of the City and the Army Corps. So Owámniyomni Okhódayapi, this nonprofit structure, has really stepped in as a bridge to accept that liability, to restore the land and bring it back to this healthy place and give the tribes that choice again. Would they like to own it at that point? But that in itself, is developing that structure, developing the trust between all of those parties to be able to move forward has been a challenge, but also one of the greatest successes of the project.

Amanda Wigen 41:41

Well, it’s interesting. I So, I grew up on the Mississippi, but a little further north, I was born in Monticello, and there, you know, the falls are not present. The river is very silent, very quiet, very still, and also very accessible. I mean, here in the Upper Mississippi, you can wade in. It’s very safe to certain extent, I guess, depending where you are. But we spent a lot of time in the river, and I take for granted how how rare that is in our state and throughout the entire length of the river. So when I think of a special place, I do tend to think of home more than downtown, but I think that’s just a lot of years there and a lot of time spent in the water.

Amanda Wigen 42:30

Looking ahead into the future, one of the main goals is that if you really interconnected with relatives, again, both human relatives, plant relatives, right now, it feels very isolated, particularly in our area, and as you said, cut off from from access. And so taking that wall down and making things more permeable and connected to the water, I think, is where I would like to see things. For our site in particular, maybe that means the physical lock has gone away. The dam itself probably cannot be removed, but there are things we could do to make the lock less invasive. I think there’s also an understanding that there isn’t a set vision of what it will look like, because there are too many factors in between. You know, a lower lock could be removed. There’s climate change, there’s flooding, there are all these factors. And so even our project, can I tell you what it will look like in 10 years or 20 years or 30 years? No, but as long as we’re developing that relationship in tandem, then I think there’s a comfort there that we’re moving in the right direction.

Amanda Wigen 43:39

Correct. We’ve really established different tactics for integrating Dakota voices and challenging kind of our bureaucratic Western process, and for community engagement, in particular, for design, and now we’re really working on how to integrate that into our maintenance principles. A key part of that is who’s doing the work. So we need to do trash pickup, we need to do snow removal, we need to do weeding, we need to do planting. And some of that makes sense to work with an outside contractor. But when we really want to get our hands in the dirt, we want to, we say, building a relationship with the land. It needs to be Dakota people touching Dakota land. And so we’re training staff in house. We’re working with volunteers. We’re hoping to bring in a lot of tribal members to help do that work. And so it’s it’s a different structure, it has different costs. There are a lot of different logistics involved that a normal park system or a normal land manager would approach in a different way. First and foremost, go see the water. Go touch the water. And I think, thank her. That’s that has really been a change in perspective since I’ve been working with the Owámniyomni Okhódayapi under its Dakota leadership is is giving the river. Personhood, acknowledging that she has a life of her own. So getting out, you know, recreating on the river is one thing, but really doing it together. How, what does the river get from my experience, and what do I get from the river’s experience? I think is a an important perspective for people to take on National Mississippi River Day.

Amanda Wigen 45:08

First and foremost, go see the water. Go touch the water. And I think, thank her. That’s that has really been a change in perspective since I’ve been working with the Owámniyomni Okhódayapi under its Dakota leadership is is giving the river personhood, acknowledging that she has a life of her own. So getting out, you know, recreating on the river is one thing, but really doing it together. How, what does the river get from my experience, and what do I get from the river’s experience? I think is a an important perspective for people to take on National Mississippi River Day.

Perry Whitaker 45:27

I’m Perry Whitaker, and I’m a kayaker. I’ve paddled the whole Mississippi, most of it multiple times. I’ve through paddled a few other rivers as well. I serve on a few outdoor related nonprofit boards, most related to rivers. And I just love being out there and introducing other people to this incredible resource. I think most people get started packing on the big river by packing on smaller rivers. I didn’t do that. Friend one day. Just said, “Hey, Perry, do you want to go kayaking?” I said, “Yes, sure.” And yeah, we started on the Mississippi, and then I found out about paddling on all these other rivers, and I just never looked back. It’s just been my favorite ever since I started there.

Perry Whitaker 46:24

About five or six times a year I take Scout troops on a multi day trip down the Mississippi, St Louis to Cape Girardeau, usually four days, three nights. We have done it faster than that, camping out on islands. There’s like 40 islands between St Louis and Cape, and we just plant our flag on any of them. Some of those islands are these big, beautiful sandy beaches that seem tropical in nature, and others are mosquito infested hell holes. And after I’ve made the trip a few times, I figured out which is which and basically it’s just a few days of of the kids learning about Native Americans and steamboats and early explorers. And I think a lot of times it’s the parents that want to go on this trip. And then my challenge is make sure the kids enjoy it, whether they want to or not.

Perry Whitaker 47:23

I was doing the trip by myself, and every time I went on that trip, I would learn something. And one day, I was just talking to a scout troop. It was a first aid class for a scout troop, and I mentioned that I did that, and one of the parents said, you should take us and, yeah, it kind of went downhill from there.

Perry Whitaker 47:45

A vast majority of the kids will find Native American artifacts, projectile points, arrowheads atlatl points. We’ll find fossils. I found a mastodon tooth out there, and when the river’s low, there’s steamboat wrecks along the Mississippi, 150 year old, 100, 150 year old steamboat wrecks. And it’s just an opportunity for the kids to really touch history. And one of the islands we camp out on is Hanging Dog Island. And it’s actually where the Cherokees, I don’t want to call it camped. It’s where they were as they’re waiting to cross the river during the Trail of Tears. And so we sit around the campfire and we tell that story. I think a lot of times the kids don’t fully appreciate this trip while we’re doing it, but my thought is, at some point they’ll be sitting in a college class and somebody will mention Trail of Tears, and that light’s going to come on, or they’re going to talk about this steamboat era, and the kids are going to remember that one steamboat they touched. And that’s that’s kind of my goal with it, is it’s kind of a slow burn teaching method.

Perry Whitaker 49:16

At some points, I’ll just get them to huddle up as we’re floating down the river, and I’ll just talk as we float, and other times we’ll pull over an island and we’ll search for arrowheads, or we’ll pull over to a steamboat wreck. When the river is low, and after I’ve done after I had done the trip a few times, I knew where all those places were, so it kind of put itself together for me.

Perry Whitaker 49:54

I’ve had absolute beginners out there. If. If they want to be there, they’ll enjoy it. If they don’t want to be there, then I still try to make them enjoy it. You know, there’s always that one kid that is kind of difficult to reach, but no experience really is necessary. The river does most of the work. I mean, it’s a long day, but the river does most of the work, and we just, they just need to control their kayaks. I see a lot of light bulbs above people’s heads. I mean, obviously not real light bulbs. But you know what I mean when we talk about some of the early explorers they had to learn about in school, and we say, Yeah, well, this is where Marquette and Jolliet stopped, and this is where Lewis and Clark stopped as they’re going to the Missouri River, and the kids will make that connection a lot of times. And sometimes when we there’s like, one steamboat wreck in particular I like to talk about, and it’s this, the Stonewall. And the kids really it seems like they really have a connection with that particular wreck, because the people who died on that steamboat wreck were buried right there by the river. So we, we have that whole conversation.

Perry Whitaker 51:39

I think a lot of times it’s the same impressions that everybody get. You know, we we’ve, we’ve lost our connection with this river. If you ask people about the Mississippi River, they’re going to say, well, there’s this bridge and then there’s that bridge, and they won’t make the connection. It’s this river is why St Louis is here, and that river is why Memphis is where it is. They tend to separate the historical Mississippi and the current Mississippi. And as I take kids or adults down there, I think a lot of times they start to make that connection that this is the Mississippi and it’s not two separate entities. Most of the scouts, and actually, I guess all of the scouts who go on this trip, they have experience with backpacking or car camping, and so camping, in and of itself, isn’t a new thing for them. And I, camping from a kayak or canoe is easier than backpacking. You know, the rivers carrying your weight for you and and I think it’s, it’s simpler than than backpacking.

Perry Whitaker 53:00

Well, earlier I mentioned Hanging Dog Island, and for me, that’s like one of my favorite places. It’s just because the history surrounding it, and I can’t find out how the island got its name, but that was my initial attraction to it. That’s such a cool name. I want to camp out there. But then I learned, well, yeah, this is where the Trail of Tears, this is where they camped as they were waiting to cross the river in the winter after they lost everything. And just, it’s very humbling, you know, to to sit there, and as a direct result of me camping there, I I hiked the northern route of the Trail of Tears, from eastern Tennessee down into Oklahoma. It’s like 800 miles. And the prime mover behind that was camping out on that island. And so I like that place a lot. And then Kaskaskia, where the Kaskaskia River runs into the Mississippi, the first capital of Illinois, was right there. It’s gone now, but my great, great, great, great grandfather served in the first Illinois House of Representatives there in Kaskaskia. I didn’t find that out until after I’d been there a few times. And you know, the the village of Kaskaskia, the fort there at Kaskaskia, and just a little bit upstream of their Fort de Chartres, I’m just, I’m just blown away about that history that I’d read about for so long, and it’s right here. I’m just, yeah, I just love it.

Perry Whitaker 55:02

So it might be hard for a lot of people to grasp this, but the river is in so much better shape than it was just a few decades ago. It’s cleaner now than it was, and I hope that trajectory continues. Rivers aren’t catching on fire like they did just a few decades ago. Yeah, there’s still way too much trash out there. And I’m river I’m at river cleanups all the time. Basically 31 states drain into the Mississippi River. And what that means is that if someone in one of those 31 states, if they throw a plastic bottle into the ditch behind their house, that that bottle floats down that ditch into a creek, into a bigger creek, into a river, and it ends up in the Mississippi and then to the Gulf of Mexico. And if we could just educate some people about how everyone lives upstream. I mean, everybody lives downstream, and it’s not a victimless crime to throw your trash in into a creek or into a river, because you’re affecting people downstream. And I don’t think people worry about that too much, until they realize that that trash they see out there came from somebody upstream, from throwing it in there. My friends and a lot of the organizations I work with, we pull out tons, literally tons of trash every year, out of the rivers. And it’s not tons like here’s a car and here’s some machinery. It’s 1000s and 1000s of plastic bottles. It’s tires, and because we can’t pull out the big, heavy stuff, otherwise it would be 1000s more tons. Yeah, and sometimes I feel I worry that we’re not even making a dent in the problem, but at the same time, I realized that we are making a dent in it.

Dean Klinkenberg 57:27

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the series on your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss out on future episodes. I offer the podcast for free, but when you support the show with a few bucks through Patreon to help keep the program going, just go to patreon.com/deanklinkenberg. If you want to know more about the Mississippi River, check out my books. I write the Mississippi Valley Traveler guidebooks for people who want to get to know the Mississippi better. I also write the Frank Dodge mystery series that’s set in places along the river. Find them wherever books are sold. The Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast is written and produced by me, Dean Klinkenberg. Original Music by Noah Fence. See you next time.

Lake Pepin is a natural widening in the main channel of the Mississippi River and one of the most popular sections of the river. In this episode, I have a wide-ranging conversation about the lake with Michael Anderson, Executive Director of the Lake Pepin Legacy Alliance. After we cover the basics about the lake (where it is, how it formed), we talk about the long human history in the region and delve into the lore about monsters that many believe inhabit the lake. We then take a virtual tour around the 100-mile perimeter of the lake, highlighting the communities and offering tips about what to visit, including recreational options such as paddling and hiking. We also take a brief detour to talk about one of my favorite events, Grumpy Old Men Days in Wabasha, which celebrates the joys of winter. We finish by talking about threats to the health of the lake, focusing mostly on sedimentation, and what the Lake Pepin Legacy Alliance and others are doing to address those threats. In the introduction, I offer a few additional tips on making the most of a visit to Lake Pepin.

Lake Pepin Legacy Alliance

Grumpy Old Men Days

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Sun, Apr 26, 2026 8:25AM • 1:13:35

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Lake Pepin, sedimentation, Mississippi River, Michael Anderson, Lake Pepin Legacy Alliance, outdoor recreation, ecological issues, human history, small towns, water quality, agricultural practices, wildlife, paddling, environmental advocacy, tourism.

SPEAKERS

Dean Klinkenberg, Speaker 1, Michael Anderson

Michael Anderson 00:00

Oh, yeah, monsters are real. We got monsters in the lake. We got fish monsters here. There, I mean, there are big fish, no doubt, there is the legend of Pepie, who is a, I would if I said a play on the Loch Ness monster that doesn’t give Pepie his full due. Because we all know Pepie is, of course, he looks like the Loch Ness monster, but, and he’s very real. I couldn’t say that about Loch Ness monster, but Pepie is a very real monster who lives in Lake Pepin.

Dean Klinkenberg 00:53

Welcome to the Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast. I’m Dean Klinkenberg, and I’ve been exploring the deep history and rich culture of the people and places along America’s greatest river, the Mississippi, since 2007. Join me as I go deep into the characters and places along the river, and occasionally wander into other stories from the Midwest and other rivers. Read the episode show notes and get more information on the Mississippi at MississippiValleyTraveler.com, let’s get going.

Dean Klinkenberg 01:26

Welcome to Episode 75 of the Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast, while the summer travel season is just around the corner, and in this episode, we’re going to offer a peek into one of the more popular sections of the Mississippi to explore, and that is the area we call Lake Pepin. Lake Pepin, as we discussed in this episode, is a natural lake that formed in the river’s main channel. My guest will explain more about the formation of the lake and talk some about the geology and the life in the lake. And that guest is Michael Anderson, who is the Executive Director of the Lake Pepin Legacy Alliance, in this episode.

Dean Klinkenberg 02:07

Then, besides those basics on the lake, we talk a little bit about monsters that might live in the lake. There have been a lot of there’s a lot of lore about monsters that inhabit Lake Pepin. So I had to ask him about that.

Dean Klinkenberg 02:20

Michael will also describe the long human history in the area around Lake Pepin, and we take a virtual trip around the lake with a few quick highlights of towns along the way, and some some tips for visiting the lake. And some of these communities. There are lots of opportunities for outdoor recreation. We talk about that as well.

Dean Klinkenberg 02:40

And then we get into more of the ecology issues. We talk about some of the threats that currently face Lake Pepin, which is mostly sedimentation. And Michael goes into some detail describing why sedimentation is a concern and how that has become an issue. He describes some of the work of the Lake Pepin Legacy Alliance and others to protect the health of Lake Pepin for future generations, and some current projects underway to restore areas that have silted in heavily.

Dean Klinkenberg 03:11

I do want to offer just a few more tips of my own for those of you who are thinking about maybe traveling up to that part of the lake, or that part of the Mississippi. So the area we’re talking about is just a little south of the Twin Cities. It’s a very popular place to visit, especially for folks with Twin Cities, summers can be very busy. So if you’re going to go, probably you need to do some advanced planning in the summer and into the fall, which is probably even busier if you’re going to be there on a weekend, especially, I highly recommend booking your accommodations in advance, and once you get there, you’ll see why this is such a popular place.

Dean Klinkenberg 03:48

There are scenic small towns all around the lake on both sides, in Minnesota and in Wisconsin, there are good places to eat, artist shops, and plenty of opportunities to get outside and enjoy yourself, whether it’s hiking or actually getting on the water. Two to three days feels like an ideal pace to me, although I know there are people who will try to drive the entire 100 mile loop in a few hours, I think that’s a shame. I think you really want to have some time to settle in and explore at a slower pace, to have the opportunity to enjoy a sunset or a sunrise, whichever is more your vibe, and just really take time to go deeper into appreciating what’s around this part of the Mississippi.

Dean Klinkenberg 04:31

You’ll find that most of the standard lodging options are in Red Wing and Lake City. You got a few more in Wabasha, but there are also a whole bunch of Airbnb options in places all around the lake. So if that’s your thing, you can check out Airbnb and find something there. If you’d like to know more, I have a whole chapter on Lake Pepin and the area around Lake Pepin in my book ‘Road Tripping the Great River Road,’ which is in its third edition. So you can order that at online retailers or just contact me directly. As always, the show notes for this episode will be at MississippiValleyTraveler.com/podcast. You can see a few pictures from Lake Pepin, as well as have access to all previous episodes at that same address.

Dean Klinkenberg 05:21

Thanks to those of you continue to show me some love through Patreon. Your support keeps this podcast going and makes me feel really good for as little as $1 a month, you can join the Patreon community and get early access to each of these episodes. Patreon not your thing. You can buy me a coffee. Go to MississippiValleyTraveler.com/podcast and there you’ll find out how to join Patreon or how to buy me a coffee, as well as looking up all those show notes and all the previous episodes.

Dean Klinkenberg 05:55

Well, let’s get on with the interview.

Dean Klinkenberg 06:07

Michael Anderson is the Executive Director of the Lake Pepin Legacy Alliance, where he leads efforts to reduce sedimentation, improve habitat and enhance public access across the Lake Pepin watershed in Minnesota and Wisconsin. He has over a decade of entrepreneurial experience centered on the Mississippi River in Wabasha, Minnesota, including founding an ecotourism paddling company that has introduced over 10,000 people to the Mississippi River in Lake Pepin. Alongside a dedicated team, Michael and his wife operate an organic vegetable farm in a nearby valley, using regenerative agriculture practices to promote soil and water health. His work focuses on translating science into practical on the ground solutions, and he continues to stay closely connected to the land and local community. Michael, welcome to the podcast.

Michael Anderson 07:00

Thank you, Dean. It’s great to be here. Great to talk with you.

Dean Klinkenberg 07:04

I’m proud to count myself among the 10,000 people who had the opportunity to get on the water with you. We’ll talk about paddling a little bit later, but I think there’s some really fantastic opportunities for paddling in the area that I know I want to spend a little bit of time talking about, but before we get into that, I’m just kind of curious, like, how you got connected to this part of the Mississippi like, how did, as I recall, you kind of grew up in the Twin Cities, or you had a Twin Cities connection. How did you end up spending so much of your your professional and private life now focused along this part of the river?

Michael Anderson 07:41

Yeah, well, that’s a is a great question. And I never was, you know, all this as a narrative arc for my life that I had imagined. I was living in northern Minnesota, actually, not far from the headwaters, maybe half hour from Lake Itasca, and I got an opportunity to run and manage and run a bed and breakfast in Wabasha, Minnesota on the Mississippi River. So a friend and I jumped on that opportunity with the big caveat that if we’re going to do this, which I know nothing about a bed and breakfast, we’re going to do kayaking too. So when we moved down here, we ran a B&B made, breakfast where people did that whole thing, but then would take our guests on guided kayak tours in the backwaters of the Mississippi. And so, like, that’s, that’s how I really sunk my teeth into this area, or how this area got into me. Is like, is exploring the backwaters and the main channel and Lake Pepin by kayak. And that has what has kept me going with Burke on the river. And partway through all that, I’ve met my wife here as she was farming on the Wisconsin side, and we now farm over on the Minnesota side, but we farm not far off the river in a little valley. And so I, you know, I’ve spent a lot of time days that go between being on the water to being in the farm, and it’s just a miraculously wonderful place to live.

Dean Klinkenberg 09:15

I can’t imagine a better like second occupation for somebody concerned about Lake Pepin and water quality in the in the Mississippi to also be farming, because farming practices have such an impact on the river water quality and the future of the river. We’ll get to threats about facing the lake Pepin area down the road here. But on your farming side of things, what’s your farm like? What are you growing there? How many acres? What’s that operation like?

Michael Anderson 09:44

Yeah, we grow organic vegetables, and the entire farm property is about 160 acres. Most, most of that is forest. There’s maybe ten or so in hazelnuts, ten or so acres in hazelnuts. Another fifteen-ish pasture. And then we have vegetables on about five acres or so, which includes, you know, a greenhouse and a few high tunnels. So the big plastics, you know, structures that look like greenhouses. We have several of those. So we grow in about, you know, we operate in about four or five acres here on the farm. So it’s not a lot. When you think of like a big corn and soy operation that are running 1000s of acres ours. Ours is small size wise in comparison. But we grow a lot of, you know, food that goes right to dinner tables.

Dean Klinkenberg 10:37

You grow a lot of the food we actually eat. Yes, and I imagine you have to have a fair amount of help even to manage a farm of that size.

Michael Anderson 10:47

Yeah, we do. We have every year, it’s around 5, 6 or 7 people that are here on the farm, you know, in varying part time capacities or seasonal capacities, but it takes a lot of hands. And my wife is, you know, full time, runs the farm, and it’s her brain child. She’s the engine behind it. And I get a, I get to fill in all the cracks, and I get to fix this or or, you know, cover crop that field, or fix the broken thing here and there. I do a lot of just, you know, filling in the small cracks,

Dean Klinkenberg 11:23

All right. Well, that’s great. So are you selling products in farmer’s markets? Like you grow enough to be able to have like a booth or stand in the local farmer’s markets?

Michael Anderson 11:35

We do, we do three farmers markets. Our largest one is in the cities in a suburb called Hopkins. And then we do it a farmer’s market here in Wabasha, just to be part of our community. And then same with Lake City as well, which is right on Lake Pepin. And I cannot imagine a better farmer’s market anywhere than the Lake City farmer’s market, if, if you’ve been to the new park they have downtown that’s right on the lake. It just overlooks the lake from our stand, and you see if they’re in the evening, so you catch a sunset over the lake. It’s just, it’s the most gorgeous farmer’s market that that we we started going to, thought we’d hand it off to a staff member, but then we just kept going to because it’s so beautiful.

Dean Klinkenberg 12:22

Yeah, I’ve been to that farmer’s market, and I kept getting distracted by the views. Yeah, there were a lot of produce there as well. But, yeah, that was a good farmer’s market, given the size of the community too. There’s a, there was a good selection of products there.

Michael Anderson 12:35

Yes, yeah, they’re, they’re for the size of the community. It is an amazing farmer’s market. It’s active. It has a lot of people. It’s got food trucks. It has music. The organizers have done a great job of that market. That’s why we love going to that one

Dean Klinkenberg 12:52

Well, so let’s talk a little bit about the lake itself then. You know, the beautiful lake that this farmer’s market overlooks. Tell us, I’m not sure everybody who listens to the podcast is familiar with all the geography of the river and how there are these really unique spots along the way. Tell us about, you know what Lake Pepin actually is, what makes it different and unique?

Michael Anderson 13:17

Yeah, so Lake Pepin is, it’s an actual lake on the Mississippi River. We’re part of the river. It’s a riverine lake, and it is created not due to a lock and dam, but a natural dam, or natural pinch point of the river, where the Chippewa River, which comes from Wisconsin, northern Wisconsin, through the towns of Eau Claire and Durand. When that hits the Mississippi, it has created a massive delta here. And that delta is what is backfilled everything in the valley behind it on the Mississippi River. And so that’s what created Lake Pepin. We we sit atop or upstream of that delta. And so it backed up the whole valley for 22 miles, all the way to just almost to the town of Red Wing.

Dean Klinkenberg 14:11

And about how wide is it? The water almost goes bluff to bluff in this section, right? So two and a half miles something around that?

Michael Anderson 14:21

Yeah, where the average, I think, is around 1.7 but yeah, you’ll get some wider spots and narrower spots in that. But yeah, you could bluff to bluff is a great way to describe it. And some areas you’ll have a terrace here, where there’s like Lake City is on a terrace. But when water goes bluff to bluff, you just get dramatic viewpoints of, you know, water coming close up to the to the bluff edge.

Dean Klinkenberg 14:47

And in terms of depth of that stretch, it’s a little deeper than the main channel of the Mississippi typically is in the Upper Mississippi.

Michael Anderson 14:57

Yeah, yeah. Well, the. It’ll be deeper than the navigational channel. It depends where you are on the lake, but as you get further down the lake, you get less sediment that drops out, and most of it will drop out ahead of the lake. So you get a lot deeper areas down there than you do up by the town of Bay City, for example, which is at the head of the lake. But once you get down past Lake City and and almost to Reads Landing, you get deeper water down there.

Dean Klinkenberg 15:29

Because there are some different characteristics in this stretch of the river. Is the, do we have any differences in the animal life, the fish life, or what you know, the ecosystems or habitats in Lake Pepin, then you might see in other parts of the Mississippi or the main channel of the river.

Michael Anderson 15:49

Yeah, you get because the water here slows and settles down, and nutrients will will or sediment and nutrients will slow and settle down. And we can not always, but we can have, like a stratification in the lake, where a river is not going to have a stratified layer, meaning like a warm top layer and a cold bottom layer, and so that will attract different fish or push fish around to different layers of the water column. So when you’re in the main channel, it’s a lot more just, you know, for all intensive purposes, thinking about it, it’s just, you know, fast moving water straight in a line. Obviously it curves a little bit. But here, because you it’s so wide, gets so slow, in comparison, you have, you have that stratification, you have different nutrients dropping out. You’ll get vegetation growing in a way that you don’t once you’re in the main channel and the main corridor of the river. And so that’s going to attract all kinds of different fish life and duck life that area water fowl compared to what you’re going to see on on the main channel of the river. So it has it. It has a lot of what you might see, or a lot of what you’re going to see on a lake in this area of the country. And then once you quickly exit towards Reads Landing, you’re back into main channel life in backfire life.

Dean Klinkenberg 17:23

Right. So are there different fish then, or bigger fish, or, like, what?

Michael Anderson 17:27

I think you’re largely going to get, I don’t, I shouldn’t speak with, you know, like, I’m not a professional fisherman, so I couldn’t say that exactly, but you’re going to get some differences of what you’re going to see are going to catch here on the lake versus when you’re in the navigational channel or on the on a side channel, but you’re going to get all the same fish that are at least passing through, you know? So if you’re if it’s something that is downstream of the lake, you’re going to have it upstream of the lake, you’re going to have it passing through the lake.

Dean Klinkenberg 18:02

I remember in reading some of the early journals, or the journals where early European explorers who were passing through it wasn’t unusual for them to get warnings or maybe advice from Native Americans nearby to watch out for monsters in the lake. Does that ring a bell to you? Like, what do you what do you know about those stories about, you know, monsters that were famously inhabiting this, this body of water?

Michael Anderson 18:31

Oh, yeah, monsters are real. We got monsters in the lake. We got fish monsters here. There. I mean, there are big fish. No doubts. There is the legend of Pepie, who is a, I would if I said a play on the Loch Ness monster that doesn’t give Pepie his full due, because we all know Pepie is, of course, he looks like the Loch Ness monster, but, and he’s very real. I couldn’t say that about Loch Ness monster, but Pepie is a very real monster who lives in Lake Pepin. And that, that’s all I have to say about Pepie.

Dean Klinkenberg 19:08

And with a name like Pepie, it sort of implies a friendliness or a cuddliness almost.

Michael Anderson 19:14

Yeah, he’s cute. He’s cuddly. If you go out in the lake in the middle of night in a rowboat, he’ll come out and, you know, you can hang out with Pepie.

Dean Klinkenberg 19:24

And I’m sure there’s no shortage of shops in Lake City or other areas where you can get a nice t shirt saying, I saw Pepie, or, you know, watch out for Pepie, something like that.

Michael Anderson 19:33

Yeah, you could get your Pepie gear. I feel like I’ve seen a Pepie book. I’ve never seen a Pepie tattoo. That would be the one thing I haven’t seen yet. Yeah, we do have, we do have Pepie, Pepie paraphernalia that you can get.

Dean Klinkenberg 19:50

So this would have been the traditional homeland of the Dakota people. Do we, what do we know about their relationship with this particular area, with Lake Pepin itself, or did they have what words do they use to describe the lake? Do we know anything about that part of the history or the story of the lake?

Michael Anderson 20:13

Since this area, the whole Mississippi, as you know, is a corridor a highway for the Dakota people, and this area had a couple, I had numerous, what’s the correct term, encampments or villages? Wabasha was one. Red Wing was one. But no doubt many other places along the lake and up and so it was used extensively to my understanding what I’ve been told, you know, seasonally, where people would, people would come during certain times of the year and then head up into the bluffs during certain times of the year. And in fact, one of the something I recently learned was the earliest form of cultivation of plants. You could call it agriculture, if you want, was in Minnesota. So in the whole Upper Midwest in Minnesota was found on a little valley right on the edge of Lake Pepin and a place called King’s Cooley. It’s on the Minnesota side, near, near Reads Landing near Camp Lacupolis, in the little spot that you see on maps called Maple Springs. They found squash feeds there that they radio carbon data to 2500 years ago. So as the first form that they’ve ever found of plant cultivation in this area of the country. So that’s how far they get data back based upon this one site here near near Camp Lacupolis, King’s Cooley.

Dean Klinkenberg 21:54

All right.

Michael Anderson 21:54

Yeah, it’s got a rich history of the Dakota and of the various peoples before it too.

Dean Klinkenberg 22:03

Yeah. A couple episodes ago, I had Julie Zimmerman on and talking about Cahokia down here in St Louis, and Mississippian culture. And there’s a Mississippian site just outside of Red Wing, up in the bluffs around Red Wing, I believe, right?

Michael Anderson 22:19

Yeah, near Frontenac State Park. I don’t know if that’s the one that you’re referring to, but that that has some sites in it as well. And I’ve met private landowners who have some on their on their land, to on some bluffs I overlook the river around here, have some, have some mounds on their land.

Dean Klinkenberg 22:44

So the the first Europeans to come in were French, and so what, what did they do when they when they get to this area, what will, what was their primary interest?

Michael Anderson 22:59

When I think so. I’m like, one of the earliest that we speak about is Hennepin coming through. And he was coming through in, I think the late 1600s, 1680 rings a bell, and he was charged to to head out. I think they might have been at the confluence of the Illinois in the Mississippi, he was charged to head upstream with a couple others to, I’m not sure the point other, if it was to look for suitable sites for for trading, or for, I’m sure, economic, financial reasons at the heart of it. He made it to Lake Pepin, and then was captured by some by Dakota, and was brought up to Mille Lacs. And then from there, some other trader had found out about it and negotiated his release from Mille Lacs. But in that whole journey is when he discovered is definitely not the right word, you could say that in big quotes, but when he saw St. Anthony Falls in, and named St Anthony Falls in Minneapolis, it was on that on that same trip, and I believe that was where the name on that trip often have been given the name for Lake Pepin, as ‘Lake of Tears’ with various meanings as to tears. And I think it was when he to the best of my recollection, when he was and his crew was captured by Dakota. They were brought somewhere on Lake Pepin. And it came from that night that, in his telling, that the Dakota warriors that captured him were crying and about whether they should put him to death or not. And so ‘Lake of Tears’ comes from that. That’s my understanding of that. I think Hennepin was known for grandiose tales and. And making things seem bigger than they needed to be, or smaller if he wanted them to. And I think he embellished quite a bit.

Dean Klinkenberg 25:08

He did acquire quite a reputation for embellishment I think, so. I just assumed, you know, the Lake of Tears was, you know, his own tears. You know, he associated it with his kidnapping, and maybe that’s why he called that area Lake of Tears. Luckily, that name didn’t stick.

Michael Anderson 25:24

Luckily. So yeah, and that, that makes way more sense than than the the other story I read. But you know, he definitely would have told it that way.

Dean Klinkenberg 25:33

Yeah, they were probably his tears. I’m I think we can assume.

Michael Anderson 25:37

I think that’s so, yeah.

Dean Klinkenberg 25:40

So the area today is really one of the more interesting and scenic parts of the Mississippi to visit that I know it’s a very popular day trip, especially from the Twin Cities. I hope people actually stick around longer and spend more time in the area. But what’s interesting to me is that it’s mostly small towns around this lake. The biggest city is Red Wing, which is what, 14,000 people or so.

Michael Anderson 26:09

Yeah? About that? Yeah.

Dean Klinkenberg 26:11

So tell us a little bit about these communities that ring Lake Pepin today. Let’s kind of go with that from Red Wing down to Wabasha, and we’ll work our way back up.

Michael Anderson 26:22

Yeah, take the, take a loop around the lake. I like that. That’s a great drive. Yeah, Red Wing at it. Is it the biggest town here, around the lake, and it has maybe the most industrial output, and traditionally has in any of the other towns. It’s not big, but it’s, it’s like us, you know, county, regional and small regional town. So that’s where Red Wing shoes is. What else is from their Red Wing Pottery is there. They also have large grain terminals that ADM has that there. And I’m no doubt missing some other businesses, but it has a lot of, Sturdiwheat is another big one there too. It has a lot of economic engine behind it, and then downstream from there you get Lake City. Lake City is much smaller population, maybe around four or 5,000 if I’m correct, my memory is correct. Beautiful town. It’s like it’s situated right in the middle of the lake, overlooks the whole lake. It’s just it’s a very gorgeous town, beautiful town, and they’ve done a lot to center their downtown with the recent remodeling of their park to really focus on the lake. It’s the birthplace of water skiing too. They were, they were the the town of Lake City would be remiss if I didn’t mention that,

Dean Klinkenberg 27:49

You’re legally required to mention that, so.

Michael Anderson 27:52

I think it has a large history of button making. So I used to make buttons from oyster shells or mussel shells back in the day, and so a lot of that it took place all around communities of the lake, but there was a large place in Lake City that did it, and I believe there’s still a store there. Not that they do that anymore, and I don’t even know if that would be legal anymore, but they definitely talk about the history. And there’s a store, I think, called the Pearl Button Factory down there, yeah. From there, you bypass just, you know, a little camp called Camp Lacupolis, that is just, you know, maybe trailers and a general store. And then you get down to Reads Landing. Reads Landing is also a very small town, but was at one point just a booming town. All the logs that came out of northern Wisconsin would kind of hole up there over the winter. And it had, I will, I’ll just say, give a broader range. It had maybe a dozen or so hotels and bars and restaurants and everything that came with that in the late or in the mid, late 1800s so it was really a booming town at that point. And right now there’s a great restaurant / brew pub that’s there. It has a bed and breakfast. And in terms of, like, businesses that’s, that’s really about all that’s there these days, but it’s an absolutely beautiful town. It’s very small, but it’s like, it’s a cool, cool spot. It’s great to pull off the river right there.

Dean Klinkenberg 29:31

Right and exactly right at the spot where the lake becomes the river.

Michael Anderson 29:34

Yes, yeah, it’s right at that it’s, it’s such a cool junction. You have the Chippewa River, the Mississippi and Lake Pepin just above it like you can catch pretty dramatic sunsets from that area. It’s gorgeous. Yeah, once you leave Reads Landing, you’re just a quick drive down to Wabasha here. And Wabasha is a as a little river town. I live in Wabasha, so I’m biased how great it is, but it’s oldest river town, oldest town of Minnesota, which is in from the 1830s I have never seen an exact date, but 1830s is how long Wabasha has been incorporated as a city. And it has. We have the National Eagle Center here, which attracts, you know, over 100,000 people every year, who are small town of 2500 and our downtown, our Main Street, it’s right on the river. It the railroad tracks that go up and down both sides of the Mississippi over by Wabasha are set back from the river, maybe almost a mile or so, so you have a downtown that, you know is quiet. You don’t have the trains coming through. You hear that nice, lonesome train whistle in the distance, but you have a nice, quiet, walkable downtown, and it’s a beautiful stop. Lot of tourists come here, and you know, we have a few marinas, entire two marinas in town. So it’s just a booming place in the summer. Our population explodes. And so this is the place where you can cross the river. You get a bridge up by Red Wing, then Wabasha, and then further down is Winona. So once you cross here, you go through Nelson. Nelson is a great little town. It has the Nelson Cheesecake Factory, which is attracts people from all over. It’s got my favorite Wisconsin County bar, called The Top Hat Bar. And as you keep going up river, you’re now in what’s called the West Coast of Wisconsin, and how they branded themselves. And so you get, you get to the town of Pepin, named after the lake. It’s got great some great restaurants. It has, like, a couple wineries and several wedding venues, like, really, over the top, beautiful wedding venues there. So if you want to drop lots of money, I know Pepin is a place to do it, and Stockholm. Once you leave Pepin, you get to Stockholm, which is just an adorable little town of 86 people. I haven’t checked the sign lately. 86, 76. I used to live there, so I was one of those people when I left, they they flipped the sign down. So like 85. It’s a great little town with probably one of the best pie shops around that I was just at last weekend eating a nice slice of cherry pie. And then you come through Maiden Rock. Maiden Rock is another just classic river town with like, a cool art scene and beautiful views right on the river. And last but not least, you get to come all the way to Bay City, where Bay City also has, it has a great river access, a wonderful beach, one of my favorite beaches, because it looks down the entire, not the entire because there’s a big turn in the lake, but it looks down miles of Lake Pepin just from the beach. It’s just a beautiful spot and good access to the main channel the river from Bay City. And yeah, another, another beautiful place. Great restaurant there called Chef Shack, which is a famous restaurant here in the Twin Cities area. So it’s just like a beautiful drive. I think, think I walk through what the drive takes. Maybe, like, if you’re not stopping, you’re going to do it an hour, but you should probably stop and take two days to do it, probably.

Dean Klinkenberg 33:30

Absolutely, I think I clocked at once. It’s about 100 miles, I think, to do the whole loop from Red Wing, yeah, back up. So, yeah, if you never stopped. You know, that’s a couple of hours driving time, tops. I don’t know why you would do that, but.

Michael Anderson 33:45

No, yeah, you got to stop.

Dean Klinkenberg 33:47

Yeah. And what I just love is like, like, these are just small river towns. These are old, traditional river towns. Many of them have beautiful architecture, or some historic buildings, a lot of brick. And a lot of the towns have their own sort of little niche with some kind of historic site or connection. Pepin’s got the Laura Ingalls Wilder connection. Of course, we can’t short Wabasha in their Grumpy Old Men connection.

Michael Anderson 34:14

So yes, yeah, the town does love to him up their Grumpy Old Men festival. We have it every, every February, or you gotta wear plaid.

Dean Klinkenberg 34:26

I’ve been twice.

Michael Anderson 34:27

You’ve been twice?

Dean Klinkenberg 34:28

I’ve been twice.

Michael Anderson 34:31

It’s, it’s pretty it’s pretty wild. Yeah, you can really, you can jump into the frozen river. Did you do that Dean? Did you jump in into the water when you were here?

Dean Klinkenberg 34:38

I did not jump in the frozen river.

Speaker 1 34:41

Okay, yeah, that’s probably wise.

Dean Klinkenberg 34:44

Maybe some sometime in the future.

Michael Anderson 34:48

Yeah, next time, if you’re planning to do that, let me know. I’ll come jump with you.

Dean Klinkenberg 34:51

All right, good. I don’t even know what I’d have to do to prepare for something like that, but probably the less thinking, the better.

Michael Anderson 34:59

Yeah. Yeah, I have done it once here, in other places, several times you just, you can’t think about what you’re about to do. You just got to do it sometimes, like in an inner, inner liquid coat, does the trick too. Yeah, you want to just not think about it. Just jump in.

Dean Klinkenberg 35:18

Yeah. I had a great time, although I was reminded that ice fishing is not exactly a spectator sport.

Michael Anderson 35:27

Yeah, were you ice fishing?

Dean Klinkenberg 35:31

I was watching a little bit just but, yeah, not not made for TV. That’s for sure,

Michael Anderson 35:40

Definitely not made for TV. That’s funny, though. Yeah, it’s, it can be it can be fun. If you’re in there, most of the time you’re if you’re in an ice shack, you’re playing cards with someone, and that’s pretty, playing cards is pretty fun.

Dean Klinkenberg 35:54

Yeah, yeah, there’s plenty to do. I don’t know if the church still does it, but there was the hot dish buffet at the local church.

Michael Anderson 36:04

Yes, I I’ve had that a couple times there. Yeah, yeah, hot dish buffet. And then there’s another one at that church does. That’s like a salad luncheon, which is just, it’s every church basement fellowship hall you can think of, crammed into like, one setting. It’s pretty great. I recommend it.

Dean Klinkenberg 36:25

Hey, Dean Klinkenberg here, interrupting myself, just wanted to remind you that if you’d like to know more about the Mississippi River, check out my books. I write the Mississippi Valley Traveler guide books for people who want to get to know the Mississippi better. I also write the Frank Dodge mystery series that is set in places along the Mississippi. My newest book, The Wild Mississippi, goes deep into the world of Old Man River. Learn about the varied and complex ecosystems supported by the Mississippi, the plant and animal life that depends on them, and where you can go to experience at all. Find any of these wherever books are sold.

Dean Klinkenberg 37:04

Yeah, one of the other really unique places around the lake too is like old Frontenac,

Michael Anderson 37:11

Yeah, yeah.

Dean Klinkenberg 37:12

It started as a resort community, but now I guess it’s all private houses.

Michael Anderson 37:18

Yeah, exactly. It started as resorts and generally all private now. There’s at least on the waterfront side of things. It’s got a public beach. I should, shouldn’t say it’s all private. There’s public beach there that is a great beach. It is. You’re right on the lake. It’s like a beautiful spot. And I it’s always quiet when I’m there. It’s never packed or busy. But I mean, so so is the life down here. It’s never that packed, which is kind of how we like it. This beach feels so tucked away that it doesn’t get that busy. So pro tip. Check out. Check out the beach in Old Frontenac, Florence Township Beach. It’s a great little spot.

Dean Klinkenberg 38:04

I recall. I’m blanking on the name of the church now, but there was a church in Frontenac too, that was essentially unchanged from when it was built in the late 1800s like if you wanted to see a church, I may look it up and add a note about it in the show notes, but I always like finding those structures that give you a peek into the past, and they hadn’t made too many alterations to the building over time.

Michael Anderson 38:28

Oh cool, not familiar with it. That’s That’s very cool. The, I was told that the town hall of Florence, town hall, which is includes Old Frontenac, is, I think, the oldest town hall in the state of Minnesota, I think is what I is what I recently learned, and that I was driving by, and it’s right on highway 61 and I thought it would be like tucked away in a glamor spot, but I think it’s right on the highway. So not easy to miss

Dean Klinkenberg 39:03

It’s next to the diner, isn’t it? Right, Close?

Michael Anderson 39:05

Yeah, right next to Whistle Stop.

Dean Klinkenberg 39:07

Yeah,

Michael Anderson 39:07

Exactly, yeah.

Dean Klinkenberg 39:11

So obviously, like one of the thing, there are many recreational opportunities around the lake, which is part of the reason that people like going there. I imagine there are a lot of weekenders from the Twin City that Twin Cities maybe grab a room somewhere for a night. And can you just give us, like, a sense of like, the range of things to do recreationally in the area?

Michael Anderson 39:33

Oh yeah, there’s tons of stuff to do, whether you’re on the water or up in the bluffs. There’s tons of hiking. It seems that you’ll find some more hiking trails clustered on the Minnesota side. But when you’re on Wisconsin side, you get one of my favorite hiking trails, which is Maiden Rock Bluff that is between Maiden Rock and Stockholm and overlooks, overlooks Lake Pepin, you’re up very high. And very close to the water, and you get right to the edge, you overlook the whole lake. It’s a beautiful spot. It’s also where I got married. And so, like, I’m partial to that spot.

Dean Klinkenberg 40:11

Wow. Great choice. I had a picture from there on one of my book covers.

Michael Anderson 40:15

Oh, really.

Dean Klinkenberg 40:16

Yeah, it did not include a wedding photo, though, just me standing on the bluff. Yeah, yeah, that’s a great spot.

Michael Anderson 40:24

Beautiful spot. And then, and then, once you get on, on, on, you know, down there’s the river, there are ample opportunities to get on the lake there. Whether you’re want to hire a sailboat, you can go out sailing on the lake. You can go, not parasailing, what’s the correct term, hang gliding over the lake. And you can go, you can rent kayaks, rent canoes and take them up to the lake if you like. Or one of the most popular spots to go paddling is right in the Chippewa River Delta, right at the end of the lake. You can rent canoes and kayaks there. And there are miles and miles of backwaters to paddle paddle over there. It’s a beautiful place. So yeah, a lot of lot of paddling that can be done here. And of course, there’s tons of pleasure crafts too. So people out in the river, in their in their power boats, and just finding a sandbar somewhere on the lake or on the river. And some of those sandbars in the summer, on a weekend, are just lined with boats, just fully packed with people. So if you look, if you’re looking for, you know, more quiet sometimes those weekday, the weekdays there are, are pretty calm and pretty nice.

Dean Klinkenberg 41:40

Yeah. And I imagine in fall there’s a lot of traffic too, as people come down to check out fall colors.

Michael Anderson 41:48

Yeah, the leaf peepers, you could call them. There’s a lot of people coming on down. It’s for the just epic views around the lake that you get, and driving through the valleys here in the Driftless you just get outstanding views of the colors. So yeah, we have, we have a lot of people will come that time of year too. Kind of a lull once school starts, but then it picks back up right around the end of September through October.

Dean Klinkenberg 42:15

Yeah. So one of the things I know, really impressed me about it, too, is just, you know, you you have a couple of very different on the water opportunities, like the sailboats are great. I’ve done it once. I was lucky enough to get on a sailboat once, and it was such a relaxing evening. It was a sunset trip out. Just a great way to relax. And you’re out in open water, you know? So it’s got that expansive feeling. And in contrast, you can go down to Wabasha and you can join Broken Paddle Paddling Company kayak and take a kayak tour through the Chippewa Delta, as you mentioned, which is much a dense forest, dense wetland forest. I know you described a little bit, but can you tell us a couple things you really loved about the experience of taking people through there.

Michael Anderson 43:04

Yeah, oh, man, I loved so much about it. Where do I start? I’m a large you zoom out when you, when I get, when you get to bring someone through that area from where you start to where you enter onto the main channel, you’ve gone through about three miles of backwaters, and it’s like you started with a different person than is now on the main channel. It’s the backwaters. It’s such an intimate space. It’s closer. The channels are smaller. You’re in a more intimate craft, it just calms you and relaxes you, and you just kind of shed away everything that you came there with. It’s such a relaxing space for people to explore. And so that’s one of the things as a as a river guy I loved, was getting to help people find even just a couple hours of peace and relaxation, paddling through that area and like that area, to describe it a little more are these miles and miles of weaving channels that interconnect and splice together. And some are, you know, as narrow as 10 feet wide, and as big you might get a channel that’s 50 feet wide. So they’re never that big, and they’re always moving with the current. And something depends on the flood regime, if it’s faster slow, and if it’s really flooding, the whole backwater is flooded. Now you’re now you get a paddle through a giant, slowly moving river that’s in a forest and there’s no land anywhere. It’s the most surreal thing that that we get to do around here is paddle the backwater during the flood. There’s nothing else like that. It’s unique experience. It’s so I, you know, I can recommend it with all my heart. It’s a beautiful place to be and paddle.

Dean Klinkenberg 45:07

Yeah, boy, that should be on anybody’s bucket list if you’re, especially if you’re interested in the Mississippi, the chance to have a an on the water experience through a floodplain forest during a high water period. It is kind of surreal, but it’s awesome. And through those backwaters too, or through those all those side channels, are usually a lot more opportunities to see wildlife. I remember when you and I went out, we saw quite a bit. I know we saw a bald eagle, and can’t remember everything off top my head now, but I know we had a pretty good paddle where we saw a lot of different wildlife just in a couple of hours.

Michael Anderson 45:43

Yeah, lots of bald eagles there. So many bald eagles on the Mississippi River here. That’s why the National Eagle Center is in watershed. Typically, we see things like beaver. Otter don’t see as often, but when you do, it’s pretty special. So a lot a lot of like beaver you’ll see swimming around, and muskrats will see swimming around. Those are some common things we see. You don’t often see deer, but you’ll often hear deer, because they see you first, and they’ll run away so they hear them running away. And yeah, but eagles is really the thing we see the most about i I’ve only ever I’ve done so many tours, and I’ve only seen, not seen an eagle one time. And it was the funniest time, because I had, I was taking out a TV show, a travel TV show that was all the way here from Japan, and they wanted to see bald eagles, and so we took them on the river. And was like, “Don’t worry, we got this. We see bald eagles every time.” That was the only time I didn’t see a bald eagle out of like, you know, I think over 300 tours that I’ve personally been on. I just couldn’t believe it. I think it’s because I was like, asking. Was asking the backwaters to show me something. I was demanding it almost, and it’s like, no, you don’t control us. We’re not going to show ourselves today.

Dean Klinkenberg 47:07

So funny how that goes. So I imagine there must be plenty of people that kayak on their own through that area. What are a couple of tips you would offer to people who have their own boats and just kind of want to explore on their own, I would guess it’d be kind of easy to get turned around or get lost or.

Michael Anderson 47:27

Yeah, yes, it can be easy to get turned around if you’re doing if you’re paddling in the backwaters and there, it’s easy to do a lot of A to B trips, trip that start in one location and end in another, because we’re on a river, finding a route where you can come back to where you started, is it definitely doable, just not as common as the A to B trips. There are some great loop routes in the backwaters in between the towns of Wabash and Nelson, right off the dike road that goes between the two. So you can, you can start where you’re in there. That’s a great spot. Lake Pepin, of course, you can start and end. It’s a giant lake you can put in on the shore. And all the towns that I’ve mentioned have public access, so you can get in, go paddle around and come on back. The one safety tip I’ll give to Pepin is it’s a lake that has a is long. So it can have a long the fetch is long, so you can get a lot of waves and wave action there. So it’s best to pay attention to the wind when you’re on Pepin, or even go out in the in the early morning or late, or not too late, but later evening, when things have calmed down. But there’s, there’s tons of Lake Pepin opportunities too.

Dean Klinkenberg 47:29

Well, I mean, this is all great. You know, we’re doing a good job I think of selling Lake Pepin and all there is to see and do there, and how fantastic this stretch of the river is. But the reality is also there are some very significant threats to the river or to the lake. So can you tell us a little bit about what’s happening with that? What are some of the most serious threats facing the health of Lake Pepin these days?

Michael Anderson 47:29

The most serious threat that Lake Pepin faces is sedimentation. So by that, I mean the slowly, the slow infilling of Lake Pepin from sediment that comes from upstream. So that’s the big issue that Lake Pepin deals with, in that L.P.L.A., Lake Pepin Legacy Alliance spends a lot of our energy working on and and that happens here, well, I guess we should start upstream, where it all comes from. Most of it, our sediment comes almost 80% of it comes from the Minnesota River Basin. So if, if you’re not from this area, that’s kind of you know more, I. You got to go up river, and then you kind of go angle. Then you got to take a take a hard left, and then you go up the Minnesota River for a while. So you know, as the crow flies, maybe an hour and a half drive from where we are right now. That’s where most of our sediment comes from, and it comes from not directly. It’s not soil washing off of farm fields. That’s what we typically think. Where it comes from, is what is called near channel erosion. And what that is, is all that excess water that we have in the system, water that sheds from drain tile on farms and from having more increased rainfall events than we’ve ever had. I think we have about four on average. We’re almost four, four inches more of rain per year in Minnesota than we used to have, you know, like a century ago. So we have tons of water, and we have it getting dumped it off the landscape quicker via drain tile. But you could think of it as just plumbing under farm fields. And so we have all this water coming into the river. The River then is eroding its own banks, and the ravines around the river, around the river erode themselves, and that gets quickly put into the river. So all that is called near channel erosion, and that is what makes it down to Lake Pepin. So we get 80% of the sediment that is in Lake Pepin. 80% of that does come from, comes from the Minnesota River. And so once that comes to Pepin, we act as a settling basin. So all that sediment just drops out once it gets here. And so on the upper end of the lake, at the head of the lake near the towns of Bay City, and just downstream out of the town of Red Wing near Wacouta, is another name place here in those areas, see the brunt of that sedimentation. So the lakes getting shallower, islands are building up where there never were islands, and because of that, you get a lot more turbidity. So turbidity is like cloudiness of water. We have all this sediment, and the waves will kick it up because it’s so shallow, and we get cloudy water. Therefore we get lack of vegetation growing, and lack of vegetation, you’re going to have lack of oxygen, lack of fish, etc, etc, like it’s just going to it just keeps going down. So the head of the lake really is where we see the most drastic issues of sedimentation. And so that’s where we have focused our efforts here in the lake, as well as our efforts upstream to try and stop that, stop erosion on those near channel sources as best we can. And that’s a large problem to work with, to work on. That’s where we’re putting energy. We’ve as an organization, we’ve accomplished a project with Army Corps of Engineers, where they’re actually dredging out areas that have filled in with sedimentation, purpose building some islands that will reduce that wind and reduce that turbidity, allow vegetation to grow, digging out some deep spots that will allow fish to come in, which will bring waterfall in the area. So we have a big project, like a $25 million project that the Army Corps of Engineers is is soon to complete, maybe the end of this year, that was really highlighting some of the downstream fixes, mitigation to the issue that is coming from upstream.

Dean Klinkenberg 53:42

Is that project the one concentrated around Bay City?

Michael Anderson 53:45

Yes, correct. That’s right around Bay City.

Dean Klinkenberg 53:47

Yep. So I’ll summarize this for myself too, as I understand it too, like part of the problem here is that the Minnesota River cuts through old glacial plains. There’s a lot of very fine sediment that erode easily. So because of the changing in conditions with drain tiles, you know, the drainage tiles and then heavier rainfall, the those soils wash into the rivers more easily. And they come down the Minnesota River meet the Mississippi just south of downtown Minneapolis. And then as they flow down stream, and they hit that still water, or very slow flow at Lake Pepin, then that sediment starts to drop out. So as you said early on, then you get that concentration of sediment falling out at the head of the lake. Get gets the brunt of that,

Michael Anderson 54:42

Yeah, that’s perfect. That’s very. It’s very concisely put. That is, that is the issue that we face here we and there’s a reason a lot of like agencies will will use Lake Pepin as a reference point for information, for what. Happens upstream, because we can see those effects here so cleanly. You know, you can see the the rate of sedimentation from before settlement, pre-settlement and then going through the 1900s, you know, going through all the way till today. You can see those in sediment cores here in the lake, as compared to other areas where you just don’t, you can’t, because you don’t have that same effect.

Dean Klinkenberg 55:23

So give us a sense of how different it is today. Because I think a lot of people would think, well, you know, there’s always been sediment in these rivers. There’s always rivers are always changing channels, moving things around a little bit. So what’s so different about what’s happening today?

Michael Anderson 55:37

Yeah, yeah, fair question, and it’s, it’s it’s not that sediment by itself is bad, like they’re, you know, set of those are nutrients that are applied, you know, to the river and help create and move and shift islands. We receive here in Lake Pepin 10 times more than we used to. So the lake, if left to its own devices of sedimentation modeled out it would be, it would be a lake as is for about 3500 years, and that that time span has been reduced by tenfold. So now, if we continue to farm at the way we do, and if, if we have rainfall events like we have continued to have, and if they get worse, we’re at maybe 350 years of this lake’s existence, and that’s going to start up here at Bay City, where it’s already starting, and slowly work its way downstream, creating side channels, creating islands In the middle of a lake, creating shallow spots. Yeah. So to get back to your question, set about sediment, like, was it is a bad or is it good? Too much is bad and a little bit is a normal, normal process of landscape river interaction.

Dean Klinkenberg 57:00

So part of the challenge, I imagine for you is that some of this is driven by modern agricultural practices. And so how much headway have you had working with farmers to reduce the impact of the drainage tiles on water quality, on sediment load in the Minnesota River and down river?

Michael Anderson 57:25

Almost everybody who works on this issue here in Minnesota has made very small inroads into drain drainage tile. The way it works is, if a farmer wants to tile a piece of land, he goes to his local here, she goes to their local RCS office or SWCD, which are kind of right next to each other. SWCD is here is our like environmental account office, applies for the permit, and as long as they’re generally just given the permit. Basically there, there’s not too many, there’s not a rigorous application or anything strict that they have to go through. Then they can send that water off their off their land, and they’re the rules and regulations around where it goes, what it does, or where it goes, aren’t entirely strict. So there has been movement in in Minnesota, in some environmental advocacy circles, to adjust rules around drain tile that would help, that would help the situation, but that that’s going to be a hard sell in in a state that relies its farming sector. A large part of it relies on drain tile to farm the land they farm. So much of the area that is farmed in the Minnesota River Basin used to have lots of Oracle like prairie potholes and wetlands in it, and you know, you could have your farm around those but now that people have put in drain tile you can farm what used to be lakes and what used to be wetlands and ponds. So that’s it would be really hard, if not impossible, to reverse that trend and build more wetlands and things like that. So the biggest thing that that that we are focusing on at LPLA is we’re looking at a slice of the landscape of ravines, and that ravines contribute disproportionate amount of sediment relative to their their percent of the landscape. And so those aren’t areas that can be farmed. They’re just steep valleys, you know, not huge, but steep enough. And they’re usually treed or shrubs. You can’t farm them. And so we’re looking at ways to reduce sedimentation coming out of ravines and slow the water at the head of a ring at the top of the ravine. So there are different structures that that local, environmental, county level organizations or NRC offices will build that keep more of that water up in the field. So we’ll keep that drain tile water, and they’ll like pond it and then let it slowly release, instead of release rapidly, all at once, as soon as it gets there. So there are some efforts, amongst other organizations and ours to really focus on slices of the landscape. It’s called targeted erosion control. Where we’re just we’re trying to target the highest producing places of erosion and work on those. So that’s kind of that’s where headway can be made most easily in agricultural communities, is not we need to turn your farmland into a wetland. That’s not likely, but if we can help manipulate the area that you don’t farm as wildlife value has no economic value to you. If we can manipulate this area to produce an environmental benefit, it’s where we’d like to work. And so yeah.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:01:19

So for the for farmers that do have drainage tiles already installed, are there any options for them to reduce the runoff impact of from those drainage tiles?

Michael Anderson 1:01:31

I will say yes, but I don’t know the specific structures that do that. There are ways and to either reroute tile or routed to areas that let you, let it sink in more. So I won’t, I won’t speak further on it, because I don’t know the specifics on all the structures. But it can be that is, I don’t know if that’s as likely.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:01:57

Well, it cost them money too.

Michael Anderson 1:01:59

It’ll, it’ll cost them money. There are a lot of state and federal, county dollars that go to help landowners install these practices. But sometimes, you know, people don’t want to, for various reasons. Don’t want to use that practice, whether it’s cover cropping or installing like a sediment pond on their farm, it for various reasons. Sometimes people don’t want to install those things, and so there, there are some novel approaches to it, and I’ve recently started looking at something that called water quality trading that happens, happens in a more mature market out by Chesapeake Bay out east. I think other states have programs too, but the state of Wisconsin also has a small, burgeoning program. It’s where different regulated NFCs of the of the city or local government have to meet water quality standards. But they they it’s too costly for them to do something within their own city. So they can pay, essentially, I’m making it very simplistic, but they can essentially pay to have something done upstream that reduces whether it’s phosphorus or sediment, whatever their goal is, whatever whatever regulation they need to meet. So that’s called water quality trading, and that’s kind of a Minnesota doesn’t formally have that, but it’s starting to gain a little traction here in Minnesota as an idea. So it’s by no way a robust marketplace here at all.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:03:48

Right. But, and just to be clear, too, and I’m not, I guess I’m passing judgment slightly on this, but we’re talking about farmers that are essentially growing corn or soybeans, right? These are commodity crops. They’re not growing vegetables that are sold to the local farmer market on the on these mass farms, they’re growing corn and soybeans that, for the most part, are sold for export, sold for maybe biofuels. But they’re not growing crops for human consumption for the most part.

Michael Anderson 1:04:22

For the most part. Yeah, I don’t have the percentage of in front of me, but I know it’s a lot of corn that goes to ethanol. So ethanol is, you know, a large part of the gas at the pump. So if you see, like, E85 or whatever, there’s a lot, there’s ethanol in our gas, and that comes from a corn. So we grow a lot of fuel, a lot of feed stock for, you know, hogs, cattle, chickens, whatever is eating it. And we also export a lot. So a lot of our soybeans get exported overseas, but none of that, none of that corn. And so that you see, I mean, none of it, most, most of what you’re seeing is not anything that we’re going to eat directly we, you know, and even, yeah, we’ll just, we’ll say that it’s not really human food that you see growing in the landscape very often.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:05:18

So is the water quality in Lake Pepin affected at all by fertilizer runoff?

Michael Anderson 1:05:25

That’s a great question. And I don’t have the data on fertilizer enough, other than, you know, nitrates coming through the system. I doubt information is available, and I don’t have this specific number on that right now, I think we’re we’re right near the limits on acceptability for nitrates. Don’t quote me on that. It’s not like this is going to air, or anything,

Dean Klinkenberg 1:05:51

It’s not like this is public, or anything.

Michael Anderson 1:05:53

But like phosphorus, for example, is something that Lake Pepin has an impairment for, according to the state of Minnesota. So we that means we have too much phosphorus in our system, and that largely comes phosphorus binds to soil. So we get a lot from that sediment that comes into the lake. We used to get a lot that come, that would come from, like wastewater discharge from treatment plants, we’ve largely fixed that problem over over, you know, the ensuing decades, we’ve largely fixed the problem of phosphorus coming from those plants, but it’s still bound in in soil from farm fields. So we get a lot that will come from the Minnesota River basin riding. It’s, you know, right in the back of the soil particle.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:06:48

All right, are there any other threats to the lake that that we should be concerned about?

Michael Anderson 1:06:56

Um, I the, you know, some of the same, same threats that all of us in the environmental advocacy world deal with, but our largest things are our sediment, phosphorus we get. You know, the Mississippi River brings to us all kinds of things that come from upstream. So PFAs is one which is largely comes from 3M which is upstream of us. There’s a plant in Cottage Grove, Minnesota, and that has created a fish consumption recommendation that’s pretty stringent, that affects us all down here, I think even all the way down through Wabasha. PCBs are something that I have been around for a while and will continue to be around in that they’re stuck within the soil, soil particles at the bottom of lakes and rivers and backwaters. But PFAs is one that we hear a lot of questions about, and so there, there has been a recent large settlement in Minnesota between 3M and the state to clean up, to clean up their PFAs contamination that they have caused, and implement better and more strict guidelines at their plants in Cottage Grove.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:08:22

So what are the recommended limits on consuming fish then? Are there specific fish to avoid eating, or there don’t eat it more than once or twice a week? Or what are the specific recommendations around eating fish from the lake?

Michael Anderson 1:08:36

Great question. I don’t have the specifics, and I think it’s pretty stringent. It sounds like, you know, something like one fish every couple of weeks, or something like that. I don’t, don’t quote me on that again. This isn’t gonna air. It’s something very stringent like that. And the fish that accumulated the most are those at the top of the food chain. As you know, it’ll bio accumulate as it works on up so things that are eating the smaller fish your northern plank, yeah, it’s gonna, gonna keep going up the system.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:09:11

All right, that’s it’s a lot to consider. So thanks for taking us through all that. And tell us, then tell us about the Lake Pepin Legacy Alliance.

Michael Anderson 1:09:22

Yeah, Lake Pepin Legacy Alliance. We’ve been around for 17 years now, and it was started by people who who live on the Minnesota side on Lake Pepin, who could visually see the issue of sedimentation affecting the lake. And they really started to ask, okay, what is this? Why is this happening? Is this natural? Is this not natural? Let’s, let’s figure that question out, and then, if it’s a problem, let’s start doing something about it. So it’s to the credit of the original founders of this organization to to get it going to see the problem. And then start trying, then, then start to work on solutions. And so we’ve been doing that now, like I said, for near 20 years, and we’ve become an advocacy organization for the health of the lake, for all of our members who are who recreate on the lake, who live around the lake. So that’s the the core of our, of our organization, our membership, which is, you know, over, over 1200 people strong that live around Lake Pepin and in the area. And you know, it’s, it’s a it’s a large group. It’s a lot of people who, who are, have been in, are part of this organization for a small area like this.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:10:49

Right. That that’s a lot of people. I’m very impressed considering, like, the, like you said, the number of people who live around there isn’t so big, so it’s a lot of concerned people.

Michael Anderson 1:11:01

Yeah, yeah. I mean, people have, have very have realized the have seen the issue firsthand of the lake slowly and feeling at the head of the lake. You know, when boats are getting stuck and you can’t fish or you can’t hunt in those areas that used to be able to you really start to notice the issue?

Dean Klinkenberg 1:11:24

Well, if folks are interested in following the work of the Lake Pepin Legacy Alliance, what would be a good place to do so?

Michael Anderson 1:11:32

Follow us on our website and sign up for our newsletter. We send it out, send it out monthly, and we take a lot of put a lot of work into finding and understanding the relevant scientific information about the lake and trying to translate that into into more easily understandable language, and putting that out there for all of our members to understand and we continually communicate about, of course, the work that we’re doing and our efforts and to work on sedimentation. So follow us on our website and join our newsletter.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:12:09

Fantastic. Well, keep up the good work. Thank you so much for sharing some time with me today and taking us around Lake Pepin and and hopefully you’ll continue to chip away at some of those threats to the lake’s well being.

Michael Anderson 1:12:21

Yeah, well thank you so much, Dean, for inviting me here for a conversation today. This has been great.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:12:28

Absolutely. It’s been a great conversation, and I’ll see you on the river.

Michael Anderson 1:12:33

Yeah, hopefully so.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:12:35

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the series on your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss out on future episodes. I offer the podcast for free, but when you support the show with a few bucks through Patreon to help keep the program going, just go to patreon.com/dean.klinkenberg. If you want to know more about the Mississippi River, check out my books. I write the Mississippi Valley Traveler guidebooks for people who want to get to know the Mississippi better. I also write the Frank Dodge mystery series that’s set in places along the river. Find them wherever books are sold. The Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast is written and produced by me Dean Klinkenberg. Original Music by Noah Fence. See you next time you.

Deep into the night on April 27, 1865, the boilers on the steamboat Sultana exploded, triggering the worst maritime disaster in US history. More than a thousand people died, either from the explosion itself or trying to survive in the freezing cold Mississippi River afterward. The disaster was tragic well beyond the number of casualties as most of the dead were Union soldiers returning home from Confederate prison camps at the end of the Civil War. In this episode, Jeff Kollath, the executive director of the Sultana Disaster Museum, gives a detailed recounting of the events that led to the Sultana’s demise, from the corrupted boarding process at Vicksburg, to the conditions on the boat before the boilers exploded, to the immediate impact of the explosion, and how people scrambled to survive. We finish the episode with a discussion about the Sultana Disaster Museum’s plans to expand their ability to tell the story of the disaster and its victims.

The Sultana Disaster Museum

Sultana Disaster Museum Research Database

Donate to help the new Sultana Disaster Museum

Gene Salecker’s book mentioned in the episode: Destruction of the Steamboat Sultana

If you are enjoying the podcast, please consider showing your support by making a one-time contribution or by supporting as a regular contributor through Patreon. Every dollar you contribute makes it possible for me to continue sharing stories about America’s Greatest River.

 

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74. Sultana Disaster with Jeff Kollath

Mon, Apr 13, 2026 8:22AM • 1:19:37

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Sultana Disaster, Mississippi River, steamboat explosion, Union Army, Civil War, maritime disaster, Sultana Disaster Museum, Jeff Kolath, overloaded boat, boiler explosion, rescue efforts, survivor stories, historical preservation, fundraising, museum expansion.

SPEAKERS

Jeff Kollath, Dean Klinkenberg

Jeff Kollath 00:00

While they had agreed to 1,000 there’s a sense, there’s some miscommunication, and some other people that are involved on the federal government side, and eventually over 2,000 soldiers are put on to the boat. There are two other steamboats that are at the landing at the same time, and the second one gets only a few and the third one leaves empty. So there was room for these other boats to have on there. But obviously, Hatch did not have the deal with those captains, he had the deal with Mason, and so the boat is supremely overloaded at that time. But it’s also important to remember that that wasn’t the cause of the eventual disaster.

Dean Klinkenberg 00:28

Welcome to the Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast. I’m Dean Klinkenberg, and I’ve been exploring the deep history and rich culture of the people and places along America’s greatest river, the Mississippi, since 2007. Join me as I go deep into the characters and places along the river, and occasionally wander into other stories from the Midwest and other rivers. Read the episode show notes and get more information on the Mississippi at mississippivalleytraveler.com.

Dean Klinkenberg 01:26

Let’s get going. Welcome to Episode 74 of the Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast. Deep into the night on April 27, 1865 the boilers on the steamboat Sultana exploded, triggering the worst maritime disaster in US history. All disasters are tragic, of course, but the Sultana disaster is the worst, not just because of the number of people who died, which was well over 1,000 but also because of the circumstances. Most of the dead were soldiers of the Union Army heading home at the end of the Civil War after being released from Confederate prison camps.

Dean Klinkenberg 02:07

In this episode, I talked with Jeff Kollath, Executive Director of the Sultana Disaster Museum, which is the only museum dedicated to preserving the memory of that fateful night. Since the museum was founded, it’s been housed in a small storefront in Marion, Arkansas, but they are now in the process of moving to a much bigger space that will allow them to tell the story of the Sultana more completely. Fundraising for this ambitious move is still in progress, so please consider supporting them with a donation so they can preserve the stories of those affected by this disaster.

Dean Klinkenberg 02:44

So in this episode, Jeff briefly describes the history of the boat, the Sultana. Then we go through a detailed sequence describing the boat’s fateful last journey. As part of this discussion, Jeff talks about some recent scholarship that has more completely and accurately documented the number of people who boarded the boat and who died. In fact, they have a website. On their website, they have a database you can search, looking up the names of people who boarded the boat and finding out their fate.

Dean Klinkenberg 03:16

I suspect many of you already know something about the Sultana. If you listen to this podcast regularly. You probably know something about Mississippi River history. I think you’ll find there’s still some details that Jeff covers that may be new to you. And still it also amazes me that so many people have still never heard this story. So let’s help get that out.

Dean Klinkenberg 03:41

Thanks to those of you who continue to support me through Patreon. Your support makes me smile, makes me feel good, and keeps this podcast going. If you want to join the Patreon community for as little as $1 a month, you can do so go to patreon.com/DeanKlinkenberg. You can join for as little as $1 a month. If Patreon isn’t your thing, then you can buy me a coffee. Go to MississippiValleyTraveler.com/podcast, and there you can help support my caffeine habit with, you know, buy me one coffee, two coffees, whatever, whatever you’re in the mood for. The show notes and all previous episodes you can also find at that same address, MississippiValleyTraveler.com/podcast. You can binge all previous 73 episodes, or you can go through and and pick and choose the ones whose content strikes you as the most interesting. And now let’s get on with the interview.

Dean Klinkenberg 04:51

Jeff Kollath is a historian and Executive Director of the Sultana Disaster Museum in Marion, Arkansas, and we are here to talk about this infamous and probably not as well known disaster as it should be. Just on the anniversary of its demise. Jeff, welcome to the podcast.

Jeff Kollath 05:12

Thanks for having me. Great to be here.

Dean Klinkenberg 05:15

I thought we would just kind of have a general discussion and trace the timeline of this boat and give sense, give folks a sense of what the sequence of events were. Why don’t we just start by talking about the boat itself, the Sultana had been operating on the rivers for a little while. Give us a sense about what kind of boat it was and what it what it transported, what its role was on the on the river at that time.

Jeff Kollath 05:37

Sure. Well, it was the Sultana. It was actually the fifth boat named the Sultana that was on the river went back, you know, 10, 15 years or so, give or take, was built in Cincinnati, Litherbury Boatyards on the Ohio River. And there’s, you know, other boats built a similar design at the same time. It’s pretty remarkable how these things were built at that time, considering their size. The Sultana was 280 feet long, and you know, like was it almost four stories tall, 60 feet wide. So it’s not a tiny boat by any stretch of the imagination. So seeing all of those things built before modern conveniences is pretty remarkable. And in the boat itself, you know, I mean, really, no expense was spared for how it was outfitted. I mean, yes, it was, was meant to, you know, transport people and goods and animals and various things up and down the river. So they, you, you bought tickets. So there were rooms to stay in. There was, you know, dining hall, saloon. There was a piano in the ladies lounge. You know, the deck work and the railings and things were very ornate. And so it, mean, really, it was, it was quite, quite a boat. I would think when, especially when it went into the water for the first time in 1863 to see it as such. And you know, really, the steamboat industry in the in the on the Mississippi changed dramatically during the war, most notably with the military. United States military, being able to essentially tell a private a private concern, that, hey, it’s cool that you’re carrying people, but now you got to carry some of our stuff, and some of our people too. And so, you know, really, when the river was not in the hands of the Union Army, which didn’t, you know, really the Anaconda Plan, and you know, kind of the taking of the waterways around the Confederacy with Farragut coming in in New Orleans, and then obviously grant taking Vicksburg, Memphis had fallen in, you know, 1862 and then Vicksburg falling around Fourth of July, 1863 when the Union Army is in control of everything on the river. So steamboats then are now opened up beyond Vicksburg, all the way down to New Orleans. So that New Orleans to St Louis run became pretty common, and that’s what the Sultana did. And so I think the boat was, you know, Preston Lodwick was the first captain and co owner, and then the infamous James Cass Mason, who was the captain of the boat when the disaster occurred. You know, how he the how each person managed the boat was certainly different. And with Mason, who was a younger guy, pretty brash, known as being pretty reckless on the river, you know, he had married well, and he was father in law, I think his last father’s law, his last name was Dozier had given him or Mason, had bought into a boat named after his wife, the Rowena, and had basically run the Rowen aground, and then was given the command of the bell Memphis, which actually drag race style. It’s not drag racing, but I love calling it drag racing. Drag raced the Sultana in the city of Alton, you know, in 1863 before he got took command of it, and then he took command of it in early 1864. And even though he sort of kept moving up and had bought into the boat and had a 25% ownership stake, he didn’t really change his behavior. And I think that’s really indicative of how this disaster came to be was, you know, Mason got himself in the hole. You know, he was somebody that, again, was aggressive with how he, time was money, so if he could push the boat, he pushed it. When the river is at flood stage, and you see a wide expanse of two or three mile wide river. He’s driving in straight lines. He’s not following the channel, even if he might know where it is. So he’s hitting snags. He’s running in the debris. He’s running the boat in period of time of the year when there’s still ice on the river, and ice can damage the hull of your boat too, and knock holes in it. So he was behind and had, you know, sold off, he was at 25% sold off, half of that sold off, half of that again, by the time he pulls into Vicksburg in 1865 and it’s because he needed money to keep it on the river. And so it’s, it’s sort of when all of these things sort of coalesce and come together it makes for a terrible story, obviously, with how it comes out. But it’s really interesting to kind of learn about the economics of riverboat travel and river commerce at that time, communication, how, especially during the war, when the telegraph lines are cut in the south and and how people are finding out that live along the river, are finding out what’s going on in the world, and it’s through steamboats. It’s through steamboats pulling in along shore and landings and selling newspapers or just Shouting, shouting news from the boat to farmers alongside the river, whomever it might be, which is really what the Sultana was doing to share the news of President Lincoln’s assassination so.

Dean Klinkenberg 11:01

Right. I was gonna say like that that was a lot of river folks learned of Lincoln’s assassination from the Sultana, right?

Jeff Kollath 11:08

I mean, it’s got the nickname “The messenger of death” for doing that, and it had black bunting draped on the on the boat as it went down the river, leaving Cairo on the 14th of or, yeah, around the 14th of April, 1865. So it’s, it’s one of those things where you know the river today. You know being here. You know our museums in Marion. I’m currently in Memphis. I live in Memphis. You see the river, you know, all the time. And you know, we’ve been at pretty we’ve had very low water the last few years where, you know, two to three feet, and sometimes as little as two to three feet in the chain the main channel. And the amount of, you know, draw that’s necessary for these modern barges and boats and things is pretty incredible. But then to see the river at full flood stage, like we see, you know, every spring, which is the way it was when the Sultana was on the river in 1865, this channel is in a different place, but, but seeing it at its full majesty, it just is one of those things where you see it, and it’s like when you know, DeSoto shows up and then, but people see it for the first time, it is really, I don’t know how I’m gonna get across that.

Dean Klinkenberg 12:26

Yeah, that’s how i feel sometimes today.

Jeff Kollath 12:29

And you know, in St Louis, and we have something in common. We both went to school at UW La Crosse, and we both know the Upper Mississippi is a is a child is giving candy land compared to the lower Mississippi, just in terms of how it’s controlled and the water itself. And you know, silt runs downhill. Not as silty up north as it is down here.

Dean Klinkenberg 12:53

Silt and nitrate and phosphorus run downhill. So, all right, so the boat that ends up in Vicksburg. Tell me a little bit about how it ended up there and what was going on. What was it there for?

Jeff Kollath 13:11

So the boat leaves and goes from Cairo down to New Orleans as part of its you know, usual, or St Louis to New Orleans as part of its usual run. It stops in Vicksburg on the way down to New Orleans. That’s where Mason, there’s some Gene Salecker, who’s sort of the dean of Sultana historians, and has written really, sort of the definitive book, along with Jerry Potter, a local lawyer here in the Memphis area. Jerry wrote the first book about it in the ’80s, and then Gene has written about it several times and and really, you know what the story begins on the way down when, when Mason pulls into Vicksburg and sort of reacquaints himself with this guy named Reuben Hatch, who is the quartermaster at at Camp Fisk, which is where the prisoner exchanges is happening. And so the Union prisoners of war from Andersonville and Cahaba have made their way west, some by rail, some by boat, then most mostly by rail, and then having to walk the rest of the way from Jackson, Mississippi to to Vicksburg, which is not a short walk, mind you. And these are guys that had been in POW camps, in some businesses for years, and injured, or poor health, malnourished and so on. And then, obviously, they when they get to Fisk, they’re given fresh clothes. They’re eating better than they have in a long time. They have clean drinking water, better facilities. And you know, Hatch and Mason are really kind of a match made in heaven in a lot of ways, in terms of how they approach this situation, which was the federal government hiring private steamboats to take men home after the war. This is after the war, after Appomattox, after hostilities had ended in the east.

Jeff Kollath 15:01

Obviously, Johnston and folks in North Carolina had a little bit more to say about it, and didn’t wap up until, I think, what the 24th of April, something like that. But by and large, everybody was figuring out a way to get home. And, you know, the federal government paying, I believe it’s eight with $8 for an officer and three and a quarter for an enlisted men to take them up the river. You know, Mason is knows that this is a way for him to get some money in his pocket. But Hatch is also looking for somebody that he can work with to put a little money in his pocket too. And Hatch is a real is as as much of a scoundrel as Mason might be for participating in this scheme. Hatch is really the bad, the baddest of the actors in this and this is somebody that has, you know, failed upwards, really, in every position he had had in the military, through patronage, through connections with President Lincoln, his brother being in part of President Lincoln’s fundraising and brain trust when he was in Illinois. And every time he would get in trouble, he would always find a way to get out of it. And now he’s quartermaster at Camp Fisk and and it’s looking for somebody that he can say, I’ll give you as many of these guys going home as I can, if you give me x as part of that. And he was looking for somebody that would agree to that, and then Hatch promises, and, you know, I’ll give you 1,000 men. Of course, obviously, the boat is, you know, as we all know, not built to hold that even though it is 260 feet long, but the capacity is only 376 and so. But they may, you know, have a, you know, handshake deal, whatever, and agree to it. And then Mason completes the journey, goes to New Orleans, picks up some civilian passengers, horses and mules and sugar and pigs, or hogs and various things, and then starts steaming back towards Vicksburg, and pulls into the landing at Vicksburg, where they start, eventually they start to load the boat. And Gene, both Gene and Jerry go into it in detail, especially Gene. Gene’s book of the loading is so is so detailed in the research and work that he’s done to tell that story. So I really recommend they go. It’s his book, ‘Destruction of the Steamboat Sultana’ is the name of, it’s the most recent one. And essentially, you know, there’s some while they had agreed to 1000 there’s a sense, there’s some miscommunication, and some other people that are involved on the federal government side, and eventually over 2000 soldiers are put on to the boat. There are two other steamboats that are at the landing at the same time, and the second one gets only a few and the third one leaves empty, so there was room for these other boats to have on there. But obviously, Hatch did not have the deal with those captains. He had the deal with Mason, and so the boat is supremely overloaded at that time. But it’s also important to remember that that wasn’t the cause of the eventual disaster, the overload.

Dean Klinkenberg 18:11

And it wasn’t terribly unusual during wartime for the army to overload boats past their capacity anyway, right?

Jeff Kollath 18:18

Correct. Yeah. And so again, the 376 is, you know, I don’t know anybody that would turn down more people if they thought of what was within the limit. But I think what we see here is the overloading just makes the disaster.

Dean Klinkenberg 18:34

And you mentioned Camp Fisk. So, like, this was a sprawling temporary camp just outside of the city of Vicksburg, home to thousands of men who are just recently released prisoners of war, for the most part, whose health is terrible as you said. Some of them have lost 40% or more of their body weight. There are probably a lot of them that were anxious to get on a boat and start making their way home as well. I don’t know if we have any oral histories or anything about people, soldiers who are boarding that boat, who didn’t really want to get on at that point. I think probably a lot of people just were anxious to empty out that camp and get back to whatever normal existed after.

Jeff Kollath 19:16

Sure, and yeah, absolutely. Chester Berry, you know who was on the Sultana is really the dean of collecting these stories, and publishes his book in the 1880s around the same time that the Sultana Survivors Association chapters are sort of affixing themselves to G.A.R. posts and things throughout the North and able to collect these stories and publish them, really, for the first time. And so yes, there’s a lot of enthusiasm to get home, but there’s also a lot of skepticism about the quality and condition of the boat. And so the way I always, you know, there’s some great lines. And I worked in military history at the Wisconsin Veterans Museum in Madison for a number of years, and worked extensively with Vietnam veterans. And you know that we talk about going home and catching the freedom bird back and, you know, obviously, for most of the men and women that came home, they went over by themselves, and they came home by themselves. They were in a fixed part of a unit. But there was this notion of seeing that, seeing that airplane on the tarmac and getting on and feeling a sense of “ha” maybe, you know, we made it. And then obviously, the the airlines and the service providing those comforts of home on the plane to get them home, back to San Francisco or Seattle or wherever it might be. And then, obviously the homecoming was a whole for some, was a whole other story. But for these men, you’re you after you’ve suffered in a POW camp for an extensive period of time. You’re given some time at Fisk, clean clothes. Like I said, clean clothes, food, water. Conditions are better. You know, some of them, you know, still nursing some wounds and things and some illnesses. But mostly, you know, the able bodied are on this boat. They’re not the infirmed by any stretch. But then you get on a boat and you have to struggle to find a place to sleep or struggle to find a place to sit, and bathroom usage and latrines and short notice and food and supplies and clean drinking water and all that stuff is are in short supply. And then you still have to remember, there’s still civilians on the boat too, who paid money to have a room. And, you know, again, Gene and Jerry both do a good job of talking about the people that were on the boat, but it always kills me that there’s, you know, a honeymooning couple from New Orleans that’s on the boat. There’s a minstrel troop that’s headed north to Memphis. There’s, you know, officers and soldiers who had been convalescing after being wounded in New Orleans, taking the boat back home and with their families too. So there are women and children on the boat as well. And so once they get everybody on, you know, they start steaming north. And I think a lot of that, you know, a lot of that hesitancy, begins to go away, and then it’s just, we just got to make it through this. Obviously, what many of the men and or most of the men and most of the passengers did not know was the work that was done on the boiler there in Vicksburg, as one of the boilers had developed a leak. There are four boilers on the boat and required a patch. It was recommended that the boat not leave. The patch was not recommended, but Mason didn’t want that, it was time to go and money to be earned. And so, of course, the irony of that is that the patch boiler is not the one that exploded, so.

Dean Klinkenberg 22:43

Right. And, yeah, yeah. We’ll get into the cause and all that a bit later, too. But I’m curious to at the so when this, when the boat is out of the port, when it’s on the way to Vicksburg, what’s our best estimate right now about the number of people who are on board?

Jeff Kollath 22:58

2,130.

Dean Klinkenberg 23:01

That’s pretty specific.

Jeff Kollath 23:02

Yeah.

Dean Klinkenberg 23:03

And I remember reading that, I don’t know if this is true or not, but there were, there was a story that the was that the hurricane deck sagged so much they had to reinforce, or one of the decks sagged so much from all the people they had to reinforce the deck.

Jeff Kollath 23:16

Yeah, it was, I mean, one of the struggles that they had was distributing the weight, you know, evenly. And as far as the numbers and the people that were on the boat. If you go to our website, SultanaDisasterMuseum.com, we have a complete database of the passengers, known passengers, that were on the boat. And again, kudos to Gene for doing all that work. And it’s not just a list of names, it’s names you know, where they mustered in, units served with, if we know what happened to them after the war, photos of their gravestones and cemeteries are there, and pictures if available. So it’s a really incredible resource, but keeping the weight distributed was was certainly a challenge throughout the entire journey, and especially, you know, steaming up from Vicksburg to Memphis, which is where, you know, at Memphis is where they’re offloading the hogs. They’re offloading the hogsheads of sugar. So the cargo area underneath the the boat is, you know, is empty at that point in time. So they’re always worried about keeping the weight evenly balanced, keeping the weight balanced and keeping it level in the water and not listing to one side or the other. And part of that is related to just, you know, the boat wasn’t in danger of tipping over, certainly, but it’s maintaining a level water level that’s level in the boilers, and making sure that those those tubes, the tubular boiler, those tubes are covered by the water. You know the analogy, the analogy I always think of when I was reading about this, because, again, this is something I didn’t know anything about really when I started was the technology behind it, you know, is akin to, I like, when I talk to people about it’s like, it’s like a nuclear meltdown in a reactor core. It’s like, everything’s great as long as there’s water on top of those fuel rods, but as soon as there’s not water on those fuel rods, it’s going to get real dicey, and obviously to a much more extreme level than to the to the Sultana. But it’s a similar principle. You know, it’s like making with space in those boilers, but also exposing those, those the hot flues within the boilers themselves. And then when that cold river water comes back on it, there’s it really and especially if you have some issues with your boiler, it really increase or the the boiler itself, it really increases the opportunity for something bad to happen.

Dean Klinkenberg 25:42

So we have a drastically overloaded boat carrying a lot more weight than probably the engines were designed to push typically. And on top of that, the river is running high. It’s spring, so it’s flood stage. There’s going to be debris in the river. It’s moving quick. So, and on top of that, we have just, you know, that corruption that involved in the boarding process in the first place. So they’re all kinds of like bad omens at the beginning of this trip. So they get to Helena and a photographer is on shore and takes a picture of the boat and the people on board that time. What are you when you see that picture? What do you see?

Jeff Kollath 26:33

Well, so it’s we should explain. It’s one of two photos of the boat that exist. So that’s by far and away, the best and the most famous. There was another photo taken of distance of the boat in St Louis as well, which you can see in the museum. And it’s around too. But it’s really, it’s more of just to see the boat sort of at full and just full profile. The Helena photo. So it’s incredible for so many reasons, taken by a guy named Thomas W Banks, who had a photography business. Who did some interior design, painting, various things in Helena. And he had been documenting this the again, the river at flood stage had been documenting the flood in Helena, and he so he was on a high on the bluff, really, at a high, high point outside the city, and had been taking photos of what the city looked like with the streets flooded. The Union Army was an army of occupation. So there was a number of interesting things there, and really documenting what had been going on, what had been going on in Helena, and then he sees this overloaded boat churning up the river and coming into the landing at Helena and is able to capture this incredible photograph. And so, but when you see the photo, there’s always a few things that pop out immediately, and then there’s two things that, with a fine eye that you look at, look at a photo very closely. You can see so the first thing is obviously the condition of the boat. The condition of the boat, despite the age of the photo and the lack of clarity, it becomes abundantly clear that the boat is in not good shape, and that is evident by the and has been misused, not not used it’s intended to be when it pulls into Helena, and you can see that on the paddle wheel housing, two things stand out there are holes cut. Theyr’e knocked in the top of the paddle wheel housing and then staining on the paddle wheel itself. And that is because the men had been using that area as a latrine, because there was not access to the latrine as it was intended to have on the river. And so that sticks out. There are people everywhere, stuck in places where humans were not intended to be on that boat. And so it’s just a it’s a mass of humanity that’s there. There’s also sort of this ode to, I always think of what the boat could have been, which is the antlers between on the cables between the smoke stacks. And the antlers was a trophy, a unofficial trophy on the Mississippi River, given to the boat that had could make the run from New Orleans to St Louis in the fastest amount of time, or quick least amount of time. So we’re not talking hours here, obviously we’re talking days. And so we’re, you know, roughly three days and change. And the Sultana had that record at the time when it got to St Louis, it was going to eventually have to turn those antlers over because another boat had had taken the crown. But it also was a reminder of always, to me, it’s everybody has become a reminder of what the boat could have been had it been managed better. The detail thing that has become a favorite thing of mine is on the hurricane deck, there is a stairway, and there’s men that are out there, and you notice every. So the boat is listing ever slow slightly, the men see the photographer and run to the starboard side to get their picture made, which is, of course, the most human human nature, especially in 1865 for a lot of these men might not have ever seen a camera before, but you’re going home after your military service, and you want your this is a document. This is going to document that you were on this boat at this particular time in Helena, Arkansas. So anybody that could was rushing over to that side of the boat. And so the boat is listing. It’s not level in the water, which we just talked about it. And the captain, I think, was very concerned about that. And some of the officers on the boat were concerned about it, too. But on the hurricane deck, there’s a stairwell, and there’s two guys, and one guy, he’s actually caught in the moment, running up the stairwell, and he’s almost in midair as he gets up there is which is incredible. And then there’s another one whose arm is extended way above his head and he’s waving, and it’s the most he’s not the only one waving, but he’s the one whose arm is the most visible when he’s waving. And so that, that, to me is it’s just kind of this joy, right? Of wanting to get again, have this event documented, getting your picture made.

Jeff Kollath 31:22

And certainly, the Civil War is the first war in the United States where photography played a significant role, both, you know, certainly you know, the photos of the battlefield at Gettysburg and in other battles, you know, and the cost and bodies laying in the field and so on, you know, really brought home the consequences of war to the entire country at that time, which is something they hadn’t seen before. And then obviously the ability to get your picture taken when you go to one of the larger cities and go into a photo studio and Banks was taking photos of the occupying army, portraits of officers in the occupying army in Helena, which the Central Arkansas Library System has, and other people did you, but they have them in their collection, and they’re really incredible. And so documenting your military service, but in getting your picture made, is such a becomes in such an intrinsic part of service that you start to see that really throughout and again, talking about, I always, I was always a joke, and with my wife about everything, I always bring everything back to Vietnam. But a lot of it is, you know, you in Vietnam, soldiers that were in country were given or, you know, you could get your film processed for free. And so when you see photos that men and women took in in Vietnam, so many of them, this is the first time, not just the first time out of the country, it’s a lot of what’s the first time out of the state that hold their home state, or even their home county, in some ways.

Dean Klinkenberg 32:56

Right.

Jeff Kollath 32:57

First time on an airplane. And so you’re documenting, you’re you’re documenting things. You document, of course, when you’re on vacation, the landscape, the people, the rivers, everything. But they’re also taking pictures of their friends, and they’re having people take pictures of themselves, of them, and their dog, and dogs that they meet, and various other things, which are these kind of pieces of home. And it’s like just grounded in this sense of humanity that I’ve always loved about seeing photos that that soldiers, men and women take during wartime and what they think is important, because that’s what they’re doing. They’re documenting what’s important to them at any given point in time. And so that’s a long way of saying that’s what that photo with those, the guy waving and the guy jumping, that’s what that reminds me of.

Dean Klinkenberg 33:44

It’s a, I find it an especially haunting picture. Maybe it’s just knowing what what comes not long after that, but it’s, it’s a public domain photo. I will post a picture of that on the website, and I’ll probably put it out in social media too when this episode is out so folks can see it for themselves. But yeah, that that’s a very vivid description. Thank you. I was curious how professional a historian, especially, would see something like that.

Jeff Kollath 34:10

Well, and you said it right. It’s sort of like they don’t know what’s coming. It’s like it’s the same thing that I always think about when you see footage of the Challenger astronauts getting on or when they walk out of the walk onto the van, they leave their their quarter, crew quarters, and they get onto the transit van, and they’re all they’re waving and smiling. I mean, of course, you know they’re anybody would be nervous to get on top of a rocket ship, but it’s like, that’s the last view we have of them, right? And they have no idea what’s coming and happening and like so I agree with you. It is haunting because, you know, obviously, with with hindsight, and we do know they don’t, and so it’s just a weird thing to see people in this case, not just hours before they go, Well, this case, yeah, I mean, this was on the 26th this was, you know, less than 24 hours later, these, many of these guys aren’t around anymore.

Dean Klinkenberg 35:04

So I forgot to ask this part. But so the ultimate destination was Cairo, Illinois. Is that right?

Jeff Kollath 35:10

Ultimate destination was actually they were going to head up to the head up the Mississippi to Cairo hanger, right, and go up the Ohio. And then the men were to muster out at Camp chase in Columbus.

Dean Klinkenberg 35:26

So after Helena then, the boat continues on to Memphis. Stops in Memphis, as you’d mentioned, there’s some unloading. I think a few soldiers were able to get off the boat for a little bit and search around town for a bite to eat and some supplies. Do you have any stories about that?

Jeff Kollath 35:45

I’m doing air quotes, supply. Well, I think you know, part of it is, you know, some of the men were paid to help unload the boat, which they did. I mean, these giant hogsheads of sugar and things get off the boat. A lot of civilian passengers get off the boat. But then, yes, you do have some of the men who are like town, restaurants, bars, what have you. I want to get into some of that, which is, again, human nature and soldiers, soldiers, by and large, like a good time.

Dean Klinkenberg 36:16

They just got out of a prison camp.

Jeff Kollath 36:19

Exactly.

Jeff Kollath 36:20

And so there is certainly some of that. And you know some of these stories of near misses. You know, guys that didn’t get back on the boat, guys that missed the boat. You know one of the most famous stories, and one of the most famous survivors of the story is this guy, Eppenetus McIntos, who was an Illinois infantryman who was at Andersonville and withered to about 65 pounds or so. And then was actually got on, was on another boat, steaming north, missed went into town, missed his boat, and then got on the Sultana. And then, you know, all those things. You know, obviously the explosion happens. And then he makes his living after the war as sort of this itinerant musician. You know, he’s written these, you know, taking songs that tunes that were tunes that were popular of the day, or hymns, and making up these lyrics, some of them silly, some of them serious. And he travels the, you know, the country, selling song books and sheet music, or not, cheap music and lyric sheets and photos of himself at Andersonville artist rendering. And so that’s one story. You know, there’s stories of, you know, guys that went into town. The tall Tennessean is somebody that Gene writes about, and is in Chester Berry’s book, and somebody that’s close to seven feet tall. So very much, the tall Tennessean. And his story is certainly really interesting part of the after the boat explodes, and sort of his role and in that too. So the what happens in Memphis is they, you know, some guys leave, some get back on. Other people leave. But the when they removed all that weight from the lower part of the boat, the stick crew in charge did not redistribute the weight. And so that becomes a key part of what potentially could have caused the explosion just up river. Gene talks about that and in his book, again, going back to that idea of exposing those hot flues and then slamming them with ice cold water from the river. Now this is the end of April. The river’s at flood stage. It’s rivers only about 50, no more than 50 degrees temperature wise. So it’s pretty still pretty cold, especially when you have, you know, boiling hot flues in there.

Dean Klinkenberg 38:49

Yeah. So all right, so take us through what happens after that. They get back underway after Memphis, and then all hell breaks loose.

Jeff Kollath 38:55

And add some more firewood and coal and stuff. And that’s really where the, you know, the idea of sabotage comes into play with Confederate sympathizers, or whomever that had a coal torpedo, which is a chunk of coal, or an object made to look like a chunk of coal, but it’s actually a charred explosive charge that would be thrown into the firebox. And those, Gene thoroughly debunks those, and has debunked those over the years. And there’s some great conspiracy theories, but

Dean Klinkenberg 39:26

There always are.

Jeff Kollath 39:29

And so as they start to churn up river, they get a few more miles north, and then one of the boilers, one of the four boilers, explodes, not the patched one. And so it’s a steam explosion. This isn’t a kaboom explosion. This is a steam explosion which blows a hole in the boiler and then blows straight up and blows a hole in the structure and the decks above it. When the explosion happens, it exposes the fire boxes below, which is where, you know where the coal is, that’s that’s boiling the water when the debris goes up and comes back down and then falls onto those fire boxes. That’s what starts the fire that eventually engulfs the boat. So you have sort of this, men that are killed instantly, men that are thrown up in the air and then back down onto the debris and onto the fire. There are some that are thrown off board right away, but some of the men that are in other parts of the boat don’t really know what’s going on. They hear they’re asleep. This is a, you know, 1:30 in the morning, they heard a disturbance of some kind, and then wake up to find out what is actually going on. So you really have two phases of evacuation. One is sort of the initial one where the explosion happens. The first fire is burning, and you have hundreds and hundreds of people jumping into the water, searching for debris to grab on to, taking pieces of the boat and throwing it in the water and jumping in. But you also have this massive humanity in the water. It’s completely dark except for the burning boat. The water is ice cold. It’s in the middle of the night. You’re in the Mississippi River. Many of them are still nursing their way back to 100% and many of them just don’t know how to swim. And you’re fighting the current, but you’re also fighting the people around you. And I think the one of the most harrowing, the most harrowing part of it for me, is just putting yourself in the position of being tossed into the water and having belief in your ability to like, how am I going to get through this? And having a plan, and then somebody grabs you that can’t swim, and pulls you down. And so you have a lot of people, once they’re in the water, start to realize, if I’m going to survive this, I can’t I can’t have my clothes on. And so they start to strip down, so there’s nothing to grab onto. And then some of the men that are on the boat start to see that and do it as well, before they’re jumping into the water well as the fire starts to spread again, it’s fighting the current. The boat is still pushing upstream, but eventually it loses it loses steam, pun intended, and starts to as the river starts to push it back, the fire reaches the paddlewheel housing so once those first paddle that starts to come off the boat starts to turn, and then that fire that’s in the front part of the boat jumps to the back part of the boat. So then now the back half of the boat is also engulfed. So you have sort of the second mass exodus that’s that’s happening. And the more people you have in the water, it just becomes more of an issue. But there’s debris. Mason, the captain, is last time people see him as he’s pulling pieces and finding pieces and throwing into the water. He does go down with the boat, and it’s this, these harrowing tales of survival, some of the women and the children that are on the boat, again, Gene goes into really great detail and telling those stories about, you know, the one female survivor, Ann Annis, who’s actually from Wisconsin, and you know, the just the the terror and the heart wrenching decisions that have to be made for self preservation versus saving your brother or your sister, whoever’s next to you.

Jeff Kollath 43:23

And you know, some of the men are able to swim sort of away and back down, and some are able to find pieces and drift. Obviously, if this is happening at two in the morning and it’s a large explosion and it’s a fireball, you’re going to hear it. If you didn’t hear it, you’re going to see it. And so eventually the people of Memphis, you know, realize what’s going on and sound out, you know, essentially an alarm. And then all these skiffs and canoes and up some other federal boats that are nearby. But then also steamboats that are in the river already going north or south, start to pull people out of the water. And so you have sort of these rescue efforts, you know, people just seeing what they needed to do. But as they’re doing this, they’re pulling bodies out, pulling them in, taking them back to the landing, going out, that eventually you just have this mass of humanity, you know, laying on the landing in Memphis, you know, some living, some dead. It’s just, I mean that it’s a harrowing visual. So the boat, you know, continues to burn, and then eventually burns down to the water line. Some men stayed on it the entire time. Some men actually got back on it when they realized it was safer, potentially, to be on the boat as the fire had dropped down, as opposed to being in the water, and the boat drifts over to the Arkansas side of the river. Again, the river is at flood stage, and so it is a lot wider than where it’s used to, than where it usually is. And so the shore is further west, near present day Mound City, Arkansas. And, you know, runs up alongside the property of the Bartons and the Fogelmans, and both of whom are still quite prevalent names in the in the in the Marion and Crittenden County area. And both are farmers and are able to they had their boats. There had been guerrilla activity on that side of the river, so the federal army had confiscated boats and but they’re they’ve lashed together logs and made, made make makeshift rafts and used, you know, potentially, floats that they had concealed from the from the from the federals to go out into the river and start pulling some of these people out and taking them back to their homes and putting them next. I mean, the traditional story of pull you into the house and give you a blanket and put you next to a fire and hear some whiskey and and so on. And the Barton, the Franklin Barton, who is the the one of the rescuers, had just returned from service in the Confederate Army, and was wearing his uniform when he’s pulling these people out. And so.

Dean Klinkenberg 46:08

Union soldiers, mostly?

Jeff Kollath 46:10

Mostly Union soldiers, right? And so what you have, I think that’s what that puts sort of a, I wouldn’t say it puts a pin in the story, but it brings it full circle for a lot, I think a lot of us, is this complete loss of humanity that occurs at Vicksburg, which is thinking of human beings as a commodity, as a thing that can be sold or bought, in terms of the military, obviously, in thinking of it as a way to make a buck, and not thinking about the human toll of what you’re doing in terms of overcrowding this boat and losing the sense of right and wrong, and then coming full circle to the rescue and people risking their lives to pull these men and women out of the water. But then, sort of like at the end of this war, we’re back. We’re back to where we should have been, which is not blue, not gray. We’re just, we’re just people helping each other out. And so I think that’s always kind of the to me, the full circle moment and the that really closes out the disaster in a way that’s very powerful.

Dean Klinkenberg 47:21

Hey, Dean Klinkenberg here, interrupting myself. I just wanted to remind you that if you’d like to know more about the Mississippi River, check out my books. I write the Mississippi Valley Traveler guide books for people who want to get to know the Mississippi better. I also write the Frank Dodge mystery series that is set in places along the Mississippi. My newest book ‘The Wild Mississippi,’ goes deep into the world of Old Man River. Learn about the varied and complex ecosystems supported by the Mississippi, the plant and animal life that depends on them. And where you can go to experience it all. Find any of these wherever books are sold.

Dean Klinkenberg 47:59

Yeah, it really was remarkable. Reading the stories of people who lived along the river, who risked their own lives go out there and rescue folks who stuck in the water. Yeah, there’s just so many tragic and hopeful stories contained in this one incident that, so do you do? Is there, like, any one or two particular stories of unique ways people, like the victims, survived?

Jeff Kollath 48:36

Yeah, Samuel Pickens is really the, you know, the the story, I think that gets told a lot in his famous quote, is the best trade I ever made was the best. ‘”The best trade I ever made was trading a live mule for a dead one.” And essentially, you know, their mules and their horses that were on this on this boat, and some lived, and some died, and whatever you can find to keep you, keep you afloat. And so obviously a kicking horse or a kicking mule is not going to be as amenable to you grabbing a hold as a dead one might be. So that’s sort of a famous quote that I think gets passed around, and is an interesting one. The kind of the main one of the main stories is William Legenbeal from Ohio, who was aboard the boat, and the crew on the Sultana had a pet alligator, was about a six foot long alligator, had it, kept it in a box, had it out on the deck during the day, and then they kind of put it in a those room or a closet under the grand staircase. And Luganville knew that was in there, and so he thought that would be a great thing to potentially grab a hold of and float to safety on. And so when I before I started, or when I started, I heard about the alligator, and I saw the artifacts in the museum, I was like, Oh, here’s, this is. The story, the mascot of the boat, and blah, blah, blah. Then you read it, and then, oh, but he to get the box. He had to kill the alligator. And it’s just like, man, he even had to kill the alligator. But anyway, he kills the alligator, and then takes the box, throws it into the river, and then jumps on the box and floats to safety. And then his throughout the rest of his life in veterans organizations or Sultana Survivors Association. He is the alligator man like that is his claim to fame. And so we have a number of objects over the years, a pipe, excuse me, a pipe, scrimshaw, cane scarbox, all with the alligator on it, that that, that he owned. So he really leaned into that part of his identity. I’ve been telling everybody that I think the alligator survived and lived a happy life further on down the Delta. Had a full family, with a dagger in his back.

Dean Klinkenberg 50:59

We’ll ignore the water temperature.

Jeff Kollath 51:01

You know exactly.

Dean Klinkenberg 51:03

It’s irrelevant.

Jeff Kollath 51:04

I think you know the what Chester Berry’s book does is, and I can’t recommend it enough. I don’t recommend you read it all the way through bits and read a few at a time, I think mostly just so that you can really understand and don’t lose the impact of what of what you’re reading. Because I think if you read too many of them in a row, I wouldn’t say it desensitizes it, but it just sort of read five or six at a time. Put it down. Come back. Do five or six more.

Dean Klinkenberg 51:36

It’s basically an oral history, right?

Jeff Kollath 51:36

It is, yes.

Dean Klinkenberg 51:37

He contacted survivors and let them tell their stories, whatever they can remember about the sequence of events. It’s, it’s hard to put down, but it’s a good idea to set it aside after a couple stories like you said.

Jeff Kollath 51:50

There are some men that are very much, you know, very tight lipped and don’t share much, but the ones that do, their language and how they write about it is, really pretty incredible. And, you know, again, these are, this is, you know, after the fact, 20 or so years that these are collected and published, but the way that they’re writing about it, and the way that they’re describing how it still affects them. Again, it’s like you’re reading this in the 1880s and like this. These guys had PTSD, these guys had shell shock, whatever you want to call it. And of course, there was that wasn’t a thing then, and certainly wasn’t understood in the way that it was until the late 20th century and so but you’re reading these and understanding what these men had gone through as part of it. But then again, how it affect their life, not necessarily their war wounds, but the injuries that they suffered in the water or as a result of the explosion. Some certainly with burns. And some of the descriptions of the burns are pretty horrific, but being in the cold water for four to six hours and the effect in eventually developing rheumatoid arthritis and other maladies that made it again. This is the we were in agrarian society in the 19th century. So men who were farmers, as older men or younger men or sons of farmers, or whatever that when they got back home, expected to take back over to pick up where they left off or unable to. And so I think you’re also then dealing with the effects of the not just the war, taking away what you had planned for your life or what you were doing with your life, but now you have this as well. And so I think that’s really one of the points that becomes, I think especially for lack of a better word, heavy or weighty, is that in going back to the Sultana photo or the Helena photo and some of these other things, it’s like, you think you got it beat at this point. You think you’re out, you’re done, we’re going to then have this happen. And another thing, 1,000% not even a quatrillion percent, not your fault happens. And so I think that you see the weight of that, the way that these men are dealing with this, in having to adjust their lives. Again, talking about Eppenetus McIntosh is a good example of that, and he’s just one of the many. And I think that’s something that I don’t think it doesn’t, certainly doesn’t get lost. But because I think talking about the Civil War, talking about Civil War, World War I and World War II, but especially the Civil War in World War I, I think we get what one of the best things that has happened in the interpretation of these of these conflicts and of these wars, is in where museums can do a better job. And World War II Museum in New Orleans is a great example of this. And the museum in Kansas City, my old museum in Madison, you know, has evolved too. Is any of you? Studying these conflicts from 30,000 feet is one thing, but the true impact and the to truly understand what happened and the true impact of them, you got to get down on the ground, and you have to understand these as human beings. Military History is social history is the story of ordinary Americans doing extraordinary things, people that were drafted or constricted, conscript, conscripted, some enlisted, whatever it might be, but it’s, it’s everyday, average Americans doing these, doing these tasks, and their point, their lives moving in a linear fashion, and then it goes a different direction, and then coming back again. And sometimes those lives are long, and sometimes those lives are short. But I think it really helps us hearing these individual stories helps us understand this, the impact of this, and I think the the weight of having your life changed irreparably, in some ways, more than once, is a is a concept that’s pretty foreign, I think. And I think that’s something that I haven’t really said. I haven’t talked about this part of it before, until actually right now. Then it’s starting to affect me a little bit too, just because it is kind of like the notion of thinking that you’re going going home is such a powerful thing, I mean, and again, I’m not, did not serve in the military. I don’t come from a military family at all. But the concept of being able to go home and see your parents or your wife or your girlfriend, your kids, whatever brothers and sisters, whatever it might be, and having it pulled away, is.

Dean Klinkenberg 56:42

Right. Well, and it’s, it’s trauma on top of trauma. Because, again, these were mostly men who were just released from prisoner of war camps. So they’d been suffering in prison camps. They had been in battles. You know, they had multiple years away from home, probably for many of them. And like you said, that feeling of it had to at least be a sense of relief, a deep sense of relief that it was over and I’m going to get to go home, and then the steamboat.

Jeff Kollath 57:10

And I think what Chester Berry’s book actually does a good job of, since these guys are writing in the 1880s is talking about they survived the explosion, and then they still got to get home. Some are like, I’m not getting on a boat. I don’t get home. I mean, there’s all, there’s a number of stories about how, you know, these guys got home after that. And so I think that’s, it’s just, it’s part of it, and it, it’s, I think it’s just also the reminder of the importance of veterans organizations and the role that they did, could and should play, and as peer to peer groups and helping folks deal with this thing I know certainly is the 19th century is a little bit different than the 21st Century, and talking about trauma, but I’ll not just talking about but understanding it. And I think the the G.A.R. and and Survivors Association at least provided some modicum of of of togetherness and closeness and a sense of like, Okay, you guys get this that maybe some, some that weren’t involved in those organizations never experienced.

Dean Klinkenberg 58:28

So based on the more recent scholarship then and the determining the number of people who are on the boat, what’s the estimate of the number of people who died?

Jeff Kollath 58:37

1,130.

Dean Klinkenberg 58:40

Yeah, which still makes it the worst maritime disaster in US history?

Jeff Kollath 58:44

Yes. So it’s the worst in America, yes. And so in the museum are the folks that are they did a small Sultana, did a small exhibit at the State House in Little Rock several years ago that the folks who were doing did the architecture Haizlip Studio in Memphis, or designed the new museum, but then also designing the exhibits as well. And they did a really great sort of infographic comparing the Sultana and the Titanic in terms of the size of the boat. And obviously the Titanic is huge, and the Sultana in the grand scheme of things is pretty small compared to the Titanic, but also the closeness and the number of people that were on the boat and the number of casualties. You know, there’s more on the Titanic, but not that many more. You know, the casualty rates are, you know, little bit higher one side or the other. But it’s, it’s still pretty close. And so I think it’s a really helpful if you don’t know anything, and you know that this is the worst maritime disaster in US history, and then you see that it’s like, okay, everybody knows the Titanic. And so I think it’s, it’s, it’s a helpful teaching tool for us. To use it that way.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:00:02

So what happened? You kind of hinted at this a little bit, you know, the cold water and the so there are lots of reading like the conspiracy theories persisted for quite a while, until then, I found this from 1903 that was talking about in the other Confederate conspiracy. So what do we think actually happened?

Jeff Kollath 1:00:24

I mean, the boiler exploded for a couple of reasons. I mean, one was the the type of boilers. There’s the traditional style of boiler, and then there’s these tubular boilers, and the tubular boilers are thought to be a little bit more efficient. They were really successful on the Upper Mississippi River. But obviously, what makes the Upper Mississippi so much different is the fact there’s not full of silt and sand and dirt and various things. So there, whereas the Lower Mississippi is the boat is drawing in water to fill the boilers and and to boil the water and to make, to make things go, make the engines go, it’s what in the paddlewheel turn is that when you’re pulling up all this dirty water requires these boilers require constant care, and so it’s a lot of there’s soot and stuff that gets inside technical term. Stuff gets inside these boilers and requires constant cleaning and scraping and ensuring that they’re clean, because that start, that that stuff could start on fire as well, too. So that was one of the major issues, was that it’s pulling up not just super cold water, but also super dirty water too. So that was one of the issues. The type of iron that was used on these on these boilers, again, in the 1860s was things you don’t, you don’t, you don’t know it until you don’t know it, until you know it. And so this type of iron that was used was come to find out, prone to expansion and contraction when filled with cold water. Boiling water heats, expands. Cold water when it’s down, it contracts, can create these little microscopic fissures in the iron that, again, if you don’t see the hole, or if you don’t see a crack, you don’t know that they’re there. That was something that was a theory sort of put forth by Hartford Steam Boiler, who I’ll talk about in a second, and one of their engineers, and that that was actually the main cause, was that this idea of this heating and cooling and contraction, expansion and contraction is what caused those fissures, weakening the iron and then giving the steam, you know, space to go. Obviously, the flues, the boat not being balanced and being the superheated flues getting exposed, and then the ice cold water going back on top of the flue is really creating this sort of immediate evaporation or creation of steam in a sort of a violent way, contributed to that too. And so it was, what was determined, though, was that this type of boiler was really unsafe to use on the Lower Mississippi. And so you start to see this type of boiler outlawed on the lower Mississippi, return to the more traditional style boiler. But then you have a company like HSB Hartford Steam Boiler coming in and saying, there is no program for inspecting these boilers. You know, boiler explosions never just happening in maritime and industrial endeavors. They’re also happening in domestic endeavors and using boilers in houses and buildings for heating. And so boiler explosions were fairly common occurrence, and really wasn’t an understanding of how these things were happening, but how to prevent them, moreover. And so what HSB does is it, you know, establishes itself at this company, and establishes, really, the first boiler inspection program in the United States. And not only is inspecting them, but then also creating an insurance program for those as well. And so, which was really unprecedented, and and really it’s, it’s their, their company, which is one of our donors, still exists in Hartford, Connecticut. There’s there they are one of the entities that has kept this story alive, and is in his continued to tell it, and it is part of their corporate history, but it’s part of their culture there too, and so every new employee learns it the dining room, and their headquarters is called the Sultana Room, and they’re an active partner with us in this, in this endeavor, and it’s all because of, you know, again, a group of really intelligent people understanding, there’s a problem, let’s figure out how to solve this problem. And they did, and I think was it last time I heard one of their, their their corporate spiels. They inspected three. Million boilers in 2024, or something throughout the world. So it’s really pretty incredible. And so, yeah, I think that that you know, it was, it was an accident. It was not sabotage, but it certainly was. It something that could have been prevented with better care, perhaps could have been prevented with different type of material, perhaps, but I think also just comes back to would there have been loss of life had the boat not been overloaded, potentially, but certainly not to the scope and scale that we saw with the boat.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:05:38

So the survivors organized a group, and many of them got together for a while to offer mutual support, I assume, and check in on each other. But the story of this kind of largely got lost in the subsequent history. There’s so much. There was so much going on in that time. Lincoln was assassinated, then Booth was killed, the war was ending. I think there was probably so much war fatigue. People were ready to move on and get on with things. And this story, although it got some press, obviously it didn’t really have legs to it. And and there, you know, there’s some books out there now, every now and then a story. I see a story pop up here and there about the Sultana, but it still feels like to me, this is not a story that’s as well known as it should be, given the magnitude of what happened. So I was, you know, when I a few years back, when I saw there was a new museum in Marion that was going to pay homage to this whole experience, I was really happy to see that. So tell us a little bit about the museum and how you came to be. And I understand you’ve got some big plans.

Jeff Kollath 1:06:47

Real big. So, I mean, the museum has really been, it’s been a passion project for the, you know, the folks in Marion, Arkansas and Crittenden County, and again, with supporters all over the country. There is a Sultana descendants Association, which was formed in the 1980s kind of run out of by a lawyer in Knoxville. It’s guy by the name of Norman Shaw. There’s a memorial in Knoxville, East Tennessee, had the second highest number of casualties, after the state of Ohio, East Tennessee was Union country, and a lot of these guys were part of Tennessee Union, Tennessee federal regiments that were mustered in in East Tennessee. And so there’s this really widespread support. You know, of this dedicated, loosely, loosely organized group, but they have an annual they’ve had an annual meeting every year. Sometimes it’s in Marion and Memphis, sometimes it’s in Vicksburg or Knoxville or wherever. And it’s an incredible group of people that who are so passionate about this story, but have continued to research and seek and learn and so on. And one of the the most heartening things that I’ve been a part of was the reunion last year in in Knoxville. And it’s, you know, people come to this a lot of times through genealogy and but there’s also family lore. And so it’s, you know, great, great granddaddy, a great, great uncle or whoever survived this terrible explosion. And as you know, with family lore, stories get passed down. The details get lost. The truth may never have been true, or the truth may get changed, as for us, but verify, yes, exactly. And one of the greatest things that I experienced was the number of descendants that have continued to research and learn and seek and not just to reinforce what they think they know or but to seek the truth and and not be, be okay with to and I think it’s a really, it’s an act of courage in a lot of ways, when you find out that the story that your family member has told, that has been passed down isn’t exactly true. And, and, and get to the point where the sources say this, this is the source. And I saw that on multiple occasions, and I remember thinking like, again, the historian in me is very much like that right there. That is what you do. And I think it was really invigorating, I think for me, and I think for board members that were there to see that in action and to give us kind of the is just sort of the boost that you need every once in a while that because, again, these projects, it’s there’s a big group of people working on it, but it comes, when it gets down to the brass tax, there’s a small group that’s responsible for it, especially in terms of the fundraising. And to make everything’s go, and make everything go. And I think it’s been, you know, there’s, there’s a we got a lot of, we got a lot of people behind us, and to make this happen. And so museums been around for, you know, a little more than 10 years. It’s in, you know, we have a small space on the courthouse square. It’s about 800 square feet, relatively small artifact collection, a few photos, a few other primary sources, and we’re going from 800 square feet to 21,000 square feet in terms of the space, but 9,000 feet of square feet of permanent exhibition space. And you know, if all goes according to plan, will be open in eight months, in November of 2026 and so I think you know, because the artifact collection is relatively small, you know, and obviously the boat exploded and sank. So there’s not a lot, there’s not a ton of pieces out there. And there’s letters and very in diaries and things that exist out there too. But really, you know, there’s not a lot of three dimensional objects from wartime, certainly. So most of our artifacts, most of our collection, is post war. It’s from survivors associations. It’s from G.A.R. and that kind of thing, which is an interesting part of the story, certainly.

Jeff Kollath 1:11:22

So the, you know, the exhibits are going to be, you were going to rely a lot on technology, rely on a lot on storytelling, first person accounts, because we have hundreds of those. And really, you know, I think trying to create an experience that is, at times, somewhat traditional, in terms of, you know, museums and looking at stuff and reading some text and but then also something that’s very modern and very of the moment. So some immersive experiences, especially around that moment when the explosion happens, talking about river commerce and traffic and communication, and and obviously the boat itself and how it was constructed and used, and it’s role sort of up to the point of loading all the guys on it in Vicksburg. So it’s, it’s quite, quite an endeavor, to say the least. And I, but I think it’s, it’s a story that, again, virtually nobody knows. And but like with a lot of things that might be a little off the beaten path or somewhat esoteric or not as well known, the people that do know it are incredibly passionate about it. And so if you go on YouTube, and you know, there are multiple, there’s, you know, a couple of you know, full length, feature length documentaries that have been made. It’s been on History Detectives, the old PBS show, there’s a brand new, relatively new documentary, part of a documentary series about shipwrecks and maritime accidents that was put together last year that has some really incredible graphics and CGI work that was done to kind of recreate the boat from original drawings and that sort of thing. So there’s a lot of, there’s, there’s, there’s a lot of interest in it. And I think it’s, you know, it’s Civil War history in theory, but it’s also sort of Civil War adjacent. And I think that’s also been part of the struggle in getting the type of recognition that it deserves at a federal level. You know, the organization and congressional delegations from Tennessee and Ohio mostly fought diligently for, you know, 20, 30 years up to the 50th anniversary, essentially, and kind of couldn’t get any traction in the House of Representatives to get any kind of federal designation passed for the survivors or for the to even acknowledge the the event. And it kind of went silent until this descendants Association came along. So, you know, I think as we at once, we’re open, you know, my hope is that we catch the eye and the ear of people that have the ability to to make those sort of, suggest those sort of designations, and see what we can do. Because I think that there’s, there’s a lot of opportunity here. I think there’s a lot of there will be a lot of interest in what we’re doing. There isn’t a we’re the only museum in the world with the word disaster in the title, which are in its name, which is a kind of a unique thing, you know, to be in close to Memphis, just really, you know, 15 minutes from Downtown Memphis, but still in Crittenden County, Arkansas, being in the Arkansas Delta, which has such a rich history, cultural history, especially, you know, really music and art and literature and everything that has come out of there. Johnny Cash boyhood home up the street from us the Blytheville Air Base. And it’s rolling, the Cold War on down to Helena and King Biscuit and Delta Arts and in West Memphis and so on. So there’s, there’s a really amazing things that that have occurred in that part of Arkansas and eastern Arkansas and in the Delta, and we’re certainly part of it. And so we view ourselves kind of obviously telling the story in our permanent gallery all day, every day, but through our temporary exhibits and our programming and various other things, I think we have a lot, we have ton more stories that we can tell too.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:15:37

Well, fantastic. Do you have social media accounts for your posting very much for the museum. Or where can folks keep up with what you’re doing?

Jeff Kollath 1:15:46

Facebook’s probably the best place right now. Just search for Sultana Disaster Museum. You could sign up for our mailing list. We send out in we don’t sell it or anything. I don’t know if people still do that sell sell mailing lists.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:15:59

Unfortunately, I think they do. But anyway.

Jeff Kollath 1:16:03

But sign up for our email list, and we don’t bombard you with things you get, you know, a monthly newsletter, and then other interesting things that are going on. And there’s going to be a lot of interesting things going on, certainly over the next few months. You know, we’d love to see a good crowd at the grand opening and in November, and then come see us. You know, after that, I think right now, in the small museum, we’ll be open for sure through the end of April, which I guess when this, when this, when this runs, it’ll be just a few more days.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:16:30

You’ll be shutting down.

Jeff Kollath 1:16:31

Yes, to use the old adage from Widespread Panic, “Call before you Haul” and, you know, come see us, but be sure we’re there still, and then the hope will be to slow, kind of gradually, open the new space with some temporary exhibits and some programs later this spring, in the early summer, and then grand opening in November. So be a lot going on. But again, follow us on Facebook is really the best, and then our website is a great resource to find out about the history and start your journey if you want to learn more about individuals, and then go from there.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:17:07

Fantastic. Like you said, Marion’s an easy stop if you’re going south down I-55 toward Memphis. It’s very easy to jump off a little bit hop into Marion until the end of April, visit so or November, and free parking?

Jeff Kollath 1:17:25

That’s right.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:17:26

Well, Jeff, thank you so much. That was fantastic. That was a really great overview of the Sultana story. And I’m sure if people wanted to contribute a little bit to help you finish off the museum or get set up. I’m sure you wouldn’t object to some donations coming your way as well.

Jeff Kollath 1:17:46

Love donations. You can donate through our website. We’ll be launching a membership program probably around the time that this airs, so that’ll be a great way for people to get involved as well. And so again, I think, you know, construction projects always take a long time, so we’ve been a little bit behind schedule and opening a little later than than what we’d like. But I think we’re the timing. It’s going to the timing is going to work out. And I think the time, the little longer runway to get there, has benefited us. And I think people are going to be really excited about what they see when they come see us later in 2026 or 2027.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:18:32

Fantastic. I’m going to put it on my calendar. So great, Jeff. Thank you very much. I appreciate your time and thanks for sharing your expertise.

Jeff Kollath 1:18:32

Thanks for having me.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:18:36

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the series on your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss out on future episodes. I offer the podcast for free, but when you support the show with a few bucks through Patreon to help keep the program going, just go to patreon.com/dean.klinkenberg. If you want to know more about the Mississippi River, check out my books. I write the Mississippi ValleyTtraveler guidebooks for people who want to get to know the Mississippi better. I also write the Frank Dodge mystery series that’s set in places along the river. Find them wherever books are sold. The Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast is written and produced by me, Dean Klinkenberg. Original Music by Noah Fence. See you next time.

From the brothels of post-Civil War-era St. Louis to the streets of New Orleans’ Storyville, this episode traces the history of prostitution along the Mississippi River — and the endless tug-of-war between tolerance, regulation, and suppression that has defined it.

We start with Eliza Haycraft, a remarkable St. Louis woman who arrived penniless by canoe in 1840 and built a fortune running brothels, becoming one of the city’s most generous philanthropists — and one of its most socially shunned residents. Her story opens a window into how 19th-century river towns grappled with an industry that was everywhere and officially nowhere.

The episode moves through St. Louis’s short-lived Social Evil Ordinance of the 1870s — a bold experiment in regulated prostitution that sparked fierce debate, drew powerful opponents like Washington University co-founder William Greenleaf Eliot, and ultimately collapsed under the weight of corruption and public backlash. Then it’s downriver to New Orleans, where Storyville’s cleverly worded 1897 ordinance created a ten-block entertainment district that boomed for 20 years before the federal government forced it shut in 1917.

We also stop in La Crosse, Wisconsin and Winona, Minnesota, where local officials spent decades cycling through raids, crackdowns, quiet reopenings, and willful blindness. Throughout it all, one theme keeps surfacing: no matter what officials decided, the industry simply adapted and carried on.

A good history of Storyville with plenty of photos

Read more about St. Louis’ Social Evils Ordinance

If you are enjoying the podcast, please consider showing your support by making a one-time contribution or by supporting as a regular contributor through Patreon. Every dollar you contribute makes it possible for me to continue sharing stories about America’s Greatest River.

 

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Sun, Mar 29, 2026 10:25AM • 35:22

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Mississippi River, prostitution, brothels, red light districts, New Orleans, St. Louis, La Crosse, Winona, Eliza Haycraft, Storyville, legalization, regulation, social evils, military bases, brothel raids.

SPEAKERS

Dean Klinkenberg

Dean Klinkenberg 00:00

Red-light districts developed along the Mississippi from New Orleans to Minneapolis, and authorities in those Mississippi river towns, like their counterparts in other communities and times, have tried many ways to tolerate, regulate or suppress prostitution.

Dean Klinkenberg 00:37

Welcome to the Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast. I’m Dean Klinkenberg, and I’ve been exploring the deep history and rich culture of the people and places along America’s greatest river, the Mississippi, since 2007. Join me as I go deep into the characters and places along the river, and occasionally wander into other stories from the Midwest and other rivers. Read the episode show notes and get more information on the Mississippi at MississippiValleyTraveler.com. Let’s get going.

Dean Klinkenberg 01:08

Welcome to Episode 73 of the Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast. Well, fair warning, if you are accustomed to listening to these episodes with your children, with your minor children, you might want to send them out in the yard to play, or maybe suggest they skip this episode, because it’ll just bore them anyway. Because in this episode, we’re going to take a look at the underbelly of life in many river towns. We’re going to take a look at the history of prostitution and brothels in many communities along the Mississippi. Specifically, I’m going to tell you some stories about attempts to legalize and regulate or control prostitution in river towns, including New Orleans, St Louis, La Crosse, Wisconsin, and Winona, Minnesota. Each of these has some interesting stories to tell, and they may surprise you with how many have tried to regulate or effectively legalize prostitution in their communities. This is based on a chapter I wrote for a book called “Mississippi River Mayhem.” That book is still available everywhere books are sold. If you want to read it and and read all about disasters and crimes and tragedies along the Mississippi River. But in this episode, we’re going to zero in on the issue of prostitution. As always, you can find photos and show notes at Mississippi Valley Traveler.com/podcast, and there you will find links to all previous 72 episodes so you can binge them or listen to them at your leisure.

Dean Klinkenberg 02:41

Thanks to all of you who continue to show me some love through Patreon. Your support means the world to me, and it sustains this podcast. It keeps it going. If Patreon is not your thing, then, well, you can buy me a coffee. You can go to MississippiValleyTraveler.com/podcast, and from that website, from that page, you can buy me a coffee. Buy me a couple of coffees. I drink it every day. I’d appreciate you helping to sustain my caffeine habit, as well as this podcast. If you want to join the Patreon community, go to patreon.com/deanklinkenberg, and you’ll get early access to episodes for as little as $1 a month. And now on with the episode

Dean Klinkenberg 03:32

When Eliza Haycraft died in 1871, St. Louisans turned out by the thousands for her funeral procession. She’d been a generous philanthropist in the city, building a fortune from scratch and using her money to help black and white St.Louisans who were down on their luck. She left an estate valued at a quarter of a million dollars, or the equivalent of several million dollars today. But despite her wealth and charity, the city elites shunned her.

Dean Klinkenberg 03:59

The Methodist church she belonged to, wouldn’t host her funeral, so the service was held at her home, the large house she’d purchased from the Chouteau family, descendants of the city’s founders. When she asked to buy a burial plot in the well-tended necropolis that is Bellefontaine Cemetery, she was initially turned away. Bellefontaine Cemetery eventually agreed to sell her a plot, but she reputedly had to agree to a burial with no marker. Haycraft may have been wealthy and generous, but the respectable classes turned their backs on her because of how she had earned her fortune. Haycraft had run houses of prostitution.

Dean Klinkenberg 04:36

When Haycraft was 20 years old, her parents kicked her out after they discovered that she, an unmarried woman, had been sexually active. She got out of town by canoeing down the Missouri River from Callaway County to St Louis, where she settled into the new city. She had no money or possessions of value, just the a few clothes with her. In 1840 a single woman like Haycraft had few ways to make money legitimately, especially if they were illiterate like she was. So she took one of the few jobs available to her. She got hired by a brothel to work as a prostitute. She eventually worked her way up to running the place, and oversaw a steady increase in business during a period of time when the city’s population grew exponentially. In the 30 years she lived in St Louis, the population exploded from 36,000 to 350,000. Many of those new residents were single men looking for companionship, and they had money to spend. By the end of the Civil War, she owned five brothels.

Dean Klinkenberg 05:40

She invested her profits in real estate around the city and donated money generously to people in need. After she died, most of her estate was divided among her surviving family members. Two of her sisters got $100 each, but her other four sisters equally split the rest of her estate. One of the stipulations in her will: none of her sister’s husbands could touch any of the inherited money.

Dean Klinkenberg 06:05

Few women of that era achieved Haycraft’s level of financial success. But prostitution wasn’t an unusual occupation for that time period, and the brothels in Mississippi River towns boomed just as much as brothels as brothels in other parts of the country. Red light districts developed along the Mississippi from New Orleans to Minneapolis, and authorities in those Mississippi River towns, like their counterparts in other communities and times, have tried many ways to tolerate, regulate or suppress prostitution. At the start of World War I, the US, Navy and Army banned prostitution within five miles of military bases which forced a closure of famous red light districts in places such as Bucktown in Davenport, Iowa and Storyville in New Orleans. Still, in spite of the bans and attempts at regulation, people continued to find ways to buy and sell sex. Prostitution has been as much part of St Louis history as steamboat landings and brick construction.

Dean Klinkenberg 07:06

In the 19th century, men who wanted to buy sex had a couple of options. They could go to a brothel and choose from among the women who lived there, or they could hire a more independent professional woman and rent a room at a hotel that specialized in accommodating such assignations. Both types of places ranged in quality, from high-class palaces catering to refined tastes to lowbrow establishments concerned only with turning over rooms as quickly as possible. In St Louis, brothels concentrated near the riverfront in the blocks of Poplar, Christy, and Morgan streets.

Dean Klinkenberg 07:42

Women were arrested frequently, their male their male customers, rarely so. But most arrests resulted only in a small fine. On some occasions, though, the penalty could be quite harsh. Mary Ann Frost, for example, was convicted of running a brothel in January 1870 and fined $1,000. When she couldn’t pay, the judge threw her in jail and took her eight year old son away from her, placing him into the custody of a city institution.

Dean Klinkenberg 08:10

In the latter half of the 19th century, reformers in the United States, inspired by emerging trends in Europe, pushed the city to register and regulate prostitution. As they did so anti-prostitution activists countered their efforts to maintain legal sanctions against prostitution, calling it inherently immoral and a threat to families. While both sides recognize the public health threat of sexually transmitted diseases spread through prostitution, they didn’t agree on ways to reduce the risks. Reformers got an opening in 1870 when the state of Missouri passed a revised charter for the city of St Louis. The new charter included a provision allowing the city to regulate so called bawdy and disorderly houses, houses of ill fame or assignation. Shortly after that, St Louis passed the show the Social Evil Ordinance, a measure that created a framework for legalized prostitution. Under the new law, working women registered with the city and paid a fee and had to pass regular health exams. When a woman failed the health exam, she was sent to a hospital, where she had to stay until she was cured. The city used some of the revenue generated by the fees to build a hospital at the edge of town that treated prostitutes. They named it the Social Evil Hospital. Under this new law, police could close any brothel or order it to relocate to another part of town. No new brothels could open without permission from the board of police commissioners. The new law also banned women from openly soliciting their services, whether on a city street or in the window of a brothel. Over 700 women registered in the first few months, as did nearly 100 brothels. Six medical examiners performed exams on registered prostitutes every single week. The new system reduced, but didn’t stop arrests of prostitutes. Police sometimes charge women with public drunkenness, vagrancy, using profane language or disturbing the peace instead of sex offenses. Still, the law probably increased the visibility of prostitutes and may have given the profession a new sense of legitimacy. Both of those outcomes displeased many people. When leadership proposed a new city charter in 1872, it included a provision to make legalization permanent. Opponents organized to stop it. One of them was William Greenleaf Eliot, a Unitarian minister and one of the founders of prestigious Washington University. His allies included religious and women’s groups, many of whom had been vocal abolitionists before the Civil War. Eliot began a relentless public campaign against the Social Evil Ordinance that included writing frequent editorials for local papers. In 1873, for example, he wrote, “consider what it is that we are doing. We register their houses at a stipulated price. We enter their names on the city record. We cause them to be inspected every week by physicians. We take payment for this from the wages of sin. Can Christian women who respect their own sex quietly look on while their sisters for whom Christ died are by law recognized and upheld in a pollution so deep?”

Dean Klinkenberg 11:27

Opponents attacked the law from multiple angles. Families might suffer from diseases because of a husband’s misdeeds. Husbands could stray without facing consequences. The law fostered, quote, “a class of women who are to be permanently held as the instruments of the legalized lust of habitually profligate men,” Eliot wrote.

Dean Klinkenberg 11:49

These tactics failed to change the law, though, as did challenges to the law’s constitutionality. Eventually, though, support for legalization waned as the social evil law appeared to undermine enforcement of other city ordinances aimed at keeping undesirable people under control. The city, for example, had a vagrancy law that gave it wide discretion to arrest people who associated with lawbreakers. But because prostitution was legal, one court ruled that the vagrancy law could not be used to punish people merely for associating with prostitutes. This frustrated some in law enforcement and in the rest of the community. By 1874 the public had finally turned against the law. As stories of abuse and corruption rose to the surface some police officers were accused of using the law as a pretext to harass respectable women. There were rumors of inappropriate behaviors by the medical examiners, and in the middle of all this, a corruption scandal embroiled the city administration. While the scandal was unrelated to legal prostitution, it undermined public confidence in city government. Newspapers sensed the swing in public opinion against legal prostitution and jumped on the bandwagon, editorializing for repeal of legalization. In March, 1874 the state of Missouri did what the city hadn’t yet done, and repealed the city’s authority to regulate prostitution. They also passed a companion bill that banned police raids of brothels, except under very limited circumstances, which was an attempt to prevent retribution against the women who had already registered under the law.

Dean Klinkenberg 13:24

The legislature once again relegated prostitution to the underbelly of society, returning to the past by encouraging officials to look the other way in exchange for certain favors and for token criminalization of paying for or selling sex.

Dean Klinkenberg 13:41

Twenty years later, a thousand miles downriver, New Orleans began its own experiment with managing prostitution, even if they never quite called it legalization. In 1897 the city passed ordinance number 13,032. In a crafty move, the legislation defined neighborhoods where prostitution was not legal, which was everywhere in New Orleans, except for the 10 square blocks just north of the French corridor specified in the bill. City officials had been trying for years to reduce the negative impact of prostitution, but courts had thrown out every previous law that had legalized it. In 1897 city officials took a different approach and passed a carefully worded ordinance that never indicated prostitution was actually legal in any part of the city, just parts of the city where it was explicitly prohibited. It worked. The courts ultimately upheld the law determining that it regulated prostitution rather than legalizing it.

Dean Klinkenberg 14:42

The main sponsor of the legislation was Alderman Sidney Story and in spite of his efforts to name the area of the district, folks started calling it Storyville, and the name stuck. He wasn’t flattered.

Dean Klinkenberg 14:56

Storyville offered options for nearly every taste and budget and visitors could consult the Blue Book or similar guides to help them plan their activities. In one edition, the Blue Book lays out the advantages of New Orleans Storyville: ‘Because it is the only district of its kind in the state set aside for the fast women by law, because it puts the stranger on a proper and safe path as to where he may go and be free from hold ups and other games usually practiced upon the stranger. It regulates the women so that they may live in one district to themselves, instead of being scattered over the city and filling our thoroughfares with streetwalkers.’

Dean Klinkenberg 15:34

The Blue Book listed women by name and race with an address where they may be found, as well as identifying the establishments where they worked, places such as Countess Piazzas, the New Manhattan Cabaret and The Club. Advertisers in the Blue Book included taverns, distilleries, breweries, including Anheuser, Busch, cigar manufacturers, glassware, taxis, pharmacies, lawyers. Pretty much every service one would need when visiting Storyville. White and Black women rarely worked in the same brothel, although those segregated brothels were often right next to each other, while white men had free rein to roam around the neighborhood, black men were not allowed to visit the brothels at all. A separate area later developed for black men who were looking for a brothel, although that area existed in legal limbo. In Storyville, brothels ran the gamut from lavish mansions along Basin Street to “cribs” or run down rooms and other parts of Storyville.

Dean Klinkenberg 16:40

The Jazz Age hadn’t yet begun, but Storyville bustled with music and dance halls. The higher end brothels employed their own musicians, typically piano players. Tony Jackson was widely admired as one of the best, but Jelly Roll Morton also played in brothels. Morton, who often took credit for inventing jazz (many disagree), at least gets the credit for publishing the first jazz composition in sheet music form. He credited his time in Storyville for providing a lot of the inspiration for his later jazz tunes. If you visited the club, you might hear blues or ragtime, but dance music really dominated the clubs.

Dean Klinkenberg 17:18

King Oliver led one of the better known bands in Stroyville, which is where he met and took under his tutelage a young cornetist named Louis Armstrong. Over time, the neighborhood transformed from an industrial and residential area characterized by wood row houses and colonnaded frame homes large and small, to an entertainment zone with landlords that included Tulane University and the Archdiocese of New Orleans. The area’s largely Black, working class residents were gradually displaced by rising rents as taverns, brothels and dance halls grew more abundant. Storyville’s end came in 1917 when the federal government pressured cities to shut down prostitution near its military bases.

Dean Klinkenberg 18:01

Secretary of War, Newton Baker proclaimed, “These boys are going to France. I want them adequately armed and clothed by their government, but I want them to have an invisible armor to take with them, a moral and intellectual armor for their protection overseas.” City officials tried to resist the federal pressure. Mayor Martin Behrman responded, you can make it illegal, but you can’t make it unpopular. Ultimately, the city gave in, though they really had no choice. Mayor Martin Behrman ordered all brothels closed by November 12, 1917. Prostitution didn’t end, of course, it just slipped underground into houses and buildings throughout the city, including some inside Storyville itself.

Dean Klinkenberg 18:46

Hey, Dean Klinkenberg here, interrupting myself. Just wanted to remind you that if you’d like to know more about the Mississippi River, check out my books. I write the Mississippi Valley Traveler guidebooks for people who want to get to know the Mississippi better. I also write the Frank Dodge mystery series that is set in places along the Mississippi. My newest book, The Wild Mississippi, goes deep into the world of Old Man River. Learn about the varied and complex ecosystem supported by the Mississippi, the plant and animal life that depends on them, and where you can go to experience it all. Find any of these wherever books are sold.

Dean Klinkenberg 19:28

Other cities along the Mississippi, including La Crosse, Wisconsin, rarely wavered from a look the other way approach. In La Crosse, prostitution had a long history. In 1876 just 20 years after the city incorporated, police arrested Kate Champion for running a brothel. Neighbors tattled on her which led to a police officer gathering evidence by standing outside a window of her house to observe a rendezvous in progress. Champion was convicted and sentenced to six months of hard labor at the Wisconsin State Prison in Waupun in.

Dean Klinkenberg 19:59

On September 22 1897 police arrested Carrie Scott in Olson’s Saloon while she was sitting at the bar and talking to a man. They weren’t doing anything unseemly, just talking, but Lacrosse, like other cities at the time, enforced an ordinance that banned women from being in a bar unless their husbands or fathers accompanied them. A police officer had seen Scott chatting up men on the street and following a couple of them into a saloon. That was enough to prompt the arrest. She was fined 20 bucks and ordered to pay another $24 in court costs.

Dean Klinkenberg 20:35

The Mississippi House was a pretty rough place. Basically a low cost motel near the river that connected rivermen, their primary customers, with women who could supply temporary company. The Mississippi House did a steady business for over 30 years in the latter half of the 19th century, changing locations a few times, but always taking close to the river. La Crosse officials let a red light district operate in the 100 block of Pearl Street for several years, but in 1908 Mayor Wendell Anderson ordered the brothels closed.

Dean Klinkenberg 21:07

The policy change wasn’t universally embraced. Many police officers preferred to keep the district open because the regulars often passed along tips to the police about suspicious new characters in town. In a previous term as mayor, Anderson had left the district alone, but he changed his mind, because each brothel stayed open by paying a $50 fine every quarter. For Anderson, that seemed like a licensing fee. Anderson worried such an arrangement suggested that the city was profiting from prostitution, and he didn’t like that. He was also uncomfortable with the fact that police didn’t permit women in the brothels to walk the streets together, or that the women had to be back in their houses by six in the evening. Women who didn’t live in brothels did not have to live with any of those restrictions. The 1908 closure didn’t last, though. The next mayor Ori Sorensen reopened the district in 1909. He believed it was better to keep the brothels operating openly as long as they were restricted to a specific part of the city. He worried that tighter restrictions would just drive prostitution underground and make it harder to monitor. The roller coaster ride continued from there. Sorensen lost re election, and his replacement, John Denger, closed the district again. When Sorensen campaigned to get his old job back in 1913 he changed his position and pledged to keep the brothels closed. “During my first administration,” he said, “I was of the opinion that the tenderloin was a necessary evil.” He believed that a forced closure would just scatter the problem around the city. But after careful study, he found that conditions, “have grown better instead of worse since the resort keepers and inmates were driven out.” The women who worked in the brothels were sometimes called inmates.

Dean Klinkenberg 23:00

He won in 1913 and he did not let the brothels open again. Sorensen’s return to office coincided with an investigation into prostitution led by Wisconsin state senator Howard Teasdale. In the spring of 1913, Teasdale convened a committee to take a hard look at, “White slave traffic and kindred subjects.” Investigators traveled around the state determined to expose the widespread damage prostitution caused in La Crosse. The investigators found a high concentration of brothels along Third Street between Pearl and State Streets. The report noted that in many of those establishments, a man could hire a prostitute for $2 or rent a room for $1 and bring his own companion. Most of the women were in their 20s, but some were considerably older. One investigator visited a tavern on French island north of the city, and observed, “As soon as a man enters, these women take him by the arm and lead him to the bar and keep him there as long as he will treat them..the worst sort of dancing, ragging and tango are allowed.”

Dean Klinkenberg 24:05

The committee’s final report accused the La Crosse Police Department of enabling prostitution. “There are 21 members of the department, all included except the chief. Many of them are bad, hand in glove with vice and on the most intimate terms with sporting girls. Prominent among them is Officer Wermuth, a brother of a saloon keeper of the same name on North Third Street. It is common talk among the girls, and generally talked about town that after closing hours of the saloon, this officer having a key to the rear entrance of the Wet Goods Saloon takes girls in there spending considerable time with them. Viola Friday or Atchison, a well known prostitute, boasts of his friendship with her, and others say. Sophie Zak, a young Polish girl, was also his paramour.”

Dean Klinkenberg 24:58

The committee recommended several changes to existing laws to reduce prostitution, including banning women from saloons and eliminating back and side entrances. Mayor Sorensen and Police Captain Lawrence Dugan expressed support for those ideas. The committee also recommended raising the age of consent from 14 to 18, if you can believe the age of consent was 14 at the time the committee wrote, ‘We must take into consideration that no possession of a woman is of as much value to her as her honor. Yet existing laws permit her to yield this in childhood, at a period when in her innocence and lack of knowledge, she does not comprehend what she is doing, nor the frightful consequences of her act, thus permitting her to sacrifice that which is of far more value to her than her property.” Mostly, though nothing changed after the committee’s work.

Dean Klinkenberg 25:53

In 1925 Anna Bennett, better known as Ma, opened the European Hotel on Second Street. “Ma’s was a classy place. She wouldn’t let any bums in,” ecalled an anonymous former customer. For 20 years, a steady stream of men, top business managers and city officials included, patronized the brothel, entering through the back door for privacy. “Those places were just another incidental spot where a guy went,” said another former customer. From the outside, the building was nothing special, just a two story brick structure with few architectural frills inside, though it looked like a palace, an elegant chandelier hung in the front room, tapestries draped on the walls, ritzy carpeting covered the floors. The brothel even had a nickelodeon for musical entertainment. Ma’s operated in the heart of prohibition, but that didn’t slow down her operation. She could buy a case of beer for three bucks, but she charged men $1 a beer for a single bottle. Prices didn’t drop when prohibition ended, by the way. As for the primary services Ma’s offered, men paid a base rate of $2 and Ma kept half of that. Most girls, though, charged about $5 for their services. The women worked in one of the seven upstairs rooms. Ma employed up to 20 women at a time, most of them between 18 and 25 years old, all dressed immaculately. Eight of the women lived in the European Hotel, the rest in apartments nearby. Most didn’t stay long, maybe three months at the most. “Ma was on a pipeline,” a friend of Ma Bennett remembered. “Whenever she needed a new girl, all she’d have to do was make a call to New York, Chicago, Cleveland or Minneapolis. They’d send her a picture of the girl. She never turned one down.”

Dean Klinkenberg 27:44

Many people in town didn’t seem to mind the presence of the brothel. “If I had a teenage son,” one anonymous woman said, “I’d rather send him to a place like Ma’s, then I’d know he wouldn’t be picking up any diseases.”

Dean Klinkenberg 28:00

After Ma’s husband Jack died in 1932 she’d visit his grave at Oak Grove cemetery on Saturdays in a chauffeur driven car, maybe the Packard or Cadillac she owned, and often accompanied by women who worked for her. She also picked up a hobby, collecting racehorses. She traveled around the country to watch them compete. She lost nearly $200,000 when a bank failed in 1933 but she still seemed to have plenty of money left. She built a new house in town and helped several families get through the tough years of the Depression. She ran another brothel in town that was raided regularly, but she was always alerted in advance, so the police found nothing illegal going on when they arrived. Her fortunes changed in 1946 though, when police raided the European Hotel, they arrested Ma and the court fined her $200 and sentenced her to six months in jail. She didn’t serve a day, though. She retired from the business and moved to California, where she died around 1963, probably in her 80s or early 90s. No one really knew her age.

Dean Klinkenberg 29:06

The European Hotel was torn down in the early 1970s.

Dean Klinkenberg 29:09

Winona, Minnesota, just 30 river miles upriver of La Crosse, has its own lengthy history of don’t ask, don’t tell with brothels and prostitution. The city banned prostitution in 1857 and occasionally raided suspected houses of ill repute, like in 1866 when police arrested two women at one suspected brothel, but overall enforcement was infrequent. Mayor Toye ordered a raid of brothels in 1891, but someone tipped off the women either the police chief or a judge, so police found a quiet place when they showed up.

Dean Klinkenberg 29:46

Brothels were initially scattered around the city, but they eventually clustered near the Chicago and Northwestern rail station in the Mississippi River. People called them sporting houses, and because the brothels were mostly located on Second Street, the women were sometimes called “two streeters.” By 1920 Winona’s red-light district attracted men who worked on riverboats and railroads, as well as soldiers from Wisconsin’s Camp McCoy who arrived by the train load for a night on the town. Police raided some places in 1920 but someone tipped off the brothels again, except for the National Hotel run by Jane Bailey, she must have angered the wrong person. From 1923 to 1939 though the police apparently did not arrest a single person for a vice offense.

Dean Klinkenberg 30:34

For a while, Winona licensed brothels, even though prostitution was illegal under state law, women got regular medical checks, and some police officers received complimentary services. The city even considered legalizing brothels outright at one point, maybe because of its laissez faire attitude, Winona was known throughout the United States for its brothels. The soldiers from Camp McCoy also helped spread the word quite a bit for the most part, Winonas didn’t seem terribly bothered by it all. The women were generous tippers, according to the taxi drivers, and sometimes the locals got cheap entertainment. One brothel, for example, had holes in the floor of a third story room. Voyeurs could pay a small fee to peek through those holes and watch the action below them. Locals also found employment in the brothels, and some even got to keep their clothes on. Claude Weber began a four year stint running errands for some brothels when he was 14 years old. The women treated him well, and he made decent money. One of his regular assignments was picking up and delivering dresses the women had ordered from downtown stores. He also ran errands for brothel madam Queenie Levaque. Weber recalled that she always wore a robe with two pockets. She kept paper money in one and coins in the other. When he finished a job for her, she’d reached into the coin pocket and hand him change without counting it out. In an interview later in life, Weber extolled the virtues of young people in his day, “there wasn’t so much chasing around and looseness,” he said, presumably without irony.

Dean Klinkenberg 32:09

The brothels popularity with soldiers from Camp McCoy would eventually lead to the downfall of the district in the early years of World War II. Army officials grew increasingly concerned about the frequency with which soldiers contracted sexually transmitted diseases. Some soldiers were getting infections that took him out of duty before the army could send them overseas to fight. As it had done at the start of World War I, the Army pressured cities, including Winona, to close red light districts that were close to its bases. Winona’s brothels hung on a while longer, but the final blow came on Christmas Eve 1942 when a fight broke out between soldiers from Camp McCoy. A group of white soldiers fought with Japanese American soldiers who were there from Hawaii. Army officers kept a lid on open conflict when soldiers were on base, but fights sometimes broke out on the streets of Winona on Christmas Eve, a melee erupted that resulted in multiple arrests. The police later released all the soldiers, though, who then returned to base. Two days later, 28 agents from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension descended on Winona just after midnight. Local law enforcement didn’t know they were coming. Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen, responding to pressure from Army officials, sent the officers to shut down Winona’s Red Light District. Agents raided five brothels and arrested 11 women. Minnesota was in no mood to play around, so the state charged the women with felonies, padlocked the buildings and seized their contents. The women who ran the brothels eventually pleaded guilty to running a house offensive to public decency, which was a misdemeanor. The courts fined each madam $100 and each prostitute $25 but the buildings stayed closed. Officials auctioned off the contents of the buildings and kept them padlocked for a year. And that was that, of course. Jjust kidding. Creative entrepreneurs found new ways to keep the industry alive. A brothel called El Cid’s operated as an open secret in Winona well into the 1990s.

Dean Klinkenberg 34:22

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the series on your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss out on future episodes. I offer the podcast for free, but when you support the show with a few bucks through Patreon to help keep the program going, just go to patreon.com/deanklinkenberg. If you want to know more about the Mississippi River, check out my books. I write the Mississippi Valley Traveler guidebooks for people who want to get to know the Mississippi better. I also write the Frank Dodge mystery series that’s set in places along the river. Find them wherever books are sold. The Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast is written and produced by me, Dean Klinkenberg. Original Music by Noah Fence. See you next time you.

Of all the great archaeological sites around the world, I suspect the one near my hometown, Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, is among the least appreciated. While the rich floodplain along the Mississippi River south of Alton, Illinois (known as the American Bottom) has a long history of human settlements, around the year 1050 a new community sprung up that would grow into the largest pre-Colombian settlement in North America, what we now call Cahokia Mounds. In this episode, I talk with Dr. Julie Zimmerman about how Cahokia grew into such a large and important city. We talk about the immigrants who migrated into Cahokia and what their daily lives might have been like, as well as how the community was connected to other indigenous people in North America. Julie theorizes that storytelling was the primary factor that attracted so many people into Cahokia, and she describes what we know about a couple of the stories that were likely the centerpiece of Mississippian beliefs. Julie offers her insights into the factors that may have led to the eventual decline and depopulation of the city, although Mississippian people and culture didn’t go away, they just spread out. We finish with a discussion of the role of contemporary Native American communities in the interpretation and preservation of the site. In the introduction, I offer a couple of tips for making a visit to Cahokia richer and more meaningful.

Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site

Podcast about New Madrid Earthquakes mentioned in this episode

Recommended Books:

• Cahokia, City of the Sun: Prehistoric Urban Center in the American Bottom, by Claudia Gellman Mink
• Cahokia: Ancient America’s Great City on the Mississippi, by Timothy Pauketat
• Cahokia Jazz: A Novel (fiction), by Francis Spufford

If you are enjoying the podcast, please consider showing your support by making a one-time contribution or by supporting as a regular contributor through Patreon. Every dollar you contribute makes it possible for me to continue sharing stories about America’s Greatest River.

 

Don’t want to deal with Patreon? No worries. You can show some love by buying me a coffee (which I drink a lot of!). Just click on the link below.

Sun, Mar 15, 2026 11:10AM • 1:18:16

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Cahokia Mounds, storytelling, Native American, ritual state, Mississippi River, archaeology, anthropology, immigrants, decline, New Madrid earthquakes, cultural heritage, Native American communities, artifacts, environmental changes, heroic epic., Cahokia, native consultation, museum displays, remote sensing, non-invasive methods, excavation, grinding tool, Mississippian house, human story, archaeological finds, community, Mississippi River, podcast, Patreon, travel guidebooks.

SPEAKERS

Dr. Julie Zimmerman, Dean Klinkenberg

Dr. Julie Zimmerman 00:00

Maybe as far back as 100,000 years ago, were the first storytellers based upon multiple lines of evidence. But this is consistent with the Native American point of view as well, that storytelling is what makes us human. And so I think it’s a very simple idea, stories are behind everything. My my earlier idea about Cahokia is a ritual, a theater state there are stories that give all those rituals meaning, right? You know, storytelling is itself a ritual, but storytelling also gives meaning to all the rituals that we do.

Dean Klinkenberg 00:58

Welcome to the Mississippi Valley Traveler Podcast. I’m Dean Klinkenberg, and I’ve been exploring the deep history and rich culture of the people and places along America’s greatest river, the Mississippi, since 2007 join me as I go deep into the characters and places along the river, and occasionally wander into other stories from the Midwest and other rivers. Read the episode show notes and get more information on the Mississippi at mississippivalleytraveler.com. Let’s get going.

Dean Klinkenberg 01:31

Welcome to Episode 72 of the Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast. I’ve been lucky to travel around the world and visit some really amazing places, some sites where 1000s of people once thrived in diverse, complicated, complex communities, places like Tikal, Angkor Wat, Machu Picchu. I’m sure, places that you have all heard of maybe many of you have visited as well. These are places that offer us a window into the past, that leave us wondering what happened to the people who lived in those places, who built those structures. Leave us wondering what happened to those communities. I live in St Louis. I am just across the river from another one of those places, Cahokia Mounds, State Historic Site, also a World Heritage Site now I believe. I firmly believe if the Mississippian communities who thrived at what we now call Cahokia had built out of stone instead of dirt, Cahokia would be as world famous as those other places I just mentioned. And I was surprised to find out, when I was looking over previous podcast episodes that I had never done an episode on Cahokia. So we’re going to fix that in today’s episode. I had a chance to talk with Dr. Julie Zimmerman, who has considerable expertise on the history of the site we call Cahokia, and has a particular emphasis on how Cahokia thrived as a place of storytelling, that it was stories that attracted people there to begin with, and that’s what explains its incredible growth. So in this interview, we cover some of the basics. We talk about how Cahokia went from a fairly quiet Late Woodland era community to this thriving metropolis with 1000s of people that virtually appeared overnight. We talk about some of the people who moved in, the immigrants who formed the backbone of the communities in Cahokia. We talked about their connections to other people across North America, their relationships, from what we can tell of those with people across the continent. And then we get into talking about those stories, and how storytelling might explain the way people were drawn into this community, and 1000s and 1000s, 1000s and 1000s of people eventually moved in. We talk about Cahokia’s eventual decline, and Julie speculates on what she thinks some of the factors were that might explain how this massive city eventually, gradually depopulated. And we finish by talking about the role of contemporary Native American communities in interpreting the site and helping to manage and protect this incredible, this incredible place.

Dean Klinkenberg 04:25

If you’ve never visited Cahokia Mounds, I highly recommend going. I find it can be a little challenging to fully appreciate what went on there just by walking around the grounds. You know, my first time, I thought, well, it’s it’s a bunch of hills and some grass. It was really hard for me to to imagine the complexity and the scope of what, what, what previously occurred on that site. I found it helpful to do an audio tour. The Visitor Center has been closed for a while for complete overhaul. That is supposed to be reopening again this spring. If they offer audio tours again, I highly recommend doing that. There are some terrific books about the Cahokia as well, and in the show notes, I’ll put the names of a couple of those, but you could just Google ‘Cahokia Mounds’ and your favorite bookstore, and I’m sure you’ll come up with lots of good options that would really helped to get a framework to understand just how amazing this place was. So I hope you enjoy. I think it’s a good discussion. I really enjoyed talking with Julie, and I really got lost imagining the possibilities of a community built by storytelling.

Dean Klinkenberg 05:36

Thanks to those of you who continue to show me some love through Patreon. You keep this podcast alive. I’m deeply grateful for your support. So if you want to join this community, you can join the Patreon community for as little as $1 a month. Go to patreon.com/deanklinkenberg, Patreon is not your thing. You can buy me a coffee. I drink plenty of coffee. I always appreciate those of you who are willing to help feed my caffeine habit. Go to MississippiValleyTraveler.com/podcast and there you’ll find instructions on how to buy me a coffee or a few coffees if you’re feeling particularly generous. At that same place, MississippiValleyTraveler.com/podcast, you’ll find links to all previous 71 episodes as well as how to access the show notes for each of those episodes. Click on one of those episodes, you’ll find the show notes. And I often post photos to accompany each of those posts for the podcast as well. So you can enjoy that. And now on to the interview.

Dean Klinkenberg 06:52

Dr. Julie Zimmerman is professor of anthropology at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. She’s an archeologist by training with a deep interest in the Native American history of Western Illinois, particularly area we call the American Bottom, that wide, flat expanse of Mississippi River floodplain in Illinois that runs from Alton to Chester. While she specializes in the archeology of animal remains, she is also very interested in understanding how Cahokia grew into such a large and consequential city.

Dean Klinkenberg 07:22

Welcome to the podcast, Julie.

Dr. Julie Zimmerman 07:25

Thanks for having me Dean,

Dean Klinkenberg 07:26

Anything else you’d like to tell us about your background? Like, how did you get interested in archeology and anthropology?

Dr. Julie Zimmerman 07:33

You know, I grew up in Barnhart, Missouri, south of St Louis, and I actually had a Mississippi River view from my bedroom window as a child. I could see Illinois, and we never crossed the river, and I honestly, you know, my mom liked to take us to cemeteries and we collected fossils. We lived next to a limestone quarry, so I had an interest in the past, but I never heard of Cahokia till I went to college. So.

Dean Klinkenberg 07:57

Wow. What was your path school wise then to get your training?

Dr. Julie Zimmerman 08:04

I won a scholarship to Washington University full ride, and back in the day, they printed off paper catalogs telling you what all the classes were. And I didn’t get very far, because a anthropology was the first thing in the catalog. And I said, Wow, that is everything I’ve ever wanted to do, all right, here one place, cultural anthropology, biological archeology. So it all came together there. And yeah, so I went in knowing that that’s what I wanted to do, because it’s all fun stuff all the time.

Dean Klinkenberg 08:36

What was the first research project you got to work on?

Dr. Julie Zimmerman 08:40

Probably, I’m going to say, a ceramic analysis. I did a little field school over in Bridgeton, and I afterwards, I worked on the ceramics from the site. About that same time, I also took my first course in human osteology, and then I took my first course in zooarchaeology, the archeology of animal bones. And I’m going to tell you, you know, humans are just one of many animals. So, so archeology, really? Yeah, lots of different animals to look at, but I and in my excavation since I’ve been teaching at SIUE. for, gulp, 25 plus years now, all the excavations I’ve directed, the bone preservation is terrible. So we don’t have any animal bones to look at, so I have all this other stuff I have to look at instead.

Dean Klinkenberg 09:28

Well, I imagine we could have a very long conversation just kind of going over some of the methods and how what the work is like. And maybe some other time we’ll do that. But I’m really curious to know, like, how you went from this interest in animal bones and setting animal bones to having your imagination captured by Cahokia?

Dr. Julie Zimmerman 09:48

Well, um, I mean, we are 20 minutes or in Edwardsville from the largest archeological site north of Mexico, and there’s nothing else like Cahokia north of Mexico. It’s just by any measure possible it there’s nothing else like it. So it’s hard not to be interested in Cahokia when you live so close to it. And I think, you know, I hadn’t done, you know, when I first started teaching SIUE, they asked me if I wanted to direct my archeology field school Cahokia, and I was like, no, no, I want to work on endangered sites and I think Cahokia should be protected. We shouldn’t be digging at Cahokia, certainly not with students who are having their first excavation experience. But, you know, teaching about Cahokia and thinking about, you know, what it is to be a human in general, really, you know, as you know, I wrote an article about a Cahokia as a theater state about 15 years ago. And, you know, I was in, I came up with the idea while teaching and talking about cultural anthropology, there’s a cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz, who put out the theater state model, which basically says that states grow not by armies, by force, coercion, but by attracting people to them through their theatrical rituals and their pageantry. And so I thought that was a good way to explain Cahokia, because, you know, some archeologists were acting like it was just another chiefdom, but I mean, the next largest, so called, what we call Mississippian Time period, which is about it starts earliest at Cahokia. Earliest is the biggest and the earliest of the what we call Mississippian centers. And so Cahokia has its so called Big Bang, about AD 1050, becomes a big city about that point. And and so the the next largest site is down in Moundville, Alabama, and the entire site of Moundville would fit in the grand plaza of Cahokia. So again, when I say there’s nothing else like it, I mean, it’s just on a scale. It’s just, you know. So there are other archeologists saying it’s just another chiefdom, and just a couple archeologists had been brave enough to say it was a state, but I think they were going back to the old idea of a state. Yes, there’s a, you know, there’s a bureaucracy there, but I don’t think that. And there were warriors in Cahokia, but I don’t think they were spreading by force and by, you know, use of an army. So that’s what led me.

Dean Klinkenberg 12:29

Before we get too deep into the theater state, part of it, let’s kind of cover some of the basics too. I don’t know how familiar some of my listeners are with even the general history of Cahokia itself. One of the things that always that amazed me when I really started getting into this and I went to the visitor center across the river for the first time, was how much we actually know about it, like there, we know quite a bit about this settlement, and there’s a lot we don’t know, obviously too. But tell us a little bit about how Cahokia got started and what it evolved into in a fairly short period of time.

Dr. Julie Zimmerman 13:03

Okay, I’m going to first say the part of the reason we know so much about Cahokia is, of course, our attention is attracted to it because it is such a big and important site, but also all the highway work that has happened with the construction of 255 and 55/70 went right past Monks Mound in the 1960s but the law was just passed at that time requiring archeology to be done. And then when 255 was built, starting in the 1970s the law was firmly in place then. And there were so many, there were, you know, dozens of excavations on sites up and down 255 and is there. And then, since then, all the feeder highways and other projects going on. So as a result of all that, what we call cultural resource management work, we know more about Cahokia and more about the American Bottom than just about anywhere else in the world, seriously. The area is first occupied by Native Americans. We know there could be Native Americans here earlier, but the first we’re absolutely sure about are showing up at the end the last ice age. So for your listeners who’ve been to Mastodon State Historic Site, that’s a site that’s in use at the end of the last ice age where people are hunting mastodons there. That’s pretty unusual to hunt mastodons. Actually, there’s very little evidence for that. But the all those those sites from what we call Paleoindian period, it’s in the last ice age, are all up on the bluffs. Because you can imagine the floodplain at that point is a big icy torrent. You know, glaciers coming through, you know, flood waters coming through, and it’s cold, so there isn’t a whole lot of crossing that river at this point, there’s very like this. The stone that they’re using, we call chert, that they’re using on the Illinois side of the river at that time is different than the chert on the Missouri side of the river. So they’re not crossing the river. It’s probably not a very safe thing to do. Cahokia itself, the first occupation that we know about goes back to about four. 4000 years ago, what we call Late Archaic period. And by this point, it’s a modern climate, and these backwater lakes have formed in the American Bottom. Like Horseshoe Lake is the last one left today. The rest were drained in the 1800s. So these backwater lakes have formed in the American Bottom and in the Lower Illinois Valley, and there are small settlements of people living longer term around them. And there’s, very importantly, they are saving their the seed. There are, you know, a number of different native plants that they start saving the seed from and planting it in the spring. And as a result of that, they are domesticating plants going back to 4000 years ago, and the earliest domesticates are squash. So if you like a acorn squash or zucchini, they’re descending from squashes that were domesticated right here 4000 years ago. Sunflower, if you have ever tried quinoa, quinoa comes from the Andes, but we have a local species here of the same genus, Chenopodium, burlandiary, also called goosefoot. So they’ve domesticated those in another plant called marsh elder, or sumpweed. So 4000 years ago, they’ve domesticated at least four different native plants, and by around AD 800 which is the next occupation we see at Cahokia, what we call Late Woodland period. They have about 12 different native plants that they’re growing in their gardens, okay. So around AD 800 at Cahokia, we see a small I’m going to I feel comfortable calling it a farming village, but there are dozens of villages like this in the American Bottom there’s nothing special at this time about the one at Cahokia, and they’ve just got the bow and arrow. So I always tell my students, if I could live in any time period of the of Illinois in the past, it would have been Late Woodland period, because they got plenty of venison to eat. They have these snug little houses. They would dig a big hole in the ground. The houses are pretty small. It might be a little bit bigger than a king size bed, because all they’re doing in there sleeping, but you would step down into this snug little house, and they had domestic dogs, and they had their gardens, and it looks like a pretty nice time to live, ok.

Dean Klinkenberg 17:18

Plus there’s plenty of fish to eat too from the river and the lakes.

Dr. Julie Zimmerman 17:22

Again, they’re, they’re living around those backwater lakes. But they’re also, you know, sites that are closer to the river we see they’re, they’re fishing big river fish as well. So yes, I always joke that the paleoethnobotany, looking at the plant remains, is actually a lot more interesting than looking at the animal bones, because it’s kind of like with animal bones it’s deer and fish, fish and deer, fish and deer, fish and deer, fish and yeah, so they’re eating a lot of fish.

Dean Klinkenberg 17:50

I guess part of the point of that is that they didn’t have to go far to find food. Like, they lived in an area where food was plentiful and didn’t require a huge amount of work for them to find then.

Dr. Julie Zimmerman 18:01

Absolutely, very rich place to live as it, you know, as it is today. It’s a very, you know, great fertile natural resources. So around AD 900 corn comes in, maize, we should more properly call it, and corn is coming from Mexico. And there’s no evidence of Mexicans arriving at that time, but we have this plant that’s probably being passed from sister to sister. I should mention that women did the farm work among the Native Americans. The Europeans were horrified by this to see women out working in the fields. But, you know, they were the gatherers of plants, and then they became the tenders of the farm fields, and the men, when they got maize, when they got corn, it was quite common in Native American societies for the men to help prepare the cornfield, but then women did most of the rest of the the work in the farm fields. And I’m sure when when corn comes in and gets passed from sister to sister, from village to village and and the technology to the know how to grow it and to process it, and to to what, how you should best eat it. And I’m sure stories were coming with that too, and not just, you know, stories about how to grow it, but but myths about, or in I when I use the word myth, I don’t mean that to mean untrue stories. I mean to the Bible’s myth, according to anthropological terminology. So these are stories about how corn and the cosmology, how they came to be. So corn arrives here about AD 900 and this is a warm, wet period. And anyone who has noticed all the corn and soybeans growing around here knows that corn loves heat and humidity, so this is a great period for growing corn, and Cahokia happens to be at just about the widest spot in the American Bottom floodplain. It’s about 12 or 15 miles wide there, and it’s really good dirt for growing corn. in that area. Archeologists have looked at the different soil types and the soil type that it was growing there was really good for growing corn. And I’m and so by AD, so again, it’s about AD 900 that maize comes to the area. And by AD 1000 there. The village that there is there at Cahokia is noticeably bigger now than other villages that you see in the American Bottom, and it already appears to be some kind of a central place, you know, not these the capital or something like that, but it’s a it’s a noticeably bigger village. And looking at the different pottery styles from this time period, it looks like there are already immigrants showing up into the American Bottom. And one theory comes from my colleagues John Kelly and Jim Brown, is that feasting is very important, and that really lends to why Cahokia is so important, that they can really throw on the big feast, because they have such good, you know, fertile soils that they can they can have an agricultural surplus to feed people, but for whatever reason, and I’m going to argue that there are other reasons, but people, immigrants, start coming in to Cahokia, probably by, like I said, by AD 1000 and by AD 1050 the so called Big Bang at Cahokia and Cahokia seems to be the big city, immigrants keep coming. And even as Cahokia is losing popular population after AD 1200 immigrants keep coming. And it looks and we know that from the pottery styles, and we also know it from the skeletal analysis, analysis of human bones that has been done, looking at the isotopes in those bones, we know they’re coming from elsewhere, and it looks like up to 33% of the people are immigrants. So immigrants are absolutely critical to building Cahokia. And imagine, you know, they’re bringing all their different ideas and beliefs, and it’s a very exciting place to live. And it also looks interestingly like they’re coming as children based upon, you know, knowing, like looking at the growth of the bone and the teeth the bone relative to the isotopes, it looks like that they’re coming as children, which is really interesting. So, yeah.

Dean Klinkenberg 22:16

Tell me a little bit then about what. So you use the word state a couple of times. I tend to fall back on city. I don’t really know what word to use to describe Cahokia, because there also are, like, different settlements, and there are different communities within this area we call Cahokia. Can you kind of just give me, like, an overview of the different neighborhoods or parts of the of Cahokia, and when they developed, and did they have different flavors?

Dr. Julie Zimmerman 22:44

Yeah, there are something like 120 mounds. Let’s just look at mounds for a second. There’s something like 120 mounds at Cahokia. There are, like, there were, like, 45 and maybe half of those are left now, right? They’ve been most of them. A lot of them have been destroyed. And there were something like 45 mounds in East St Louis and across the river, there were something like another 25 mounds. So really, archeologists are seeing those now as basically one big site, okay, stretching from the bluff just east of Cahokia all the way west to the river and across to the St Louis site. And we don’t know a lot and something, so that’s something like 200 mounds between the those three sites, what is often called greater Cahokia. There’s something like 500 mounds from this time period in the St Louis area. So again, there’s, just, generally speaking, this is, you know, there’s nothing else like this north of Mexico, okay, so, um, think about, you know, you know, once upon a time they thought East St Louis site was, we don’t want to know much about St Louis, because so much of it was destroyed in the 1800s but once upon a time, they thought East St Louis may have been like a competing chiefdom, and there are other, there’s a mound a site down called the Pulcher Site, and it’s not too far from Dupo, Illinois, not too far from the Jefferson Barracks Bridge. And they’re like, over 20 mountains at the Pulcher Site. Up it in Granite City, Illinois, there’s the Mitchell site, which also had, I don’t remember off the top my head, how many mounds at the Mitchell site. So those were, those were also multi mound sites, and at one point, the model was that these were all competing chiefdoms. And, you know, people compete with each other, like we could look at the administration of of any, you know, let’s say the United States or or, and see competition between politicians, right? So, yes, I’m sure there was, there was some competition, but it wasn’t like they were equal on equal footing. The big, you know, the leaders are definitely living in Cahokia, and in my mind, and I think the recent excavations at East St Louis kind of support this. I see pretty. Cahokia itself is kind of like the religious and ritual center, and in East St Louis, kind of like the economic hub. It because it’s right on the river and across the site this river. Since we don’t know much about St Louis, I could just speculate that it’s, you know, I mean, it’s just important to have that anchor across the river. So, and bear in mind that economics are not separated from politics and are not separated from rituals. This is all you know. These are, these are, you know, we, we talk about separation of church and state, but it isn’t really, we aren’t it isn’t really separate, is it? And certainly in a more traditional site, there’s no effort to try to divide those things up. So they would the leaders would have been leaders in all those different areas.

Dean Klinkenberg 25:52

So I’m just thinking like, you know, in a modern city now, you know, we have division of labor, so you can go, you know, to a cobbler to get your shoe fixed. You can go to the baker to get bread. Was there that? Do we think there, was there that kind of division of labor in Cahokia too do you think?

Dr. Julie Zimmerman 26:10

Yeah, I’m gonna say number one. I mean, we know, not that long ago in our own history, right, that 90% of people were farmers. Okay, so probably the most important thing is to grow food, to feed these people feed, you know? And so there are lots of little sites that have, well, there are lots of villages that have a single mound, and there are lots of small sites that have no mounds. And then there are what we call farmsteads. It could be like a single house that looks like it’s out in the middle of nowhere, for example, in the SIUE campus, where we’ve been excavating for since 2009. I was originally interested in the the site there that goes back to 2000 years ago, but there’s all this Cahokian stuff on top of it from 1000 years ago. And so it’s it. We’ve, we’ve found several Mississippian period houses there, but I don’t my in my model, they’re not necessarily all occupied at the same time. It’s one. It could be one big farm family living there growing food, and they’re right on Cahokia Creek. They can fill their canoes up with corn and send it on down the creek to Cahokia. So they’re all, they’re all these feeder sites, literally, feeder sites, people who I’m sure considered themselves Cahokians, because they have the same material culture that you know they’re not, they’re not elites, but they do have access to some elite goods, and so, you know they are, I’m sure they consider themselves Cahokians, and they’re filling up their canoes, sending the food on down to Cahokia. So, yeah, other specialties would include, I know you had asked me previously about weaving, and so, you know, textiles are not going to be preserved. Very rarely, the Janey B. Goode Site is a site on the periphery of East St Louis, which is really more what we call Terminal late Woodland and emerging Mississippian, and they had incredible preservation there, but just little, tiny snippets of textiles, preserves. So usually textiles don’t preserve. And so how we know that they did have textiles is that you see the fabric impressions on pottery, sometimes depending upon the pottery style, but also what we call spindle whorls are for for making the twinage, making the cordage. And so like taking a one ply string and turning it into two, three ply string. And so what a spindle whorl looks like, it’s a little circular disc with a hole through the middle of it, so you can bind the twine through there and spin it. And sometimes they’re made that way, or sometimes it’s just a broken piece of pottery that has a hole drilled in it. So yeah, there are particular concentrations of those at certain parts of Cahokia and also at other villages up, you know, in the American Bottom, in the in the uplands above that suggest, Susan Alt has suggested that there are specialized weavers in those areas. You know, I’m sure any woman needed to know how to make clothes, right? But if you have a specialized weaver who’s making like, the finest textiles that the elites wear, I can see like, not I can sew a button on, but I cannot make a quilt. Okay? So, you know, you all, we all have our different levels of skills. So one thing Tim Pauketat has talked about is was it looks like these different ethnic groups come in, they’re coming out through different pottery styles, and it looks like some specialized then in different pottery styles. So there are probably, again, any woman needs to know how to make her own pot and repair her own pot, but there are probably particular types of pottery that are being made by specialists. Certainly some of the fancy, you know, ritual wears. So another example would be stone tool manufacturer. I can make an arrowhead, honestly, it’s not that hard, but I could not make a beautiful Cahokia point. So any man or woman needs to know how to make their own basic toolkit. But there are probably specialists who are making the really fancy, beautiful points. And the clearest example of specialists, I mean, for example, we know the clearest example is looking at what we’re going to call artwork that Native Americans would not have called artwork. They would have seen them as living beings. But you’ve like non human entities that, like these works of art they’re making, are alive and they have their own spirit. And so, for example, one of the thing, one of the artworks we know being made at Cahokia are made out of a stone we call red flint clay. It’s a soft red stone that’s it’s easy, I should say easy to carve. It’s not easy for me to carve. But there are, there’s such incredible artistry looking at that work that it’s pretty clear that there are a handful of artists who are making those red flint clay figures, and some of them are small statues that are up to about nine or inches, or max, maybe a foot in height. Some of them, like, I think the tallest is about the size of your or, sorry, the shortest is about the size of your thumb. But some of them have been made into pipes. Some of them were made to be pipes. But the work, the artwork of the present there, it clearly indicates that there it’s not everybody is it’s probably a sacred material that not everybody even has access to. So there’s clearly a handful of artists, you know, maybe somebody running a workshop that, you know, teaches the art and their style. So that’s a very clear example of specialization. And I’m sure the same is true with whether they’re making copper work out of artwork out of copper or jewelry out of shell. I’m sure there’s specialists there too. For example, you know there’s marine shell conchs. It’s actually the, I think the lightning whelk coming from, like, probably around Florida. And they’re making necklaces that we call gorgets. They’re like a big disc that you would wear, like on your chest. But they’re also making beads and looking at where the artifacts are, not a whole lot of those, the gorgets are found at Cahokia, but the beads are and we find the there are particular little stone drill bits that are needed to make those beads, and there are accumulations of them in particular neighborhoods at Cahokia. So it looks like there are specialists in making the shell beads. There’s also supposed to be a copper workshop near Monks Mound, Mound 34 and there’s evidence of copper working in East St Louis and the red flint clay workshops in East St Louis. So they’re definitely artisans. And I’m sure there were specialists of in in ritual knowledge. You know, not everybody think about our priests today. Not everybody knows the whole Bible and not and all those supporting documents that go with it. So there would have been specialists in that priestly knowledge. And we know that is true of later Native American societies. I’m sure there were, what if we want to think about them as scholars, people who understood the skies and nature and etc, and I’m going to argue very strongly, I’m sure there were specialized storytellers, even though we don’t have direct evidence of that.

Dean Klinkenberg 34:00

Right. So you mentioned copper and seashells, and I know there are non native stones. I mean, all of that speaks to how wide their connections were across the continent really, right? I don’t know that it’s necessarily unique to Cahokia, but to me, at times, it was kind of mind blowing to realize how extensive trading was across the continent, I’m assuming, probably by rivers, more likely, most likely?

Dr. Julie Zimmerman 34:28

Probably rivers. But there also would have been, had to been in some overland trails too. So the copper is coming mostly from the Great Lakes. And like I said, the marine shells coming from Florida. And we associate we and we know the flint clay, red flint clay is coming from this area, because this is the source for it’s actually west of Cahokia, some distance, like an you know, 50 miles, or something like that I don’t know what it is. And so we so. We can, we can’t always tell by the, you know, if they’re getting their materials from elsewhere, and then they’re making stuff and it leaves here. How do we know that it’s made at Cahokia? We also look at the art style, and there’s some debate over that. For sure. We can’t prove 100% but we assume that. And I believe that the what we call the Braden style. And I don’t remember why they call it the Braden style, but there’s a particular art style. It’s very realistic in a much I’m no artist, but I want to say, when you look at some of the art coming from other sites, it’s it’s not to the caliber of realism that you see coming out of Cahokia. So yeah, we see the Cahokia and artwork traveling as well. Early on, we see evidence of colonies going to the north, places like Wisconsin and we see we see Mississippi and stuff all the way as far north as Cahokia and stuff, as far north as Red Wing, Minnesota. Later, we see colonies to the south, down the Mississippi, all the way down to the to the coast. Sorry, the Gulf that was Gulf and coast together makes ghosts. The probably biggest partner to Cahokia. Very special relationship is Spiro, Oklahoma, which is some 500 miles to the west. And then again, there’s, they call this the Braden corridor. Later it looks like people leaving Cahokia, going down into the southeast. So yeah, there are connections for hundreds of miles.

Dean Klinkenberg 36:39

Hey, Dean Klinkenberg, interrupting myself, just wanted to remind you that if you’d like to know more about the Mississippi River, check out my books. I write the Mississippi Valley Traveler guide books for people who want to get to know the Mississippi better. I also write the Frank Dodge mystery series that is set in places along the Mississippi. My newest book, The Wild Mississippi, goes deep into the world of Old Man River. Learn about the varied and complex ecosystems supported by the Mississippi, the plant and animal life that depends on them. And where you can go to experience it all. Find any of these wherever books are sold.

Dean Klinkenberg 37:19

So you mentioned immigrants. Where were people coming from? And what do we know about, you know, the traditions or what they brought with them?

Dr. Julie Zimmerman 37:30

I you know, my storytelling hypothesis is that it’s storytelling that makes us human, and if you think about it like, you know, the way you see your world is all the story that you’ve been taught from your parents and the people around you, and storytelling is so absolutely critical that is the number one thing that separates us from hey, look, you know, as an anthropologist, I would tell you the great apes can learn sign language and they can they can tell you what they need, and they can tell you their hopes for the future. They lie, they make up new words. They’re very creative. But what they can’t do is get the grammar right, and they cannot get which means you can’t really tell full fledged stories if you don’t have grammar and and they also obviously cannot articulate words. So it looks like humans going back you know, maybe as far back as 100,000 years ago, were the first storytellers based upon multiple lines of evidence. But this is consistent with the Native American point of view as well, that the that storytelling is what makes us human. And so I think it’s a very simple idea. It’s stories are behind every when I went my, my earlier idea about Cahokia as a ritual, a theater state. There are stories that give all those rituals meaning, right? You know, storytelling is itself a ritual, but storytelling also gives meaning to all the rituals that we, we, do. So it might sound, I don’t know, simplistic to say that there’s one really good storyteller. I think it’s more complicated than that. Like I said, I think there’s a lot going on with all the stuff that Cahokia has to to, you know, to just go for it. But ultimately, if people weren’t telling a good story, those immigrants wouldn’t have been coming here. And as Cahokians leave and they go out, they go out. Sometimes they’re, you know, they’re going out proselytizing, as you know, like the Trempealeau, Wisconsin looks like it’s a kind of a shrine site that Cahokians set up even before the so called Big Bang of Cahokia. It looks like they they’re doing this before AD 1050 and they’re taking these stories with them, and they’re convincing the local people up here that this is a great this is a this is a good idea. And as later, they set up other kinds of. Colonies are taking those stories with them. So wherever you see those Cahokian artifacts, those are representing Cahokian stories that gave meaning to those artifacts.

Dean Klinkenberg 40:09

So what do you think the basic story was that attracted people? And feel free to speculate?

Dr. Julie Zimmerman 40:16

Well, I don’t. I mean, I doubt there was one basic story, but what we can clearly see is that there are male stories and there are female stories. Okay. And let’s start with the female stories, because the Cahokian artifacts that show female imagery tend to stay closer to Cahokia. They’re in the American Bottom, they’re in the Illinois River Valley. They’re down to the Bootheel of Missouri. You know, down that there’s the farthest South is one found down in Arkansas, but they tend to be generally closer to home. So those, we call those goddess stories, and there are analogies made with later known Native American goddesses who were the stories were told to anthropologists. You know, 100 years ago, about, for example, the Hidatsa had their heroin goddess was named we, we remember as “Old Woman Who Never Dies”. And it’s a pretty awesome thing where every morning, she could go to this creek and bathe in it and become young again.

Dean Klinkenberg 41:21

Wow.

Dr. Julie Zimmerman 41:21

So I know, right.

Dean Klinkenberg 41:22

Where’s that creek?

Dr. Julie Zimmerman 41:23

I know there. I joke people, they’re trying to sell this on my Facebook feed all the time. Thank you for laughing. So she’s associated with plants, right. She’s she, she’s associated as she’s a gardener. She is associated with bringing spring. She’s also associated with snakes, and the it does look like, for example, the one Cahokia artifact, the goddess is has a hoe, her hoe going into the back of this snake. Like it’s not just a snake, it’s clearly and a creature with with different attributes to it. It has like serpent teeth and has round eyes and the tail goes up her her back and turns into a gourd vine. So it’s not just a regular old snake, but she is the Cahokian female figures often show these women with plants. They often show them with snakes. In the Hidatsa story, the woman is actually the goddess is actually married to a snake. And I like to say again, who isn’t? Who wasn’t? But she does protect him from other creatures who are trying to come after him. It’s a good relationship and and I if you think about, well, what does snakes have to do with these other themes? What does a snake do every spring and it emerges from its hiding place, it sheds its skin and life begins again, right? It’s renewal. Okay, so there are clear there are clear female themes that are about renewal,

Dean Klinkenberg 43:02

Kind of the life cycle.

Dr. Julie Zimmerman 43:03

Exactly, the life cycle. There are not from a Cahokian style, but from their local styles down in Cumberland Valley of Tennessee. Robert Sharp archeologist has written about there are very clear depictions of “Old Woman Who Never Dies” down there. He talks about how sometimes you see her with the hunchback like the little old lady, and other times not. But you tend to find those, those goddess figurine. They were clay pots down there, and they tend to find them in graves of children. So imagine if you’re a woman who’s lost her baby, and you know, you you believe in this goddess who, who tells you that your baby’s going to have life again in a different place. So that would be really important. And giving women, you know, of someone to look up to, and someone to have faith in, have a character like that. Um, so, and I would add there that, you know, I talked about the different artisans. I would add there that my colleague Gayle Fritz and and Natalie Mueller from Washington University, both paleoethnobotanist, have written about this quite a bit, and they think women were making those Cahokia were women were making those goddess figurines there. So I’m sure there were women storytellers telling her story to other women, all right. So then we also have the male figurines. The male figurines are found over a much bigger area. So for example, the there are more of the male figurines found at the Spiro site in Oklahoma, again, some 500 miles away than anywhere else. Okay. And so the male figures have clear themes. They are warriors. You can clearly see their warriors. You can clearly see their athletes. They’re playing a game that we call chunky. So, and we know it’s called chunky, because Native Americans called it chunky. They were still playing it in the southeast and up to the upper Midwest. I don’t know what the full extent, but they were still playing chunky when Europeans showed up. So you roll this stone disc. There are different versions, but one common version was you roll a stone disc and you throw a spear where it’s going to land. So we know Cahokians were playing chunky. We find the chunky stones, but we also see depictions of the chunky players in the red flint clay figures. We see him in the gorgets. They’re clearly playing chunky. Okay, so the men to the ideal man, the heroic man, is, is, so is a warrior, he’s an athlete. And then, yes, I will take it back to the character known as Red Horn, who was also a healer. Okay, so 100 years ago, the story was told by Winnebago, more probably known as Ho-Chunk Indians, to to an anthropologist. And in the story, there are these 10 brothers, and the youngest of the 10 brothers is named “He-Who-Gets-Hit-With-Deer-Lungs”, which sounds like a really terrible name, but let’s come back to that thought. You want me to tell the story real quick?

Dean Klinkenberg 46:18

Yeah, yeah. Go for it.

Dr. Julie Zimmerman 46:19

Pretty engaging story. Okay, so story these youngest of the 10 brothers, “He-Who-Gets-Hit-With-Deer-Lungs”. And we don’t know where the parents are, but the older brothers are always going out hunting, and they’re like, sorry, little brother, you got to stay home. And so as the story opens, there’s this race, and the winner of the race is going to get to marry the chief’s daughter. And once again, the brothers say to their little brother, hey, little brother, sorry, you’re too young. You gotta stay home. And so as soon as the older brothers leave, little brother sneaks out of the house, and he enters the race, and he turns into an arrow and he shoots around the world, and that’s how he’s able to win the race, through magic. Okay, so now he has the right to marry the chief’s daughter, but he’s like, Oh, no, I’m too young. We don’t know how young he is. He’s could be seven. My guess is he’s probably more like 17 or something, but we don’t know how young he is. He says, I’m too young, I can’t marry her. And he gives the right to brother number nine. He’s like, Oh, I can’t marry I’m too young. And he gives the right to brother number eight. And it goes on up the line till they get to the oldest brother, who is the only other brother that has name. His name is Kunu, so it’s a respectful thing to honor the older brother, right? So he marries the chief’s daughter, and he brings her home, and now she’s living with these guys, which I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be disrespectful. It sounds like a nightmare to me, but now she’s living with these 10 brothers, and once again, the older brothers are going out hunting, and they’re they say, Hey little brother, sorry, you’re you’re too young. You gotta stay home. You’re like, what he won the race. Like, how? Why are they still treating it like this? So they go out and they kill a deer. They bring it home, the chief’s daughter. She’s the chief’s daughter, but she still has to work. She’s butchering that deer. She takes out those deer lungs, and she throws them at little brother, and they hit him. And all the other brothers stand up and they say, What did you do that for? And she says, Will you do it? And they say, No, we don’t. We just call him that. So he gets hit with deer lungs. Got hit with the deer lungs. So it seems like it’s very insulting kind of name when she literally throws the deer lungs at him at the same time, you know, deer are very fast runners, and so this guy is an athlete. He did win the race. He used magic, but surely he’s been hit with deer lungs. He’s a fast runner, right? But at this point in the story, little brother stands up and he says, From now on you will no longer call me that. From now on, you will call me the name given to me by the heavens above. And suddenly he says, My name is Red Horn. And he’s got this big shock of red hair that comes out of his forehead. And he says, the other name given, given to me by the heavens above is “He who Wears Human Heads as Earrings”. And he’s got these little, suddenly, he’s got these little human head earrings that are alive. They wiggle their eyebrows, stick out their their tongues, and so, um, we, you know, so he’s got these, he becomes, this is just the first chapter in an epic tale, and it goes on something like Radin wrote down something like the art anthropologist, sorry, wrote down something like 12 chapters. But we know he ends. It was saying there’s more, but it’s like, you know, Superman, there’s always a new issue that can come out. There’s always a new movie that can be made, right? You can always tell another story and add on to it. So he goes on, he’s already a great athlete. He goes on to become a great warrior. He goes on to become a healer. He’s like Superman and Jesus all rolled up into one. He’s like, you know, he’s a hero and and so we can clearly see, obviously, over 1000 years from the time Cahokians were telling their stories to the time the story was recorded by an anthropologist, told by the Ho-Chunk, the story would have changed. For example, the Ho-Chunk telling the story their athlete. He become we shows himself to be a ball player. Well, the Cahokians weren’t playing balls. They were ball. They were playing you chunky. All right, so the story would have changed through the centuries, but, but clearly they’re telling some version of that story at Cahokia, because you clearly see the characters with the human head earrings. You see them wearing these hair pieces that look like deer lungs. They call it the bilobate arrow, where it looks like an arrow coming out of the guy’s hairpiece with two lungs on either side of it. You see the one of the figures had the character the heroes commonly have, like these front little four locks. But the one is very clear. The one red flint clay figure was very clearly has the big red braid coming out of his forehead, wearing the human head earrings. So they’re they’re telling a story of a great hero who wore human head earrings, who was clearly from the depictions an athlete and a warrior. And there’s also at least one depiction that makes him look like he’s a healer as well. So, so, yeah, I think that is the central story of a hero, that is. And think about how women are having, you know, goddesses are so important to giving them, you know, hope for life eternal. The same thing with this character, Red Horn in the in the Ho-Chunk version of the story, he dies at the end, then he comes back to life. So his sons are like hero twins who bring him back to life.

Dean Klinkenberg 51:31

So they have their own resurrection story.

Dr. Julie Zimmerman 51:35

Yeah, it gives you the hope, right? If you you see your loved one dies, loved ones die. Whether you know baby dies at birth, or your son dies off in a in a battle, or your daughter dies giving birth, you always have the hope that they’re going to come back around again.

Dean Klinkenberg 51:54

Wow, so you think, yeah, that’s the essence that. That’s the essence of the stories that would really draw people in, is it provided those messages about renewal and hope and basically, you know, eternal life in a sense that would the, do you suppose the prime, I don’t know what term to use, like the primary civic or religious leader would, would that person have tried to claim some connection to Red Horn?

Dr. Julie Zimmerman 52:24

I strongly suspect, obviously, I cannot know this or prove it, but I strongly suspect that there was an actual hero named Red Horn, or, you know, whatever, in their native tongue. And just like you know, people can debate whether or not Jesus was really the Son of God. Historians accept that there actually was a real Jesus. There was a historical Jesus. And so I think there was an historical Red Horn, and I think his legend grew, his stories grew. And there are, you know, you know, this is what a hero does as you add episodes, you just add to the legend of Red Horn. We just keep adding stories. But I suspect there was a real hero at the beginning, and in the theory the literature theories about storytelling around the world, they suggest, Old World scholars have suggested that the heroic epic as a form of storytelling originates in early states, where they’re trying to inspire warriors to go out and fight for their for their for their city, for their state and and I think that’s probably what is happening a Cahokia as well. I think they’ve, you know, they’re, they’ve independently invented the heroic epic here, as they’re, as they’re telling these stories about this great hero. So that’s how they’re, that’s a very important means for how they’re spreading this theater state.

Dean Klinkenberg 53:53

Well, that was one of the things that I was wondering about is, like, how much of this story is something that seemed to have emerged from Cahokia, versus how much of it was rooted in, you know, cosmology or beliefs that might have been around, circulating around North America for a while before anyway. And I’m sure this is speculation again, but that’s okay.

Dr. Julie Zimmerman 54:14

Yeah, so if you look at the Middle Woodland, Hopewell art is an earlier, earlier bound building culture, 1000 years earlier, fabulous works of art. The the works of art are not showing goddesses and heroes. They’re showing cosmological creatures. So, for example, a common Native American origin story about how the world is created is the beginning of the world is a water world. And this woman, Sky Woman, in the Seneca version, the story comes falling from the sky, and she needs a place to live, and so the little creatures go down, animals go down, one by one, trying to find Earth for her. And it’s typically the fourth animal that’s successful, because four is a good number. And so in a common version of the story, it’s little muskrat comes up and, you know, not necessarily the biggest, strongest animal, but you know, little muskrat comes up and he’s got this little fist full of earth and slaps it on the back of the turtle and falls back into the water, dead. And that is why, to this day, the turtle has those marks on its back. And also that is why this is Turtle Island. So now Sky Woman has a place to live. She’s living on Turtle Island. Okay, so when you look at the artwork from 2000 years ago, 1000 years from Cahokia, it’s all these, what we call earth divers, all the different kinds of animals that would have played a role in this, or birds, which are associated in Native American cosmology, with the upper world, or some of these creepy creatures that are associated with the lower world. So that it’s all about animal art 2000 years ago, it’s all about the storytelling, about the creation story. Think of it like the Old Testament, where I’ll tell in the book of Genesis. Okay? And then it’s a very huge shift in the art styles. It coming out of Cahokia, the emphasis, they still, they still have art that shows animals. I didn’t get into that because, because, you know, it’s kind of old school, but, yeah, there are still some of these earth divers, you know, shown in some of the artwork. Birds are common, but all of a sudden, a whole new genre of of the goddesses and the heroes. So the stories may have been around earlier, but they’ve taken on a new purpose, and they’re being used, I think again, to attract people and motivate people in a way that they weren’t before.

Dean Klinkenberg 56:44

So give us a sense of what this I know this is almost total speculation, but I want you to just kind of run with the way you’ve kind of mentioned it in your head, how these stories might actually be told in person that you know, Monks Mound is one of the it was the tallest pre Columbian structure in North America, there are lots of other mounds. Some of them are just platform mounds built to hold the structure or maybe a show. Others have bodies in them. What would this theater state actually look like if you were a person there?

Dr. Julie Zimmerman 57:16

Well, I’m sure they were telling, I’m sure on those flat top platform mounds, like Monks Mound. I’m sure there are people standing up there telling stories. And in fact, it you may have noticed near the Interpretive Center, there’s this little greenhouse there near the Twin Mounds at Cahokia that that’s been the home for decades of one of the park employees. But I know the guy who lived there for decades, and he said when he stand in his yard, he can hear people talking on Monk’s Mound clear as a bell, and so. So the plaza, the Grand Plaza, is all artificially level. Later, after AD 1200 there would have been walls around it that would have obstructed your view beyond the plaza. But I’m sure it was designed. It was built with acoustics in mind. So who, who’s ever up there talking, he can be he or she can be heard. And other platform mounds also would have been places where people could stand up and tell stories. So the you mentioned mounds with bodies, those are the conical mounds typically that have were used for burial mounds. The Flat Top Mounds were typically mounds for, could have an elite house or a temple on it, or again, storytelling could be happening up there, but those are common Mississippian mound types throughout the southeastern United States. But at Cahokia, there’s another type of mound, we call the ridge top mound that would have looked kind of like a long loaf, like with a with a roof, gabled roof on or something like that, maybe. But um, Tim Pauketat has suggested we don’t know a lot about them, except for mound 72 at Cahokia, which was excavated circa 1970 for several years. They would never allow this today. Archeologists, I want to be clear, do not dig mounds anymore, okay, but back in the ’70s, it was legal, and we didn’t have this, the the ethical sensibilities that we have now about disturbing other people’s graves. So there were excavations done at Mound 72 in Cahokia in the 1970s. The other ridge top mounds that were excavated, they seem to be like marker mounds for Cahokia, coming like, you know, marking the kind of the perimeters of the site, but the main, the most sacred part of the site. But they were torn down mostly in the late 1800s and the salvage work that was done early 1900s the salvage work that was done Tim Pauketat has written about it looks like they were built in stages, and they were stages. So it looks like they would have some kind of dramatic, theatrical ritual taking place on a stage. At the end of it, people would die, and they would, some of us might call that human sacrifice. But at the end of it, people would die, and they would be buried on that that stage and covered over. And sometime, you know, in the future, I know, I don’t know how far down the road, you know, next year, a couple years, or whatever, they come back and they do it again. So. There would be some kind of theatrical rituals taking place on that stage. And at the end of it, people would get buried on the stage and covered over again, and this would take place through through time. And so I’m sure that they were up there telling stories that they’re, you know, Tim Pauketat talks about, you know, theatrical pageantry. But what is a play. A play is a story acted out, all right, but also there would have been storytelling. For example, there’s a site a few miles from Cahokia that was found when they were dig, when they were building 255, that’s thought to be on some kind of like a lunar, lunar observation kind of ritual shrine site, and they found two female figures there. In it’s like what they are calling, like a small temple. And in situations like that, you know, it wasn’t for a big, open audience, it was kind of a private ritual where, where, in this case, women’s rituals, there are women probably specifically, again, the thought is maybe they’re making these artifacts themselves. There was a woman artist making some of the female figurines. But also, when they’re selling that story, they’re doing it in a more private and secluded place. But those are special kind of storytelling events. The most common storytelling that would have been done at a family level, would just be in a family’s house, on a typically on a winter evening. In Native American storytelling, there’s often time taboo about telling stories out of season, depends about the type of story. But most of the stories would have been told in the winter, which makes sense, because you know, in the summer you got work to do. Long days you’re going to be outside working, but in the winter that gets dark so early and we’re trying to stay inside and stay warm, what else are we going to do? But the taboos in the summer might be that if you told a story out of season, the snakes are going to get you, or little people are going to get you. Okay, so the vast majority of stories that would have been told would have been told, I think, in a family setting like that, grandpa or grandma telling the stories in winter night, sitting around fire to to the grandkids and that epic tale, for example, you know you wouldn’t tell the whole story one night. It might take you a month to tell that story, because every night you tell a different episode. Okay? And likewise with your stories about old woman who never dies, grandmother, every night you tell a different story about her.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:02:39

Well, it sounds like a continuation of a long human tradition. Yeah, those families sitting around, swapping stories, sharing their history. It’s easy to imagine that happening anywhere in the world at any given point in time, really, yep. So I think we could probably go on and on about this for a long time, but I kind of want to move us toward wrapping up. Cahokia eventually depopulated. There’s no obvious reason for it. There’s no sign of, you know, armed attacks or anything that wiped out the village from my reading of it. And maybe this is the way you would think of it too. It just, it seems like people just kind of gradually started moving away, more than there was any one single event that triggered depopulation. So in your mind, like, from what you know, like, what do you think explains that the end of this, this great settlement?

Dr. Julie Zimmerman 1:03:41

All right, imagine it all unraveling. Okay. And we began with AD 900 warm, wet period for growing great for growing corn. AD 1200 is a cold, dry period, not so great for growing corn. And they’ve been growing corn now for several centuries without beans. Beans come later from Mexico. Okay, so there’s the little problem with the sustainability of their agricultural system. Possibly they’ve possibly cut down lots of trees to plant their corn fields, alright, so, and also eating corn without beans is not as healthy as eating them together. So there are environmental problems, not of human making, like we call this that cool, dry period. We call the Little Ice Age. It also affects, for example, Vikings moved to Greenland around AD 900 during that warm period, and then they have to move out again in AD 1200 because it’s too cold. So there are some larger global environmental changes, climate changes that are not caused by humans. But then there are localized environmental changes that Cahokians were unwittingly responsible for growing corn without beans or cutting trees down. Imagine if you had 20,000 people living in the same spot, and they went all went deer hunting some weekend. So you there are enough fish. You can’t. You cannot. You know you could not eat all the fish anymore. You know the lakes and the creeks and the river, but you could, I think, you know over hunt the deer. Okay, and you need deer, not just for meat, but you need it for the hide. You need the bones for tools. You need the marrow. You need the antlers for tools. So everything in that deer, you need the city for binding your arrows, everything in that deer is important for something. So there’s all that stuff going on and and then, oh, and by the way, I should mention, after AD 1000 we see lots. It’s pretty common to see villages like in it, like the Iroquois, for example, up in the northeast, all their all their settlements after, typically, after AD1000 have palisades. They do have walls around them, protecting themselves from each other. So I think that the population in general, in northeast, in the northern, sorry, in the eastern United States, has grown by this point that there is competition for resources. Um, at Cahokia, the only palisade that you, well, there was one at East St Louis. And, by the way, there is evidence of burning in East St Louis, around around the around AD 1200 or something like that. So one thought is that maybe people, maybe there was ritual burning, but maybe it was burned by an enemy, okay? Cahokia itself, the wall goes up to protect the most sacred part of the site, the Grand Plaza, after AD 1200 Okay, so there could be some conflict in competition from other other areas at that time. Okay, so you’re correct, the population starts to decline. People had come to Cahokia, and now they’re leaving. And so some might be leaving because the food base isn’t there. You know, you can’t feed people the way that you did. Also, the artifacts found look like earlier Cahokia’s history. You know, even Joe Schmo farmer got some of the exotic ritual materials coming out of Cahokia, the marine shell beads and the red flint clay pipes and things like that. But after AD 1200 looks like those materials are restricted to the elites, so there’s a change in how they’re treating the non elites, it would appear, okay. And then, you know, we know that we’re not, we’re within the realm of the New Madrid Fault. Okay, so have you done a podcast yet on the New Madrid earthquakes?

Dean Klinkenberg 1:07:41

I have.

Dr. Julie Zimmerman 1:07:42

I knew you would have okay. So as you know, in 1811, 1812 it wasn’t just one earthquake. It was a whole earthquake, series of earthquakes. And if you look at the USGS website, you can see the earthquakes happening down there all the time. They’re just usually not big enough to talk about. But you know that the earthquakes of 1811, 1812 were felt for hundreds of miles. They were incredibly destructive. They didn’t kill, you know, the river going the wrong way, 1000s of acres of floodplain forest flattening, lakes, disappearing, lakes appearing where none had been before. So just incredible. That would have destroyed the agricultural system. Right to have an earthquake like that. Not that many people were killed in 1811 ,1812 because there weren’t that many people down in New Madrid, right? But So imagine you’re living in Cahokia, and things have been going wrong, all right, and we know from the archeological record that these earthquakes are happening. It’s something like every 500 years, plus or minus 200 because as the earthquakes happen, these sand blows down the boot heel. These sand blows sand was shooting up in the air, and then boosh, they land back, the sand lands in the ground, and it’ll cover an archeological site. And you can tell by this age of that village underneath the sand layer when that earthquake went off. So we know that there are earthquakes happening around this time. And it’s not just event. Ultimately, it’s not just Cahokia that’s abandoned. It’s a big area that archeologist called the vacant quarter. And if you look at the area that’s abandoned about this time, it suspiciously overlays with the area that felt the 1811, 1812 earthquakes. Okay, so Cahokia would have been on the periphery of it, but it would have felt it, and it could have destroyed, like I said, destroyed their agricultural systems, like, you know, in the Bootheel right now, or the Illinois side with the flooding that’s been happening. You know, as you know, we go from drought to flood. Drought to flood. Because, oh, maybe we’ve messed up this. This the environment again, but it’s destroying the farm fields down there. When sand comes in and covers your good dirt, it’s not good dirt anymore, right? So, and we know they’re we know they have to go distances to get trees fom the kind of charcoal there’s, they’ve cut all the trees down anyway. So all this, imagine all things could be going wrong. And here, if, if I believe in a world that’s alive, and then this earthquake happens, I’m going to take that as my final sign, and I’m going to move on, alright. And ultimately, if I bring it back to storytelling. The stories aren’t working anymore. And the you know, the story your grandma and grandpa tells you, you cling to that, but the story that elites telling you, I’m done with that, I’m just gonna move on. So you know, the Osage believe that they are the descendants of Cahokians and the architects of Cahokia. They just move across the river, right? And they’re in there in Missouri, but their Cahokia is a multi-ethnic well, you talked about immigrants coming from far and away. And so I’m sure those they may have identified as Cahokians, you know, after generations, but they still have family in those other areas. So I’m sure as they leave, they go back to where they still have kin in other areas. So, um, so today, you know, there are lots of Native Americans who look to Cahokia as an ancestral site, not just the Osage. And so they didn’t just, you know, we commonly act like, Oh, everybody disappeared, like they just all died, or aliens came and sucked them up into a spaceship and took a boy or something like that. No, there are the Native Americans who are still alive today. Different tribes, nations.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:11:30

A common misconception we have about places like this is just because the that site is is abandoned, that the people must be gone as well. There are descendants of the Mayan civilization still living in Mexico and Central America today, very much so, and it seems like the people who lived in Cahokia spread out their traces of Mississippian culture, throughout the Great Plains. There were big communities in the southeast, especially along the Mississippi River, on the Arkansas River, that were clearly Mississippi and influenced and then what the Natchez as late as the 1720s when the French were there, looked like they were probably direct descendants of Mississippian people as well. So they didn’t disappear, they just spread out and they moved on, and they evolved and changed some over time, but some of those Mississippian cultural traits were still there.

Dr. Julie Zimmerman 1:12:17

Absolutely the native tribes of the southeast were still living what we consider a Mississippian lifestyle when Europeans showed up, and the Natchez are a good example. You know, when I was in grad school, I was taught by a professor that they had all died out. Well, guess what? They didn’t. There are people in the Chickasaw tribe today, Chickasaw Nation who identify, I think they pronounce it “natchi”, because I don’t know they’re from the south east, but so there are still people who identify as Natchez in the Chickasaw tribe today. So they’re not gone.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:12:50

Right. So one of the things I know that’s very different now in the field, it used to be, you kind of hinted at this before that. You know, in archeology and anthropology, Native American sites were basically treated as, you know, fair game for anybody to come in and dig and do whatever they want, and there’s been tremendous pushback. So So today, like, what’s the relationship between a site like Cahokia and contemporary Native American communities?

Dr. Julie Zimmerman 1:13:17

Well, I’m going to say there’s nothing that’s going to be done in Cahokia without consulting with with Native nations. Okay, again, starting with the Osage, but there are a number of like the Peoria. There are a number of Native nations who would be consulted anytime anything is done at Cahokia. And by the way, I’m sure if your listeners are listening to this, anytime soon, they’re going to be asking, when is that Interpretive Center going to open up again? So it is, today is March 12, 2026, and the word on the street is, it’s supposed to open in April. I heard April 1, but they may have pushed it back again, but it should be open very soon. So go see it. All the new displays that were done in there were done consulting with native peoples, okay? And so in terms of the displays in the museum, consultation and collaboration are essential. But also in terms of will there be field work? I don’t think there’s going to be any digging anytime soon at Cahokia, but even even something like remote sensing, where we’re not digging, you just use equipment to see to get an idea of what’s below ground. Even something like that is what we call non invasive. Even something like that’s not going to happen without consultation and collaboration with native peoples to make sure that they approve. And if they don’t, then it doesn’t happen. It’s not approved.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:14:43

Is there, is there any particular story that you have yourself about Cahokia, something that you learned about Cahokia that really struck a chord or resonated particularly strong with you?

Dr. Julie Zimmerman 1:14:56

I don’t know. I guess I’m as I’m talking to you, you can see I’m sitting with. Looks like I’m sitting in the dirt, and it’s a picture of an excavation on our SIUE campus. So I guess I would just end by saying to me, the coolest thing, let me say this. When people say, what’s the coolest thing you’ve ever found? I will say two things. One, in a field school that we did 20 years ago, we found this grinding tool a little like little mano for that, presumably some woman used it was in the plow zone. So we don’t know if it was 1000 years old or 6000 years old, but it fit my hand perfectly. It was all smooth and polished. My thumb fit perfectly. My my fingertips fit pit. Pit fit, fit perfectly. Sorry. And I could just imagine some woman holding that in her hand and grinding corn 1000 years ago, or hickory nuts 5000 years ago, and and, you know, taking care of her kids. So that, to me, the human story, and the other, my other favorite thing in the world to find. What you see sitting in this picture behind me is a Mississippian house that we have we’re excavating. And to me, finding a house, it’s, you know, to the non archeologists, they’re like, It’s dirt, and they’re like, it’s not even, it’s not like, you know, you see beautiful stone walls because they were living in thatch houses, but we see dark colored dirt where the house pit was, we were, the walls were. And so to me, that is the coolest thing to sit there and think somebody slept here 1000 years ago. You know, parents, children, a dog snuggled up to keep warm. So that, to me, is the coolest thing that brings it to life. You know, the Cahokians and the people before them were humans like we are, and they love their kids and they fed that was their priority, was to raise those kids, feed them, and bring them up in their community in a good way. And in that sense, we we hopefully have that in common with them.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:17:04

Thank you so much taking the time to talk with me today and to share your expertise and to speculate a little bit as well. Deeply appreciative. That was great. Thank you.

Dr. Julie Zimmerman 1:17:13

Thanks for having me.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:17:16

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the series on your favorite podcast app, so you don’t miss out on future episodes. I offer the podcast for free, but when you support the show with a few bucks through Patreon to help keep the program going, just go to patreon.com/dean.klinkenberg. If you want to know more about the Mississippi River, check out my books. I write the Mississippi Valley Traveler guidebooks for people who want to get to know the Mississippi better. I also write the Frank Dodge mystery series that’s set in places along the river. Find them wherever books are sold. The Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast is written and produced by me Dean Klinkenberg. Original Music by Noah Fence. See you next time.

The lower half of the Mississippi grows to an immense scale that is hard to comprehend until you’re sitting on a small boat in the middle of it. In this season of the Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast, we’re going to go deeper into that world, of the lower Mississippi. We’re kicking off this new season with an episode where we dive into the ecology of the lower River. Long-time fisheries biologist Jack Killgore takes us through the past and present of the lower river’s world. We talk about the lower Mississippi before engineers began to remake it, then talk about how human engineering has altered the lower river’s ecology. He describes the significance of the 2,000 miles of uninterrupted channel that run down the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, and describes work in progress to restore ecosystems harmed by river engineering. We finish with a description of the fish the river sustains, with an emphasis on the big ones, such as sturgeon, paddlefish, and alligator gar, as well as the problems posed by invasive carp.

Below are photos of Dr. Jack Killgore holding (left to right): pallid sturgeon, gulf sturgeon, and blue catfish.

If you are enjoying the podcast, please consider showing your support by making a one-time contribution or by supporting as a regular contributor through Patreon. Every dollar you contribute makes it possible for me to continue sharing stories about America’s Greatest River.

 

Don’t want to deal with Patreon? No worries. You can show some love by buying me a coffee (which I drink a lot of!). Just click on the link below.

71. Ecology of Lower Mississippi River

Thu, Feb 26, 2026 2:15PM • 1:04:50

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Mississippi River, ecology, flora and fauna, aquatic environment, engineering projects, restoration projects, fish species, paddlefish, sturgeon, alligator gar, invasive species, gravel bars, floodplain, biodiversity, habitat assessment.

SPEAKERS

Dr. Jack Killgore, Dean Klinkenberg

Dr. Jack Killgore 00:00

A lot of the flora and fauna that existed before European settlement still exists today. And that’s what people don’t realize, is that we really had no extirpations or extinction of species in modern day. What we have had is a shrinkage, shrinkage of the aquatic environment, and that’s always been one of my goals, is what we have is in a lot it’s very natural. In a lot of ways, it’s still that wilderness value, and I don’t think people appreciate that, because when I talk to folks about the Mississippi today, they tend to think that it’s just a polluted stream that’s been channelized that feeds nutrients to the Gulf of Mexico, and it’s nothing like that.

Dean Klinkenberg 01:10

Welcome to the Mississippi Valley Traveler Podcast. I’m Dean Klinkenberg, and I’ve been exploring the deep history and rich culture of the people and places along America’s greatest river, the Mississippi, since 2007. Join me as I go deep into the characters and places along the river, and occasionally wander into other stories from the Midwest and other rivers. Read the episode show notes and get more information on the Mississippi at MississippiValleyTraveler.com. Let’s get going.

Dean Klinkenberg 01:42

Welcome to Episode 71 of the Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast. Well, welcome back for a new season, for a new year of episodes of the podcast. We’re kicking off this year with a look at the Lower Mississippi, and my first guest of 2026 is Dr Jack Killgore, who’s been a longtime fisheries biologist, mostly with the US Army Corps of Engineers based in the in the Vicksburg District. In this episode, we talk about the ecology of the Lower Mississippi specifically. We talk about what the lower river valley looked like before all of the engineering projects began. We cover some of the flora and fauna and the ecosystems that dominated during that period of time. And we also talk about the changes that we’ve made, the way we’ve re-engineered the river, and the impact it’s had on the flora, fauna and those ecosystems. We talk about the significance of having 2000 miles of free flowing river along the Missouri Mississippi River system, and we get into some of the restoration projects that are underway or planned for the Lower Mississippi to bring back some of the ecosystems and flora and fauna that have been harmed by the way we’ve engineered the river. Then we spend some time really going deep into different kinds of species of fish, especially the big fish that are common along the Lower Mississippi, including paddlefish, sturgeon and alligator gar. It’s a fun discussion. I learned a lot about the ecology of the Lower Mississippi. I think you will as well. So let me know what you think.

Dean Klinkenberg 03:20

I have one quick update I want to share with you. Last April, I was interviewed for Travel with Rick Steves. We recorded two segments about the Mississippi River. The first was a more general exploration of the river the culture places to visit. The second segment, which just aired in January, is about each of the 10 states. He kind of put me through the ringer and asked me to pick a highlight in each of the 10 states along the main stem of the Mississippi. That just aired on January 30, I think. So if you Google “Travel with Rick Steves” and along with my name with Dean Klinkenberg, you should be able to find both segments if you’re interested in listening to those. It was awfully fun, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to be on his national radio show.

Dean Klinkenberg 04:06

You can find the show notes for this episode and access to all the previous episodes at Mississippi Valley traveler.com/podcast for as little as $1 a month, you can join the Patreon community, and you get early access to the episodes by doing so. In addition, you are part of the group that makes this podcast possible. Without the financial support from my Patreon supporters, there would not be a current season of this podcast. So thank you to all of you who stepped up and provide some support. If Patreon is not your thing, you can buy me a coffee go to MississippiValleyTraveler.com/podcast, and at that link, you can find out how to buy me a cup of coffee to support my caffeine habit or to join the Patreon community. Well, let’s get on with the interview.

Dean Klinkenberg 05:07

Beginning in the 1980s Dr .Jack Killgore worked in Vicksburg, Mississippi as a research fisheries biologist at the Environmental Laboratory for the US Army Corps of Engineers, Engineer Research and Development Center, which was formerly known as the Waterways Experiment Station. His research interests include habitat assessment of large river fishes, conservation of endangered species, aquatic habitat restoration, invasive species management and environmental impact analysis for Corps of Engineers, flood control and navigation projects. Although Dr. Killgore has worked in many regions of the United States, his emphasis has always been the Mississippi River and its tributaries. He currently teaches several river science courses as an adjunct professor at Tulane University. He is an enrichment speaker for the Viking Mississippi river cruises, and continues to analyze and publish research results for the Corps as a contractor. Jack, welcome to the podcast.

Dr. Jack Killgore 06:02

Thank you, Dean. I’m very glad to be here.

Dean Klinkenberg 06:04

Well, I’m very excited to talk to you today. A lot of my work has been on the upper part of the river, and I have spent some time on the lower river as well, but I feel like I’ve kind of neglected it to some degree. So this season, one of my goals is to really do a few more episodes that really highlight aspects of life along the Lower Mississippi. And I think you’re a great one to start with. Maybe what we should start with is give me, like an overview of what we know about what the lower part of the Mississippi was like before we started really making changes to it.

Dr. Jack Killgore 06:40

It was a very meandering river. Huge, huge bendways. Many of those were cut off in the 1930s and 40s to shorten the river. But prior to that, you could get lost going into the secondary channels and the sloughs. There was a lot of woody debris in the river. Because, you know, of course, the river is part of a bottomland hardwood forest, so you had a lot of wood. Of course, that became a problem with navigation, and it the the floodplain would would go 100 plus miles, in some cases, when you had major floods. So, you know, it was kind of, I’ve always thought it was kind of like a mini Amazon river, in a way. We can’t compare any river in the world to the Amazon, but it had a lot of those characteristics. So it was, it was just a wilderness at that time.

Dean Klinkenberg 07:43

It’s sometimes hard for, I think for even me too, to think about the scale of the impact of this river. It’s It’s enormous today, and it had a huge impact in shaping the area around there. You mentioned the 100 mile wide floodplain in places it’s hard to imagine today, when you’re driving through the Mississippi Delta, that at one time that was basically swamps and bottomland forest, right?

Dr. Jack Killgore 08:09

Right. It’s, of course, today, it’s all about the dirt that that was deposited by that meandering river, you know, over the 1000s of years, and that’s why you have such a rich soil and some of the agricultural greater than, you know, many places in the world.

Dean Klinkenberg 08:29

And because of the the size and the the impact of the river, it supported a pretty diverse and abundant wildlife. So can you just get a give us a sense of what that flora and fauna would have been like, and those pre-engineered in the pre-engineered rivers world?

Dr. Jack Killgore 08:48

Well, maybe, with a few exceptions, on extinctions, a lot of the flora and fauna that existed before European settlement still exists today. And that’s what people don’t realize, is that we really had no extirpations or extinction of species in modern day. What we have had is a shrinkage, shrinkage of the aquatic environment. And that’s always been one of my goals, is what we have is in a lot it’s very natural in a lot of ways. It’s still that wilderness value, and I don’t think people appreciate that, because when I talk to folks about the Mississippi today, they tend to think that it’s just a polluted stream that’s been channelized, that feeds nutrients to the Gulf of Mexico, and it’s nothing like that. And so yes, there have been changes, but we still have an incredible amount of biodiversity in the river, both the flora and the fauna. I mean, I’m a fisheries biologist, so I’m more familiar with the aquatic life than I am with the plant. Community, but we still have Cypress Tupelo swamps out there. Cypress tupelos were very, very widespread at one time. They were the first that were cut down, but they still exist in some of the scatters and breaks so a variety of habitat types and a consistent flow, and usually you have a connection to the floodplain almost every year, and that’s an important part of the Lower Miss that you don’t find in regulated rivers. The Upper Miss, for example, they don’t really have a seasonal floodplain like you have in the Mississippi.

Dean Klinkenberg 10:39

Yeah, that’s really in some parts of the Upper Mississippi, the valley is so narrow anyway, there wouldn’t be that much floodplain like there would be on the lower Mississippi. What was the value of those seasonal flooding pulses to the life along the river?

Dr. Jack Killgore 10:54

Well, the flood pulse is a flood pulse concept. It’s been studied for years. We ignored it for for a while, but we realized that that annual flood pulse that moves laterally into the floodplain, the fish and other aquatic life follow that pulse. They utilize that aquatic, terrestrial zone that’s that’s being expanded as as the river increases in elevation, and sometimes those floods will stay for months, and then everything shrinks and it comes back into the main stem river, and that’s what feeds the river. The energy, the carbon the young of year begin to thrive and grow. So recruitment of fishes is very, very dependent upon that flood pulse, and that’s why it’s so in a way, it’s a unique because, like I mentioned, if you look at the Arkansas River and many of the other tribs that have lock and dams, you know we don’t have that flood pulse, but we do here in the lower mass. So I tell people, don’t forget that that flood pulse is what drives the biodiversity of the Lower Mississippi River.

Dean Klinkenberg 12:10

Excellent. So part of like, we’ve made a lot of changes to the river over time, and really for two primary reasons, one, to improve navigation. You mentioned the forests and the the wood and the river. And, you know, there are lots of very vivid accounts from riverboat pilots of log rafts and other dangers they encountered trying to drive steamboats on the Lower Miss. And so clearing that was one of the earlier engineering efforts, but also flood prevention for communities and people that lived along the river is another major engineering project. Is it the scale of the levees that line the Lower Mississippi has to be one of the largest engineering projects in the world, ever undertaken. I would imagine. Do you know where it fits in, in terms of human engineering projects?

Dr. Jack Killgore 13:00

Well, it certainly must be, because from Cape Girardeau down to really Baton Rouge, you have what we call the main line Mississippi River levees. But there’s a history of that as well. I mean, the levee, the French started be building levees back in the 1700s around New Orleans, and they would build them three or four foot feet high. And then here comes a flood. And they build them a little bit higher and higher every year, and they never could seem to build them high enough. Well, the Corps ended up having a levee only policy in the late 1800s thinking that if we build these levees, the federal government takes over and builds these levees from Baton Rouge up to Cape Girardeau, then we can contain the greatest flood of record. And of course, we had the 1927 flood, which proved that concept wrong. And that’s when the Corps began to look at other ways of controlling floods, through diversions backwaters and continuing to build the mainline Mississippi River levees higher and higher,

Dean Klinkenberg 14:06

And what has been sort of the general like ecological impact of the changes along the Lower Mississippi. You You’ve already hinted we haven’t lost species, and maybe the world has shrunk some, but tell us a little bit about how the world has changed along the Lower Mississippi with these engineering projects.

Dr. Jack Killgore 14:25

A lot of the what I call backwater or wetland fishes. They suffered the most, in other words, because we shrunk the floodplain down to reduced it by 80% a little bit more than 80% we lost a lot of those swampy backwater areas where you have a unique assemblage of wetland fishes that thrive there, like pirate perch and taillight shiners. I mean, just really small, diminutive fish, but they’re very characteristic of it. That’s what I’ve noticed., Well, when you get into the main channel of the Mississippi River, it really hadn’t changed. People may not realize that, but you still have bendways and straightways and crossings. You have huge sand bars. You have huge gravel bars. You know the although they’ve they’ve been impacted to a certain extent by the wing dams or the dikes, because the purpose of those is to constrict the channel in order to maintain a navigation channel year round, nine to 12 feet here in the lower Mississippi River, at least till you get down to Baton Rouge and and so that that has created what we would call sedimentation along the channel border and the shoreline, because the purpose of dikes is to trap sediment, shrink the channel, constrict it, so you’ll have that that low water channel. So that’s that’s something that we’re dealing with right now with a lot of the ecosystem restoration projects that are going on.

Dean Klinkenberg 16:06

I think one area where you can really see the impact of the the wing dikes is along the Missouri River. There’s some really great historic photos that show what the river’s channel looked like before there were many wing dikes, and then how sediment accumulated along those dikes and really narrowed the channel. We’ll get to the restoration projects in just a minute, but I think, like one of the things that I think I’ve never fully appreciated either until I really started spending time on the Lower Miss, is just understanding how unique it is to have this long uninterrupted channel like I live on, you know, I’ve spent most of my time on the upper mist, where we have locks and dams, you know, every 20 or 30 miles or whatever. But really, there are, what, 2000 or so miles of uninterrupted channel from what around Gavin’s Point Dam on the Missouri River to the Gulf of Mexico. Can you tell us a little bit about why that’s important, why that matters.

Dr. Jack Killgore 17:04

It’s it’s an aquatic highway. It’s a corridor where migratory fish such as sturgeon, paddlefish, buffalo, they they move sometimes over 1000 miles. And the reason we know that is through telemetry studies that we and other agencies have done. We’ll tag fish, put receivers out there, or we’ll put an external spaghetti tag on, and someone catches it and sees my 1-800 number, and they call me and say, We just caught a fish in the Missouri River, and I look it up, well, we tagged it in the Lower Mississippi River. And that’s when I began to realize that a fish can come into the Gulf and go 1200 miles up to St Louis on the Mississippi. Take a left up to Gavin’s point. Like you mentioned, another seven or 800 miles. So you have 2000 miles of free flowing Missouri, Mississippi River. And then I began to research that. I said there’s really no other river in the world except for the Amazon, again, because all the other great rivers that the Yangtze and the Congo and all of them, they have dams near the mouth of the river, and we don’t. Fortunately, they realized that you don’t need a lock and dam in the lower river, because once the Ohio River comes in, there’s usually enough water to float a barge. And so the way that they did it here is they did put dikes in, but we don’t have the the density of dikes in the Lower Miss, as you mentioned in the Missouri River. So you didn’t have those major changes in the channel form here, as you did in the Missouri although the dikes are still there was probably 800 plus dikes in this well, in about 800 miles of river. It’s two to three to four times that [per river mile] in the Middle Miss and in the Missouri River. So that’s, that’s, that’s the result of all the water that we normally get, although we’ve been in droughts here the last couple of years.

Dean Klinkenberg 19:17

Yeah, and we may be heading into another dry year. Who know that we don’t have a lot of snow to melt this year anyway? Let’s talk a little bit about that the world in the main channel itself. When I was working on the Wild Mississippi, I know there used to be kind of a belief among biologists and scientists that the main channel, especially on the river bottom just wasn’t that rich of an environment. There wasn’t a lot of life there. But it seems like we know a lot better now. And there’s, there’s a lot of variety of, I don’t know what the right word is, habitats, like within the main channel itself, slack water areas. Water temperature varies. I guess dissolved oxygen can vary. Different areas. Can you just tell us a little bit about that main channel environment and how much, even that much that can vary?

Dr. Jack Killgore 20:07

Well, the main channel really makes up about 70% of the water volume of the channel itself, from top bank down, I would say. So there’s there’s a lot of habitat, but the reason that we thought that it was somewhat of a barren area is that it’s so hard to sample, you just can’t go out there with the gill net or electroshock and bow, which is some of the traditional tools that fisheries biologists use in order to understand what lives in that main channel. We were able to sample the secondary channels. There’s about little over 100 different side channels, or secondary channels, which are very important to the ecology of the Lower Miss. They’re still functional. We’re still trying to keep them open and connected to the main channel. I mentioned the point bars, the huge, huge sand bars and gravel bars that can go miles and miles that if you you probably walked on them. It is like you’re on the Sahara Desert sometimes, they’re so big. And and you have the dikes, which also form some very interesting habitat types, especially the ones that are notched but almost all the dikes create these scour pools, which are highly used by a variety of fish. They want to get out of the really strong current. They move into the channel border or into the dike fields. And so we see a lot of fish utilizing those structures as habitat. So they’re kind of, in a way, they’re they do have their impacts, like I said, but they also have their benefits to habitat complexity.

Dean Klinkenberg 21:44

How much does the ecology of the of the channel, or the main channel change at the major confluences, like when the Missouri River meets the Mississippi, or the Ohio River merges with the Mississippi, does that change much of the ecology or the nature of what can survive in the river?

Dr. Jack Killgore 22:03

You have a lot of similar species composition all the way through the Missouri and the Mississippi and even the Ohio River. They’re all kind of a pan there. The species that we see here in the Lower Miss, we also find in the Ohio and the Middle Miss, the Upper Miss. There are some exceptions. As you get further north, you get more of your cool water fishes like your walleye, for example. We don’t really see very many walleye here, but we do see sauger, which is very similar to a walleye. So yeah, I it’s, it’s overall, you know, species composition is probably up to about 250 species in the Mississippi River Basin. We have at least over 100 in the Lower Miss that that reproduce in the river. They may be some of them may be transient, but a lot of them are reproducing either in the floodplain, because we do have that intact floodplain, or in the main channel itself.

Dean Klinkenberg 23:10

So tell me a little bit then about what some of the restoration projects are under and tell, what are you, what’s the focus of the restoration efforts? What are some of the larger goals?

Dr. Jack Killgore 23:22

Well, restoration has a long, storied history, and the Lower Miss for a long time was a stepchild in restoration for various reasons, ecosystem restoration in the basin really began in the Upper Mississippi River, which you’ve covered very well in your podcast, and that was due to the navigation expansion program primarily. That’s where the money came in. And the Upper Mess restoration in the Missouri River was a direct result of the Endangered Species Act on pallid sturgeon. So the Corps in that part of the country had to began looking at the population integrity and restoration of sturgeon habitats. Same thing in the Middle Miss. The Middle Miss has restoration program, but it was also a result of the Endangered Species Act on not only the navigation, but also what we call a biological opinion that the navigation prod project could harm the pallid sturgeon. So ecosystem restoration projects started there in earnest in the St Louis district, and they really were the forerunners of going in there and notching dikes and creating islands and opening up secondary channels, but that really hadn’t, the money hadn’t really come into the Lower Miss. But we had one organization that championed that, called the Lower Mississippi River, the LMRCC Lower Mississippi River Conservation Committee, and. And it was begun by Ron Nassar, and now it’s led by Angie Rodgers, but it’s the six states that border the Lower Mississippi River come together, and they develop plans every what they call the slogan, “Restoring America’s Greatest River.” I’ve always liked that slogan, because I because really the Mississippi is America’s greatest river, no doubt about it.

Dean Klinkenberg 25:25

No argument from me.

Dr. Jack Killgore 25:26

You may have some arguments from the Columbia River folks, or, who knows, and so over and they, they began to lobby Congress and and finally, in one of the water resource development acts, they began the the LMRRA. You know, everything in the government has an acronym, but the Lower Mississippi River Resource Assessment, which was our first opportunity to go into a certain stretch which and our first stretch reach a river was near Memphis and about 35 miles. And we and all the states and the federal agencies came together and came up with a list of ecosystem restoration projects, and that is now in Congress, and hopefully we’ll receive money in order to implement some of those restoration projects. So we finally have a federally funded restoration effort going on in the Lower Miss. It’s not anything compared to the Upper Miss, where you have the environmental management program, but it’s the beginning, I think, and people begin to recognize the importance and the quality of this lower river. So I was really excited about that.

Dean Klinkenberg 26:42

Yeah, that’s good when you think about a project like that, and maybe it’s a little bit of both of these. Are you thinking about projects targeting specific species, recovery of specific species? Is it more general about restoring certain habitats? How do you prioritize what kinds of restoration projects to do?

Dr. Jack Killgore 27:02

It’s a little bit of both. We still have to be concerned about the endangered species, which are sturgeon. So some of the main channel type projects are targeting sturgeon, but there are other species that co occur, that are riverine type species that would also also benefit. When we get into the floodplain, we try to look at at species diversity rather than individual species, because there’s so many different species with different lifestyles, different habitat requirements, but they all depend on, say, a connection to an oxbow lake or even the borrow pits that were dug along to build the levees up. They have become very important aquatic habitats for a variety of species as well. So overall, we try to look at a community level assessment rather than individual species. Nothing wrong with the Endangered Species Act. I’m not saying that, but we need to think outside the box to say, how can we benefit the maximum number of species with our restoration projects? And it’s worked pretty well.

Dean Klinkenberg 28:20

All right? Well, you’re a fisheries biologist, so it would be a shame if we didn’t have a chance to geek out a little bit on different kinds of fish species. So why don’t we run through some of the bigger ones first, and maybe, like as we go through these, just tell us a little bit about their habits. You know, what they’re like, what their lives are like, a little bit about them like, let’s just start with paddlefish, like an old species in Mississippi.

Dr. Jack Killgore 28:50

Yes. Well, when I was building our research team, I was able to hire a long term friend and colleague, Dr Jan Jeffrey Hoover, and he and I have worked together for over 30 years, and he has always taken a liking to paddlefish. He’s done a lot of work because they’re so unique. You know, for years, people thought, What in the world is that paddle used for? They thought it was used to maybe muck up the bottom and then they’d open their mouth, but, you know, finally, they realized that that they are eating microscopic zooplankton. And so the the paddle is is a sensor working essentially, and it can detect minute amount of electricity as plankton swim into the water. And that’s how they they live, and that’s why they can get over 100 150 pounds just on microscopic zooplankton. They also make long distance migrations for spawning. They spawn over gravel for the most part, like sturgeon do, so that’s why we’ve been trying to protect and restore gravel bars for those type of species. Unfortunately, they do have the black eggs for caviar. So even though they’re not on the endangered species list, a lot of states regulate their numbers, because if you don’t, then they would be over harvested, just like what we just about did with sturgeon for the caviar market. And, so they’re very primitive fish, and I know you’ve covered it in your book. I just finished reading that book by the way, I enjoyed that.

Dr. Jack Killgore 30:31

They. So they’ve been been around unchanged, more or less, is the time of the dinosaurs. That’s what a lot of people like to say. Kind of like sturgeon, too. So they’re very unique fish, and really the only species of its kind, other than the Chinese paddlefish and the Yangtze but that they think that species is now extinct. So the paddlefish is, is the only one left to that group of fishes.

Dean Klinkenberg 30:57

Thank you.

Dean Klinkenberg 30:59

So I imagine that that paddle with the the ability to sense those minute electrical changes in the water. That seems like something that was probably an adaptation to living in muddy water, maybe.

Dr. Jack Killgore 31:12

Yes, it is. I mean, Shark skates and rays, they, they’re all kind of similar. They still, they also have that capability as well, and yes, and people say, How can, how can anything live in this muddy water where they’re uniquely adapted to muddy water they don’t necessarily have to see. Paddlefish have their electro receptor cells, and catfish have all types of taste buds and can detect movement vibrations in the water, so they don’t necessarily have to see because they evolved in this type of muddy environment.

Dean Klinkenberg 31:50

Well, all right, so let’s move on to sturgeon now, and there’s more than one kind of sturgeon. Tell us first a little bit about what what species of sturgeon are most common in the Lower Mississippi.

Dr. Jack Killgore 31:59

Okay, well, based upon our trotlining, and we put out 1000s of trotlines, that’s how we sample the bottom of the Mississippi River. It was years ago. We were coming into a boat ramp on the Big Sunflower River, Mississippi, and commercial fisherman was taking his boat out, and it was full of buffalo. I never will forget that scene. So we started talking to him, because we’re fisheries biologist, and I asked him, I said, Have you ever caught sturgeon in the Mississippi? He said, I catch ’em all the time on trop lines. Well, the next thing you know, we contract with this commercial fisherman. His name is Bill Lancaster, and we worked with him for 15 years, and like I mentioned, put out 1000s of trotlines, and what we found is that blue catfish is a number one, large bodied fish on the on the bottom of the Mississippi River. But number two is shovel nose sturgeon, which kin to the pallid, but they’re much, much more abundant compared to the pallids. And then you have your pallid sturgeon, which is the second type of sturgeon that lives in the Mississippi. We get lake sturgeon coming out of the Great Lakes, moving south, and they have been stocked, and their populations have been recovering quite a bit, and we’re starting to pick them up here in the Lower Miss. And then you have the gulf sturgeon, which comes really, it prefers just to live in the Gulf Coastal tributaries like the Pearl and the Pascagoula, but sometimes they’ll come up the mouth of the Mississippi, you know, into that lower reach. So we have four species of sturgeon here in the Mississippi River.

Dean Klinkenberg 33:42

Was it the shovelnose that were the smaller, the smallest of the species, and then the lake sturgeon were the big ones?

Dr. Jack Killgore 33:50

Yes. Well, the lake sturgeon, can get up several 100 pounds. The pallids here in the Lower Miss, very rarely get up to 10 to 15, although they can get up to 50 pounds in the in the Upper Missouri and but the shovelnose are typically anywhere from five to six, seven pounds. That’s a big shovel nose.

Dean Klinkenberg 34:16

So you mentioned paddlefish need gravel bars to complete their life cycle, to reproduce. What are what kind of settings or characteristics to the sturgeon need for reproduction?

Dr. Jack Killgore 34:29

Well, it’s the gravel bars are usually located in the upstream reach of these bendways. You could look at right where the Ohio comes in. There’s a lot of gravel bars. The floodplains not as expansive as it is as you go further south, but there’s a lot more gravel but then as you go further south, the gravel bars diminish. Once you get below Natchez, you very rarely see gravel bars again, but the other but the other part of that is that the batture is, the land between the levees, increases as you go downstream, so you have a wider floodplain. The gravel is is a primary substrate for a variety of riverine fishes for spawning and even rearing. Unfortunately, with dikes, that’s where a lot of the dikes are in the upper part of a bendway to push that water towards the outside bendway and we cover the gravel bars. So we’ve been monitoring and surveying gravel bars, trying to maybe change the dimensions of dikes in order to scour sand off of gravel that used to be there, and that’s that’s something that’s ongoing. We want to preserve gravel bars. To me, gravel bars are not only important for spawning and rearing, but they are also part of the geomorphology of the river that are important and kind of keeping that channel in place maybe preventing head cuts from happening. There’s a lot of advantages, and also, there are windows of time you’ve probably walked on gravel bars, Dean, anytime we have a lunch break, we head for if there’s a gravel bar, that’s where we’re heading, and we look, and we’ll find artifacts of sunken steamships. We’ll find Indian beads. We’ll find paleo animal bones, not all the time, but you know, we’re all looking for them. They are windows of time for the for the Mississippi River.

Dean Klinkenberg 36:37

Hey, Dean Klinkenberg here, interrupting myself, just wanted to remind you that if you’d like to know more about the Mississippi River, check out my books. I write the Mississippi Valley Traveler guide books for people who want to get to know the Mississippi better. I also write the Frank Dodge mystery series that is set in places along the Mississippi. My newest book, The Wild Mississippi goes deep into the world of Old Man River. Learn about the varied and complex ecosystems supported by the Mississippi, the plant and animal life that depends on them. And where you can go to experience it all. Find any of these wherever books are sold.

Dean Klinkenberg 37:15

Oh, they’re fantastic to wander around. I learned a lot about geology and such, walking around the gravel bars with John Ruske from the Quapaw Canoe Company and some of the other folks, some of his other guides. They are they’re remarkable places. All right, so the gravel bars are important. Are there? So which species of sturgeon are struggling right now? Then you said shovel nose seem to be pretty abundant which ones are having a harder time?

Dr. Jack Killgore 37:43

It’s the pallid sturgeon, and there’s several reasons for that. One of them is that we do. We built dams in the historic migratory pathways. But I think more importantly, there was an unregulated caviar market. And since the pallids were the larger of the two, that’s a lot of times they would be targeting large gravid females. And recent time, with the advent of genetics, the geneticists are telling us that the shovelnose and the pallets are hybridizing with each other. So we don’t really have purebred pallets in the Lower Miss. They’re mostly confined to the Upper Missouri, but I’m telling you, you know we we catch a pallid and we can identify it based upon its outside characteristics, and it looks a lot different than a shovelnose. You have to have a trained eye, but they are very similar to each other, and there could be hybridization going on. It appears that there is.

Dean Klinkenberg 38:46

Yeah, I don’t know if you know this off the top of your head, but like, just how, how big is the caviar market? Like, how, how much caviar is, you know, produced or harvested from the fish in the Lower Mississippi?

Dr. Jack Killgore 39:01

Well, for sturgeon, now since pallids are federally endangered, they listed the shovelnose under the similarity of appearance rule, because a lot of people can’t tell them apart. So that really eliminated the caviar market. Almost through the entire Mississippi River Basin, there are caviar ranchers, I guess, where they’ll grow out sturgeon, and they’ll get the caviar from there. They also, like I mentioned, get caviar from paddlefish, that it’s regulated, it’s highly washed, but that’s another way they both in the I mean, they’ll they’ll find eggs almost any type of fish, and if they taste decently, I guess they become caviar. But the caviar market has really shrunk dramatically. It used to be a mainstay for commercial fishermen, and you just don’t see that like that today anymore.

Dean Klinkenberg 39:59

Yeah. Well, let’s move on to another big fish. Let’s talk a little bit about alligator gar. So tell us. I don’t think there may be as numerous in the main channel the Mississippi as they might be in some other rivers, but tell us a little bit about these beasts.

Dr. Jack Killgore 40:17

Well, surprisingly, we’re seeing more and more alligator gar pop up in our surveys, not only our surveys, but other state and federal agency because they they were really a misunderstood fish. They were considered a rough fish, and so they put a bounty on their head trying to eliminate the apex predator of the Mississippi River. But they didn’t think of it that way back in those days, they just thought that these alligator gar, because they get 300 plus pounds, are eating their precious sport fish, their bluegill, their bass, and so they put a price on their head, and they just about wiped them out. But now we appreciate alligator gar, plus they can be a predator on the invasive carp and and, and, like I said, they are one of the top predators, so they’re now stocking alligator gar back into the river, and we’re seeing their numbers increase in our trawling samples, we’re picking up occasionally alligator gar along the main channel the Mississippi River. Of course, we know they kind of prefer those backwaters, and they spawn in backwaters over vegetation. But the alligator gar, I think, has a more positive outcome than it did 20 years ago, for sure.

Dean Klinkenberg 41:34

They get, they can get enormous in size. I forget the exact stats, but like there were, the largest one ever caught was somewhere around Vicksburg, maybe five or six years ago, maybe a little bit more was what, 300 pounds.

Dr. Jack Killgore 41:49

That’s right, that’s right, it was, it was caught by a commercial fisherman in one of our lakes just north of Vicksburg, Mississippi here. And it just shows you that we still have very large alligator gar and they’re great. I mean, who wouldn’t want to catch a 300 pound fish? I tell well, you can catch them and you can eat them, just don’t eat the eggs, because the green eggs are poisonous to humans or to to mammals.

Dean Klinkenberg 42:17

And they look scary, but they’re not aggressive toward people at all, as I understand it, right?

Dr. Jack Killgore 42:22

That’s right. The there have been studies. The river monster series did a series down here to see if alligator gar actually attacking and killing people. There have been some reports of alligator gar attacking a person. But it’s probably, you know, not directly. It may, they just may have thought it was some other type of food. So no, there’s never been a report of alligator gar attacking or killing a human that I’m aware of.

Dean Klinkenberg 42:56

So, what are their main, what’s the main source of their diet? What do they prefer to eat?

Dr. Jack Killgore 43:00

That’s another thing is they’re not eating the sport fish. They’re eating shad, gizzard and thread fin shad, which is the primary forage base for a lot of your top predators in the Mississippi River. And there are millions and millions of shad. So it’s not, not like we’re not we’re going to lose shad. And that’s why they are successful, because there is plenty of habitat, there’s plenty of spawning area, and there is plenty of food for them.

Dean Klinkenberg 43:32

So I know that we’ve we’ve had folks who have talked about the impact of removing apex predators on land from land ecosystems like the removal of wolves and the impact that had particularly on things like deer populations. What was the impact in the fisheries in the Lower Mississippi of losing an apex predator like those alligator gar?

Dr. Jack Killgore 43:53

Well, it’s really hard to say. I and you know, but if you go back 40 years when the invasive carp began to appear in the river system, and it was about the same time that alligator gar were being eliminated, because they are considered rough fish, and an invasive carp can grow so quickly that they outgrow the mouth size of a lot of your other predators that could possibly eat them, whereas alligator gar, you know, they could chomp down a 10 pound silver carp, and no problem at all. So that may have been one reason that we saw the expansion of invasive fish. It’s hard to say. You know, when you take an apex predator out of a population of fish, it’s, you know, it’s still unknown. I guess is exactly how that came about. But most people say justify the the development of aquaculture facilities for alligator guard as one biological control for invasive carp.

Dean Klinkenberg 45:04

All right, go alligator gar, right,.

Dr. Jack Killgore 45:07

That’s right.

Dean Klinkenberg 45:07

I want to get to the invasive fish in just a minute. But we can’t talk about the Mississippi and not at least touch on catfish. And you mentioned briefly the blue catfish, which are the biggest of the species. Tell us a little bit about the variety of catfish in the Lower Mississippi, and one or two things that maybe people don’t know about, their habits, or their life, life cycle, or whatever.

Dr. Jack Killgore 45:29

Well, we have three species of large bodied catfish. The blue cat is by far the well, not by far, but it’s the largest, I think the record’s about 130 pounds. And then we have the flatheads. They get up about 100 pounds. And then we have the channel catfish. That may be maximum 50 pounds. We don’t see as many channel cats as we do blue cats. Blue cats are by far the number one catfish in the Mississippi River, and that’s why you have these catfish tournaments, and they’re all targeting mostly blue catfish, because they do get very large. One of our studies have shown, though, that as you get further, as you go further south, you tend to get more blue catfish, and they also get larger. And it could be because you get that estuarine species coming up from, you know, up to north towards New Orleans, and you have a bigger food base. But it’s still unknown exactly why that trend shows in this but, but there’s a lot of catfish. Everyone that fishes the Mississippi River usually either goes after the catfish or the white bass in the main channel the Mississippi sometimes you’ll even get a striped bass, but, but it’s mainly the the catfish that sustains, really a growing trend of catfish tournaments up and down this river.

Dean Klinkenberg 46:58

So how far north do the blue catfish range? Because I know we don’t have them on the Upper Mississippi like about how far north is the northern extent of their range?

Dr. Jack Killgore 47:08

Well, I don’t know we we did some studies in the Upper Miss probably up to Rock Island, if I remember, we were catching some blue cats up there. I’m not as familiar with the species composition in the Upper Miss as I am in the Lower Mess. But I know blue cats have also been transplanted into other regions that they aren’t native and and they create a problem. And flatheads too. They don’t they become, all all of a sudden, they become an apex predator on native fish that that are native to that area.

Dean Klinkenberg 47:46

So, so catfish, yeah, what’s their diet? What do they like to eat?

Dr. Jack Killgore 47:52

The the flatheads typically only eat live fish, or you, you can also get them on cut skipjack, herring and worms, night crawlers, but it’s primarily fish. Blue cats eat the shad almost anything that they encounter, because there is a lot of different minnows and darters. They’re small, but they drum, buffalo, they co-occur with the catfish. We see those in their diet. So they’re opportunistic, is really what they are. They’ll eat anything that gets close to them. And I guess that’s why they’re so successful and so numerous, is they do have a variety, a very diet that allows them to switch seasonally or even based upon the location they’re in.

Dean Klinkenberg 48:43

So other than those fish that we just touched on, what were some of the other most populous species in the Lower Mississippi?

Dr. Jack Killgore 48:51

Buffalo. There’s three species of buffalo. Buffalo, in many cases here in the south. If you go to the fish market, people are buying the buffalo fish rather than the catfish. They they consider buffalo a delicacy, especially buffalo ribs, which are very good. I’ve eaten them before. So you have the big mouth that are mainly in kind of the backwaters. The small mouth buffalo is the most common. But then you have the black buffalo, which are just super big and strong. They’re just an impressive fish when you catch them. But they’re they’re fairly common. They’re doing very well in the Mississippi River. Drum, freshwater drum. When you’re out fishing, for example, you’ll see your pole go boop, boop, boop. And that’s usually one of those bait stealers, those freshwater drum trying to nibble at the worm or whatever. But, but they can get to be 20 or 30 pounds themselves. So they are interesting fish. They’re the only freshwater drum that we have all the other drum or usually associated with the estuarine or coastal environment, like your redfish and spotted sea trout, they’re also in the drum family. What people don’t realize, though, is the smaller fish we have, these fish called the these little minnows and chubs, a shoal chub, shoal chub is what it’s called. There are probably millions of those, and they are eaten by pallid sturgeon, but, but there’s the different minnows and shiners, and there’s, we have a few darters here that are very impressive, the river darter, the crystal darter, which is one of the largest darters in North America. So there’s a variety of fish in that main channel. It is not a barren habitat, but the reason, like I said earlier, is that it’s so hard to sample, and it’s dangerous to sample in some cases.

Dean Klinkenberg 50:53

Right. I’m sure you’ve got some stories about, you know, putting yourself at risk. You probably didn’t need to, just to do a little bit of sampling. But do you have anything, any memories at the top of your head where you found yourself in a difficult spot when you were trying to do your research?

Dr. Jack Killgore 51:09

Well, yes, you know, we’ve we’ve been entrained by high currents before. I think, really though, I’ve worked with seasoned river people that you know, knock on wood. We’ve never had any major incidences over the 30 plus years I’ve worked on that river. We’ve had a lot of close calls. One case, I know, we lost a lower unit on a dike. We didn’t know it was there. And you know, if you’re out there, you have to watch out for those stone dikes, because they will take your lower unit off. Or, even worse, I so I’ve I just, you know, it’s a thrill to be out there, and that’s that’s one reason that it amazes me, is, is just the wilderness and the grandeur of it all. I tell people that you can look one way and see exactly what Mark Twain saw as a cub pilot, and then you look another way and you can see all the river engineering work. So it’s this dual kind of capacity that you that you deal with there. But so yeah, I don’t know. We’ve had a few other incidences that they’re kind of sad finding, you know, some some people there. But other than that, it’s we’ve been very fortunate that over the years, we’ve been able to get on and off that river without any major mishaps. And it’s the people that I’ve worked with that smart, and they know the river, they know how to operate boats, and that’s been an important part of it.

Dean Klinkenberg 52:45

Well, let’s wrap up the fish discussion by talking about some of the invasives then up in this part of the river, the big head and silver carp get a lot of play because they’re exciting to film as you’re taking a boat through those areas, I assume they must be present in the Lower Mississippi too. I don’t know that I hear as much about them being as problematic, but, you know, tell us a little bit about the status of of the invasive fish along the lower Mississippi.

Dr. Jack Killgore 53:12

Okay, well, they began and they were initially introduced into the Lower Mississippi River. Came out of Arkansas. They common carp were brought in in the late 1800s as a food fish, although no one likes to eat them, and that’s how carp got a bad name, I think, because common carps aren’t nearly as tasty as your big heads and silvers. But then in the in the ’50s, 1950s and ’60s, they started bringing in grass carp to eat the problem aquatic vegetation. Well, they escaped into the Mississippi River and began establishing reproductive populations. And we catch them, continue to catch them today. But then they brought in the big head carp and the silver carp to eat plankton, because they’re planktivores out of the aquaculture ponds, and they escaped, and they establish reproductive populations. So it all began in the Lower Mississippi River. And from that point, these fish, the silver the big head, the grass carp, and then later on, the black carp, that’s the most recent introduction. They were brought in to eat these snails out of catfish ponds, which were intermediate host for a parasite. Well, they escaped, and now they are reproducing in the Mississippi so, so they began to expand, because they need flowing water to reproduce. Well, there’s plenty of flowing water in the Mississippi River, and then they need backwater habitat for rearing. Well, there’s plenty of backwater habitat the oxbow lakes and and the meander scars and everything that that exist. So they found it like a buffet, and they just began to grow their numbers and go move north and move south. And of course, that’s why, eventually, the Chicago district put in the electric barriers to keep them out of the Great Lakes. But they we’ve also found their move south, and they do have a little bit of tolerance to salinity, so they can move in to slightly saline water, maybe up to 10 parts per 1000. So now they could move along the coastline and get into the coastal waters like the Pearl, Pascagoula, Mobile. Maybe someday they’re coming down the Tennessee River into the Tenn-Tom. They’re trying to keep them out of the Tenn-Tom, because then they do get into the Mobile. So it’s, it’s a pandemic, really, it’s, they’re fine. We’re finding them almost everywhere. And they do jump, as as everyone knows, the silvers will jump. They’re they get 25 to 30 pounds. And if you get hit by one of those fish, you know it, I’ve been hit so many times, I’ve got a black eye. But you know, it’s I tell people, unless Americans really develop a taste for carp, like they have in Europe now, people consider carp a delicacy, and not a lot of parts of Europe and in Asia, they’re the number one cultured fish in the world. If you don’t do that, then we’re just going to have to deal with them like we have to deal with fire ants down here. They’re, they’re not going anywhere, and just have to be careful and aware that when you’re in an area, they can jump and they can’t hit you and they can’t hurt you.

Dean Klinkenberg 56:33

Yeah, I’ve been struck a couple times in a canoe, of all things. So it’s, it’s unpleasant, but it is memorable. It does make for a good story after.

Dr. Jack Killgore 56:44

You know, Dean, it’s interesting though, that they, you know, they really haven’t altered, in my opinion, the community structure of main channel Mississippi River. Where they do have an impact is getting into the backwaters, where they become one of the dominant fish, and they disrupt nest building fish. Like sunfish, like your bass and your bluegill, they compete for food, and that’s where you’re seeing the impact to our native fishes, not necessarily in the main channel. Not to say that something may change over time, but that’s just been the recent trend that I’ve noticed.

Dean Klinkenberg 57:19

Right. So those are the those species in particular that you mentioned, the bluegill, they’re the ones that are most threatened by the presence of the the invasive carp.

Dr. Jack Killgore 57:29

Yes, any nest building fish. Because what happens is those carp get into these lakes where, you know the bass and the bluegill, that’s where they construct their nest. But then you get this hoard, this school of carp coming in there, and they’re they’re rooting around, and then they scare away the adults that are protecting the fish, and then other fish come in there and gobble the eggs. In other words, they disrupt the entire nest building and rearing process of your sunfishes and other other kind of fish that that that spawn along in shallower water.

Dean Klinkenberg 58:08

Have you noticed a decline in those kinds of fish, or those fish adapting and finding somewhere else to nest?

Dr. Jack Killgore 58:14

Oh no, we’ve noticed. And really it’s, it’s, it’s the public that’s noticed more. We’ve been called to several meetings, and people go, how come we’re not catching bluegill and bass and crappie in our lake anymore? And they say it’s because of those dadgum carp are in there, affecting their populations. And it’s probably true, you know, because it’s it could be other things, but you would think that that hordes of these carp moving in are going to disrupt any kind of native fish community, and that’s, apparently was what happening.

Dean Klinkenberg 58:51

I will put into play. I can’t say that I’ve eaten silver carp or big head I don’t remember. I’ve had smoked carp from a fish market up on the Upper Mississippi. So it was probably common carp. Probably common carp. I thought it was delicious, you know, smoked carp. It was almost as good as smoked salmon in my book.

Dr. Jack Killgore 59:09

Yes, it is. They renamed it down in New Orleans, called a copi for copious and there’s a chef down there that has renamed it and trying to get people to eat it. So they are good eating fish. They have a lot of inner muscular bones, so you have to really know how to deal with that. But as far as their their white sweet meat, it’s, it’s, it’s the best. I mean, it’s, I don’t want to go that far, maybe, but they are good to eat.

Dean Klinkenberg 59:44

Well, maybe we’ll continue to campaign for people to be more adventurous eaters and try more carp. There’s certainly plenty of that available for us to sample from. You know, I forgot to ask you at the very beginning, and maybe this is a good way to kind of wrap things up a little bit, but you’ve been working along the Mississippi for a long time. What? What is it about the Mississippi that got your attention and keeps you coming back so so many years?

Dr. Jack Killgore 1:00:13

Well, even as a boy, you know, reading Mark Twain’s books, I was always fascinated by the Mississippi. I I had no idea that once I joined this organization, this research organization with the Corps called the waterways Experiment Station. Next thing I know, I’m right on the banks of the Mississippi River, even even before that though, I mean, growing up in Northwest Arkansas, my buddies and I, we would on the weekends, we grab our battered aluminum canoes and head for the river. So I always have been fascinated with the rivers, and it was always my goal to try to get projects, research projects and monitoring on the Mississippi River. It took about 10 years once I joined what the Waterways Experiment Station, which is now called the Engineer Research and Development Center. I’m just recently retired from there, but it was a dream come true, Dean, and I have enjoyed every minute of it, and I miss it. In fact, I fish with my own boat out there, so I still get out on the Mississippi River. I plan on continuing to fish as long as I can, but a lot of times it’s not fishing. I’ll just take some one of these inlets and go into the backwaters, and it’s like a jungle back there and and that’s always amazed me, is just the isolation that you can feel. And then there’s just a tremendous diversity and abundance. We would put out trotlines with 60 hooks, and in the winter, we would bring those trotlines in, and there was a fish on every single hook. They filled the boat up. And that hasn’t changed. That still occurs today. So there’s a lot of reasons, and I’ve been very thankful that I’ve had the opportunity to work for such a wonderful organization like like the Corps, with the Engineer Research and Development Center.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:02:08

Do you have a favorite spot or two that you don’t mind giving away?

Dr. Jack Killgore 1:02:13

Oh well, I mean, locally here, I you know, there’s a place here, it goes back into the Civil War history where Grant was here he was trying to cut off the bendway of the Mississippi River. Well, that didn’t work. Well, mother nature did it right at the turn of the century, and left Vicksburg high and dry. So they moved the mouth of the Yazoo River, so it will flow in front of Vicksburg. And the reason I’m telling you that is where the former mouth is, you can enter that and go way back into the swampy areas. And it’s just, it’s, you know, you get a feeling of the way it was before all the alterations occurred. That’s one of my favorite areas. And then I also fish with a professional fishing guide, a blue cat fishing guide, Bob Crosby, and he takes me to places that he’s found. And I’m not sure if I should tell you what those places are, because it’s one of his favorite fishing holes. He catches these big catfish, but it’s around Vicksburg, so you can go almost anywhere, up and down this river and find adventure, isolation and wilderness. It’s just a wonderful time out there.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:03:26

Fantastic. Jack, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today and share your expertise, and I really appreciate you taking this time this morning.

Dr. Jack Killgore 1:03:38

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you, Dean, I really enjoy your podcast.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:03:43

Thanks. Keep up the good work out there, saving our fisheries.

Dr. Jack Killgore 1:03:47

I’m a cheerleader for ’em.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:03:50

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the series on your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss out on future episodes. I offer the podcast for free, but when you support the show with a few bucks through Patreon to help keep the program going, just go to patreon.com/dean.klinkenberg, if you want to know more about the Mississippi River, check out my books. I write the Mississippi Valley Traveler guidebooks for people who want to get to know the Mississippi better. I also write the Frank Dodge mystery series that’s set in places along the river. Find them wherever books are sold. The Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast is written and produced by me, Dean Klinkenberg. Original Music by Noah Fence. See you next time.

Mary Ann Sternberg has spent twenty years challenging the idea that the River Road between Baton Rouge and New Orleans is nothing more than rows of noxious chemical plants interspersed with 19th century plantation houses, so in this episode, we dig into its past and present. Mary Ann begins by orienting us to the geography of the River Road and the region’s indigenous inhabitants. She describes the arrival of European settlers, which included an influx of Germans in the early 1700s. We talk about the role of the Mississippi River in the daily lives of people along the River Road and the development of early agriculture. She talks about the Slave Revolt of 1811 (also called the German Coast Uprising) and where visitors can learn more about that tragic event, as well as which plantations best incorporate the history of enslaved people into the stories they tell. We touch on the history of Canary Islanders and Cajuns who settled in the region, as well as the Jewish community in Donaldsonville. She describes the transition from agriculture to heavy industry, then we finish with a few tips about visiting the River Road.

Mary Ann Sternberg’s website

The Whitney Plantation

River Road African American Museum

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Sat, Nov 01, 2025 11:58AM • 1:08:08

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Mississippi River, River Road, Mary Ann Sternberg, Louisiana history, plantation tours, German Coast, 1811 slave revolt, petrochemical industry, environmental justice, Cajun culture, Jewish community, Donaldsonville, St James Parish, Batcher land, local cuisine.

SPEAKERS

Mary Ann Sternberg, Dean Klinkenberg

Mary Ann Sternberg 00:00

That’s what I was trying to do. I was trying very hard to get people to see how much more was out there than was obvious, because most of it isn’t obvious, and I was hoping that by making people see how much history and culture was still out there that they wouldn’t regard it as just Cancer Alley or Plantation Parade. And I’m not sure that I was highly successful, but I spent over 20 years attempting to do this, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Dean Klinkenberg 01:00

Welcome to the Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast. I’m Dean Klinkenberg, and I’ve been exploring the deep history and rich culture of the people and places along America’s greatest river, the Mississippi, since 2007. Join me as I go deep into the characters and places along the river, and occasionally wander into other stories from the Midwest and other rivers. Read the episode show notes and get more information on the Mississippi at MississippiValleyTraveler.com. Let’s get going.

Dean Klinkenberg 01:28

Welcome to Episode 70 of the Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast. Well, this will be the final episode of 2025. I’m taking a break for the rest of the year, and we’ll see what next year has to offer. If you’re like me, you have probably driven some of the River Road between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and maybe you even were one of those folks who sort of hurried to get down to New Orleans and get through that industrial corridor as quickly as possible. Maybe you stopped at a plantation for a quick tour, and that’s probably about all you really thought about that area. Well, Mary Ann Sternberg has spent 20 plus years challenging the idea that the River Road between Baton Rouge and New Orleans is nothing more than rows of noxious chemical plants interspersed with those 19th century plantation houses. So in this episode, we dig deep into the past and present of that stretch. Mary Ann begins by giving us a general orientation to the geography of the River Road. What part of the Mississippi are we talking about. And describes the region’s indigenous inhabitants. We then get into talking about some of the early Europeans who settled along the river there, including an influx of Germans in the early 1700s. We talk about the role of the Mississippi River in their daily lives, how they adapted to life along the river, how it was central to their movements from place to place, and a little bit about what agricultural products were key in the early development of that corridor. We talked about the slave revolt of 1811 which far too few people know anything about, and offer some ideas on where people can learn a little bit more about that tragic event, as well as which plantations really best incorporate the history of enslaved people into the stories they tell about that particular plantation. We touch a little bit on some other groups who’ve also lived in this corridor, including some Canary Islanders and Cajuns who settled in the region, as well as a Jewish community in Donaldsonville, where Mary Ann has a good story, where she was tracing the history of the synagogue in that particular town. We talk a little bit about the transition from agriculture to heavy industry, and then we finish with a few tips about getting the most from a visit along the River Road. How to get away from just looking at the plantation houses only or being in a hurry to get past the chemical plants. It’s a fun conversation. She has a lot to offer, and I hope you’ll stick around and listen to the whole thing.

Dean Klinkenberg 04:18

Thanks to all of you who continue to show me some love through patreon. For as little as $1 a month, you can join that community, make me smile and get early access to each of these episodes. Not a patreon kind of person. Well, you can show me some love by buying me a coffee, go to MississippiValleyTraveler.com/podcast and at that site, you can learn how to buy me a coffee and feed my caffeine habit. At that same location, MississippiValleyTraveler.com/podcast you’ll find all 69 previous episodes. Notes, as well as the show notes for each of those episodes and for this one as well. So take some time, go back and listen to each of those episodes, look at the pictures and follow the links to find out more about the topics in each of those episodes. And now on with the interview.

Dean Klinkenberg 05:29

Mary Ann Sternberg has been a freelance writer and nonfiction author for 50 years. Her interests include Louisiana history and culture, natural history, the arts, food ways and travel as well as personal essays. She confesses to having been lucky to write about subjects that really interested her, from a week long boat trip along the Peruvian Amazon to attending a rock concert with two of her children about 35 years ago, to a NewYorker.com feature about a Baton Rouge company that made dog treats from nutria meat and much more. She’s the author of ‘Along the River Road,’ ‘River Road Rambler’ and ‘River Road Rambler Returns,’ as well as ‘Winding Through Time’ about Bayou Manchac, the historic Bayou that was a distributary to the Mississippi River and once served as the international boundary between colonial Spain and England in the 18th century. Mary Ann, welcome to the podcast.

Mary Ann Sternberg 06:22

Thanks, Dean.

Dean Klinkenberg 06:23

Why don’t we start with a little orientation to the geography here, there may be some confusion when we talk about the River Road versus the Great River Road. So tell us where we are on the Mississippi when you think of the River Road, where are we?

Mary Ann Sternberg 06:39

Colloquially, down here in South Louisiana, the River Road runs between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. It’s on both sides of the river. And that’s, of course, as opposed to the Great River Road that starts all the way up, I guess, Minneapolis or so, and comes down and has a different profile altogether. Well, I’d say that they overlap down here a little.

Dean Klinkenberg 07:09

Right. So I guess the River Road in Louisiana is also runs concurrently with the Great River Road through that area, but the Great River Road runs well beyond that stretch.

Mary Ann Sternberg 07:21

The Great River Road actually isn’t totally congruent here. I’m thinking it veers off in a few places. And our River Road, you know, I mean, should say River Roads, because it’s a road on each side of the river, and it traces generally the base of the levee. And it doesn’t really veer from the levee, and doesn’t veer from the levee almost anywhere except at Bonnet Carre, which is the spillway.

Dean Klinkenberg 07:58

So it’s a continuous pavement, but it’s also not the same highway number for that entire length from Baton Rouge, New Orleans, either, right?

Mary Ann Sternberg 08:06

Nope, no, yes. I didn’t know what that reflected about the Louisiana Highway Department, and I didn’t think I wanted to find out.

Dean Klinkenberg 08:18

So how did you get interested in this this area?

Mary Ann Sternberg 08:21

Well, I grew up in New Orleans, and I’ve been living in Baton Rouge since 1968 so the area has just been kind of part of my neighborhood almost forever. And when you live around here, the custom was, if you had out of town guests, you take them on the River Road and see plantation houses. And that’s been true for forever. In 19, I don’t know, 8788 I was doing a second edition on a Louisiana guidebook, guidebook to Louisiana that was done by another regional publisher, not Elisha press, which has done my River Road stuff. And I was out at the Timbermill Museum in Garyville, which was a little museum dedicated to the old cypress lumber industry that came in and decimated the old-growth cypress here in the late 19th century anyway. And so the head of it was just he was telling me, besides, about his museum, all the things that were right around there that, of course, I’d never heard of. And a week or so later, I was having a conversation with somebody who was supposed to take a guest from New Orleans up the River Road who said, you know, there’s nothing on the River Road anymore. And it occurred to me that there was a huge gap between people who knew and people like us who didn’t. And so I thought, Well, okay, I’m going to go find a book that connects these two people. So I went and looked, and I found a number of books about the area, but they were all highly focused on one thing or another. So I thought, well, there isn’t a book that does what I want it to do. I’m a writer. I’ll see if I can write the book. And so I went to the LSU Press with the idea, and they thought it had merit. So that’s that’s how it got started. And it led to 20 plus years of being out on the river and meeting people and learning things. And every time I went out, I learned something new, which just made the place richer and richer.

Dean Klinkenberg 10:49

It’s amazing like that when you the more time, oftentimes, when you take those opportunities to get to know a place, and you dig a little bit, then you dig a little bit more, it seems like you just keep striking gold with stories that maybe people have forgotten, or maybe the stories that not many people remember. It kind of sounds like that was your experience. Like, the more you spend time there, the more stories you came across that you are now into three books.

Mary Ann Sternberg 11:15

Well, yeah, originally, too, the old timers, quote, unquote, were still out there, and they were so delighted to share what they knew and to refer me to other people who knew things as well, and unfortunately, they’re all pretty much gone now. So you know, it was a real gift to be able to talk to them and be able to have them as resources of, you know, for the certainly for the first edition of ‘Along the River Road.’

Dean Klinkenberg 11:51

So let’s kind of do a quick, sort of romp through history of this area then. What do we know about the people who lived along this part of the Mississippi before Europeans came? Who lived there and who were the indigenous people in the area?

Mary Ann Sternberg 12:04

Well, there were several different whether tribes or groups of Native Americans. When d’Iberville came along, d’Iberville and Bienville came along in 1699 to do their exploration, they met up with, obviously, met up with these people for the first time. In fact, it was the Bayogoula, I think, who told d’Iberville about Bayou Manchac, which was a shortcut back to the Gulf where they had left their boats. And, you know, they probably never would have known about it. There is a little bit of residual Native American history still extant. There are a couple of Indian mounds. They’re pretty much on private property. So unless you want to do what I did and trespass, it’s not a good idea.

Dean Klinkenberg 13:04

Which we don’t recommend.

Mary Ann Sternberg 13:05

No, we absolutely do not but this was in search of a story, so, but then the French, of course, came along with the Iberville and Bienville, and then after that, you know, any number of settlements and layers of settlement were made, and you had the British in above Bayou Manchac, which would be up to Baton Rouge, at least along the River Road. You, the Spanish, Germans were down just above New Orleans. They sort of, you know, of course, had slaves from Africa and from the West, Indies. And then there were free people of color. And then Acadians came in. Who were, you know, from the Nova Scotia area, fleeing persecution. Italians, I mean, it’s a very It has a very rich mixed history of people. And so one of the things that started driving me was to present the area as so much more than just a plantation parade, an antebellum plantation parade, that this is a this is a place to 100 miles on each side of The river, but all it has is mid 19th century mansions, 12 or 14 of them, and I just had so much more than that that I just kept digging and finding and writing.

Dean Klinkenberg 14:53

Absolutely and a lot of the land that in between New Orleans and Baton Rouge was parceled out, I guess during the initial period of French colonial rule, was that when most of those land grants would have been made?

Mary Ann Sternberg 15:11

Yeah, a lot of them were made. And, you know, they grew into being the plantation properties, and they grew primarily. They started out growing indigo and rice, but once the ability to mill sugar in a commercial way was discovered in I think it was 1795, don’t quote me to that, but they started planting sugar and then milling sugar, and so a lot of the land along the river was sugar plantations, Which, of course, were made by the arpent survey, which was French, and so the tracks were more narrow and long and they went from the river your river frontage was what determined how fancy place you had really because having a broad river frontage was admirable. And, you know, and then it went, it the land went all the way back into the swamp, so, and it was planted in sugar. And there was, you know, almost everywhere. Had they had their own mill in the beginning.

Dean Klinkenberg 16:44

If you’ve ever had a chance to see a map of, I forget what it was. It might have just been like a map of plantations and their properties between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. It shows that.

Mary Ann Sternberg 16:54

It’s the Persac map from 1858.

Dean Klinkenberg 16:57

Yeah.

Mary Ann Sternberg 16:59

It’s fascinating.

Dean Klinkenberg 17:00

Yeah. Can you just describe me real quickly what that looks like?

Mary Ann Sternberg 17:04

Yeah, I mean, you’ve got the river coming down the middle, and then on both sides, you’ve got what looks like spines, and they all have names on them. And then they’re little places that are maybe communities or little places, indication of, I think there were, I think there’s some indication on that map of places that steamboats could stop and get fuel. And, I mean, you know, it’s just, it’s, it’s a terrific map. And there are very few originals left. You can find reproductions. I have a reproduction, which is not worth much, but I’ve seen, I’ve seen the original, and it’s just, it’s just fabulous.

Dean Klinkenberg 17:51

My understanding from about the at least part of the reason the properties were laid out that way, you know, with that narrow but deep sort of design is that it was a way to give everybody, all the landowners, at least, access to the river. So is that your.

Mary Ann Sternberg 18:08

I mean, that was, that was the point, of course, because the river was the source of transportation, there weren’t really, there weren’t dependable roads, because, of course, it rains around here, so much everything gets muddy, so you couldn’t transport things in wagons or even on horseback much but using the river and until the levees were put up, the distributaries, which are all those small bayous that come off of the river from Baton Rouge south, you know, up where you are, rivers come in as tributaries, but down here, because of the way the hydrology works, the intersecting waterways were distributaries, and that they took water out rather than bringing water in. But it was a whole network, and they were used for transportation. On the east side, you know, there were by bayous that went back to the lakes, where you could access New Orleans and on the west side, Bayou Plaquemine, Bayou Lafourche should go back into the Atchafalaya Basin and wind your way through all kinds of places you can end up, eventually in the Gulf.

Dean Klinkenberg 19:37

It’s hard for me to, I think sometimes, get my head around what that world would have been like at that point in time, the ecology of that area. I know that levee construction started pretty early, but water transportation and the benefits and curses of living around so much water, there must have been many of those. That. What was it like living around all those different you know, waterways and bodies of water?

Mary Ann Sternberg 20:06

It just it was part of their it was part of their neighborhood. I mean, they needed the waterways. They not only used them for transportation, they used, you know, they fish in, in the waterways, and, you know, mean it was a food source. Again, I, I was in Sicily in April, and went to see Mount Etna, and which had, of course, caused all sorts of problems in the neighborhood, any number of times. And said to the guide, you know, why don’t these people move? And they said they just think of the volcano as part of their neighborhood. And I think that’s the way people thought of the Mississippi River. They knew it was going to overflow in the spring, which is why, in the beginning, they built their houses up so that the water, would, you know, flow under it. And they knew they needed the bayou and the intersecting waterways to transport goods. And I was, you know, just how things were.

Dean Klinkenberg 21:23

It was just their world, right?

Mary Ann Sternberg 21:24

Just their world. Yeah.

Dean Klinkenberg 21:28

Levee construction got going pretty early there too though, right? So at some point they decided maybe there was a way to keep the water out more more frequently.

Mary Ann Sternberg 21:36

Apparently, from the earliest land grants, there was a stipulation about having to build some kind of a levee. But there wasn’t uniform you built the levee on your property and the next guy built the levee on his. So it wasn’t really until after the ’27 flood that the uniform levee got built. And so now, of course, it’s a monumental structure that goes from below New Orleans way up.

Dean Klinkenberg 22:10

It’s, I forget exactly what the levee heights are down there now, but it’s almost like a three story building. It seems like I remember they’re monumental structures.

Mary Ann Sternberg 22:17

Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, and frankly, down where we are. It’s the only hill we have.

Dean Klinkenberg 22:22

Right? So where did when the spring floods came? You know, I get houses were kind of elevated, so more probably most years, they could stay dry in their house. Did people tend to leave during flood season? Or how did they deal with those patterns of those cycles of high water?

Mary Ann Sternberg 22:41

Well, when there, I mean, the plant. A lot of the plantation owners had townhouses in New Orleans, and they may have gone to New Orleans. You know, no, the overflowing levee was always, I mean, overflowing, the overflowing river was always a threat. And I’m, you know, read some stories, because they built the levees higher and higher. It was just a question of, you know, how high can your slaves build your levee? And how are you going to protect your property? And then later, you know, what are we going to do? And I don’t honestly know what the people who live there did, other than stay very alert, and if the river was at its high point, there were sentinels that walked the levees just to see that there were no breaches. I mean, there’s a place there were crevasses, which, of course, is where the river breaks through the levee, and you know, then forget it. There’s a street in St John Parish on the east bank of the river, and it’s called Crevasse Street, and if you follow it back a block or two, there’s just a really nice pond back there. Well, the pond is the residual effect of the levee having broken and the water being all over this area in the mid 19th century. And, you know, it’s, that’s, that was, that was one of my clue, I got a big kick out of all the places there were that had names. And if you just rode along, you wouldn’t have you would have no idea what it meant, like Crevasse Street. I mean, you know, but if you know. Which was the point of what I did in along the River Road was to disentangle some of these clues, expose what they meant. And that was fun. Anyway, I’m digressing. Sorry.

Dean Klinkenberg 25:16

No, that’s all right. I love those little discoveries like that too. Like most people driving by a little pond would have probably not stopped to think from it. I wonder why that pond is there, or have any sense that it’s there because of a levee break. Let’s talk a little bit about some of the people then in this area. I mean, you kind of gave us a broad overview of the different sort of ethnic groups of folks who live there. Let me start with this, because this term confused me for a long time, and maybe you can help clarify this for others too. What is the German Coast? Tell us what? What that’s about.

Mary Ann Sternberg 25:52

Well, the German Coast was the area not too far above New Orleans, mainly on the west bank, where the German settlers were congregated. And that was like the late, late 18th century. It’s still referred to as the German coast, even though there’s not much German about it. And in fact, behind the River Road, you know, back 5 miles, 10 miles or something, there’s a big lake called Lac des Allemands, which is Lake of the Germans. And the Germans, apparently were terrific farmers, and they would take their produce to into New Orleans and sell it at the what has become the French Market. Well, I guess it was then the French one, and they would, they would go down river, on the river, but when they came back, they would have to come the long way through the lakes and across through one of the bayous because it was way too hard when you didn’t have a motor to go back upstream. But they are credited, honestly, with, I think, being part of what rescued the early settlers in New Orleans, so that they.

Dean Klinkenberg 27:32

It was their farming, their their skill at farming, that produced enough food that kept New Orleans going during some lean years.

Mary Ann Sternberg 27:37

Apparently, yeah.

Dean Klinkenberg 27:44

About what point in time, or what period of time did those German settlers come over? When did they begin settling along that part of the river? We’re talking like mid 1700s or so?

Mary Ann Sternberg 27:57

Okay, German settlers began arriving in 1720.

Dean Klinkenberg 28:05

Early.

Mary Ann Sternberg 28:06

Let’s see, by 1746 the German coast is the second largest settlement in the colony after New Orleans.

Dean Klinkenberg 28:15

Are there place names along that part of the river that reflect that German heritage in any way or, I mean, like, it’s kind of funny, the lake you mentioned, it’s a German lake, but it’s in French.

Mary Ann Sternberg 28:26

Well, yeah, because everything, I mean, despite the fact that the Spanish had the colony for a very long time, the French influence is much stronger. So in a lot of instances, I I mean, there’s nothing much left of the German. I mean, I remember reading on the German names that got francophied. Oh yeah, which was kind of amazing. And it was, you know, just sort of one more thing.

Dean Klinkenberg 29:04

Right. I hadn’t really thought about that, but I guess, like probably many of those early German settlers, over time, their last names began to take on more of a French sound to fit in with their neighbors. I think you also wrote a little bit about the 1811 slave revolt. Yes, I don’t know a lot of that. Lot of people are outside of that part of Louisiana are familiar with the story. Can you kind of tell us a little bit about that?

Mary Ann Sternberg 29:30

Well, a lot of people in Louisiana weren’t very familiar either, until 2011 when they did a kind of shown a historic spotlight, and all of a sudden it became much better known than it had been before. The slaves in the east bank, in St John and St Charles parishes, which, as you know, is the same as counties we just, they divided things up by the Catholic Church in the beginning, and so it’s never changed in terms of the name of that. They began an uprising, and they marched down the River Road, attacking plantations. And unfortunate, or fortunately or unfortunately, the militia in New Orleans rallied and came and defeated them all. And there was a trial. One of the trials was a Destrehan Plantation. And of course, anybody that wasn’t any of the slaves who weren’t killed were doomed, and they cut off the heads and put them on pikes and put them right along the River Road, so that it would be as a warning to not have that happen again. And as a matter of fact, the Destrehan Plantation itself has a really nice exhibit, talking of showing this and explaining it, so people, I think, don’t know they’re going to encounter that when they go to tour Destrehan Plantation, but it was the largest slave revolt, I think, in the country, ever. Bigger than the John Brown.

Dean Klinkenberg 31:29

Right. Hundreds, hundreds of slaves, enslaved people, were involved in that. And I had a chance to visit that exhibit at Destrehan a couple of years ago. And I agree. I hope that was really fantastic, and I thought it told the story pretty well.

Mary Ann Sternberg 31:44

And, you know, I it shows how the plantations along the river have adjusted their focus for a long time, and the complaints were absolutely valid. The plantations told the story of the people who lived in the big houses, and it somehow or another, managed to skip right over the myriads of people who were doing the work. And in the last, I’d say, I don’t know, 15 years, certainly, almost all of the plantation houses have incorporated the stories of both their slaves and then their tenant farmers as part of their you know, as part of their history. And so it’s much more equitable and much more real.

Dean Klinkenberg 32:40

And so if you were a person interested in the history of African Americans along the River Road, then are there a couple of places in particular you would recommend that people should visit?

Mary Ann Sternberg 32:52

Well, of course, the one place that’s gotten a huge amount of publicity is the Whitney Plantation, which was transformed into a quote, Museum of Slavery. And, you know, that’s a place to start. But any of them, any of the other plantations, have pieces of this, you know, specifically focused on their history. The River Road African American Museum in Donaldsonville does a good job of telling the story of slaves and African Americans and Blacks who have been in the area, and they’ve got some outbuildings that reflect culture, cultural artifacts. Yeah, they do a good job. Evergreen Plantation has the only at least along the river, and there are not many others in the South really, it’s got the only collection of extant buildings from the 1850. So they’ve got, like 20 of the 22 original slave cabins that are in the back, and they did a huge job of, kind of inventorying the population and collecting historic information and stories and finding families and descendants and things. But they are not currently open to the public. So I you know they may be occasionally open. But they aren’t open to the public anymore, so you can’t access that.

Dean Klinkenberg 35:06

So I remember when we toured Oak Alley, you know, there’s a collection of slave cabins, kind of at the back of the property, behind the mansion. My, from what I recall from this, the tour of the house itself, the when we went around there, they didn’t have much to say at all about the enslaved people on the plantation, you kind of, but they had this separate area you could go and tour on your own. Kind of felt like they had split that part off from the main history and maybe of just guide specific. But is that kind of the way many plantations do it now?

Mary Ann Sternberg 35:44

No, how long? I mean, how long ago did you do that? Do you remember?

Dean Klinkenberg 35:47

It was? Think it was just two years ago.

Mary Ann Sternberg 35:49

Oh, well, then maybe they’ve changed it, because for a while it was, I mean, it was really kind of integrated into the tour. And like. And then Laura Plantation is another one that does a good job with that. Yeah, I mean in Oak Alley’s slave cabins, I think are not original.

Dean Klinkenberg 36:26

Right. I think that’s right.

Mary Ann Sternberg 36:27

I think that, you know, they brought them in, but, I mean, that’s good, you know.

Dean Klinkenberg 36:34

Right.

Mary Ann Sternberg 36:35

Making the effort and Oak Alley is certainly an impressive place.

Dean Klinkenberg 36:42

Hey, Dean Klinkenberg here, interrupting myself. Just wanted to remind you that if you’d like to know more about the Mississippi River, check out my books. I write the Mississippi Valley Traveler guide books for people who want to get to know the Mississippi better. I also write the Frank Dodge mystery series that is set in places along the Mississippi. My newest book The Wild Mississippi, goes deep into the world of Old Man River. Learn about the varied and complex ecosystem supported by the Mississippi, the plant and animal life that depends on them, and where you can go to experience it all. Find any of these wherever books are sold.

Dean Klinkenberg 37:21

Well, let’s go through a couple of the other groups of people who came in there. If my history is right. So there was during Spanish rule, they encouraged migration from the Canary Islands into Louisiana. And there are communities of Isleños in different parts of Louisiana. I think there might have been an Isleño community kind of a near or along the River Road. Am I remembering that?

Mary Ann Sternberg 37:49

Yeah, It was right off the River Road along Bayou Lafourche? It wasn’t big, and there isn’t much left of it. I mean, it’s an identifiable place. There’s an Isleño Museum, I assume it’s still there, in a community south of New Orleans, because I haven’t been there in 30 years probably. It could have been blown away by a hurricane by now, but it was a fast it was fascinating the culture of the people from the Canary Islands, and being there.

Dean Klinkenberg 38:23

Right. A lot of them were fishermen, really they. A lot of them made their living from from the sea. So I was sort of curious if I was remembering that right. So there is an old community there. Probably not much left for visitors to experience of Isleño culture in that place.

Mary Ann Sternberg 38:42

Not, not, not along the River Road. I mean, right, there may be some historical markers.

Dean Klinkenberg 38:51

And then Cajun community, the Acadians. Cajun country is a little further west, the heart of it is, right? But there is Cajun influence in places along the River Road too, if I recall.

Mary Ann Sternberg 39:02

Right. And as you asked about the German Coast, there are areas along the River Road called the Acadian Coast, and the descendants are definitely still there. There are people who live along the river who have river Cajun accents, which is different than the Cajun accents you get over by Lafayette and out near there. There was a terrific little museum in Lutcher, which is in St James Parish, that was put together by there again, kind of the older folks who cared about what their old culture had been, was the. The St James Parish Historical Society Museum. And they never had a curator, and they never had a professional anybody come, and they just collected artifacts. And the people who knew what everything was, because they had grown up with it, were the ones who were in charge and who would tell you about it. And it was, it was strictly river Cajun culture, the Acadian culture of that area. Unfortunately, they were on a piece of property that had been given them by the parish. The parish needed it back, or the city needed back to expand the water treatment plant and the papers and things were taken to Nicholls State University Archives. But all of the other artifacts, I don’t know where they went, and I was just absolutely sick that the parish hadn’t protected this place because it was one of the terrific little museums out along the river road that were of the culture, you know, of the various places.

Dean Klinkenberg 41:15

Wow. That is sad. I think you wrote about that in the book, but it sounded hopeful like they had, we’re going to build them a new place.

Mary Ann Sternberg 41:24

At that point it was hopeful. After the book was published, unfortunately, and they just, they quit worrying about it. And of course, the people who were still around to be involved were upset about it. I was upset about it. I’m actually was on a committee where that we were trying to figure out what to do with the artifacts. And the parish just never kicked in so buildings, and, you know, they had an old cistern. They had a great big log, I mean, huge cypress log from the logging industry and the cistern. I mean, I remember once when I was there, this woman was giving a tour to a group of school children, and she was telling him that when she grew up, this was how her family got water. And, you know, it rained into the cistern, and then they went out and pull the spigot, and that’s where they got their running water. And, well, not running water. Of course, these kids looked at her like, Lady, are you crazy? Yeah, things like that.

Dean Klinkenberg 42:33

Well, that’s a shame I was gonna say, like, I need to put that on my list to visit the next time.

Mary Ann Sternberg 42:37

I wish you could.

Dean Klinkenberg 42:42

You know, it’s hard for especially for some of the smaller communities, it’s hard to hang on to all the memories or relics from the those periods of time. I remember you wrote an interesting story trying to track or trying to look for traces of an old Jewish synagogue in a building in Donaldsonville. Can you tell us about that?

Mary Ann Sternberg 43:01

Yeah, it is documented that the Ace Hardware store was the synagogue in Donaldsonville. Donaldsonville had a representative population of Jewish people, and so they built the synagogue in 1870s and it was well attended until the 1940s when there really were no more Jewish citizens in town to maintain it, and it was sold off. But it’s exactly the same building. It’s just it has been somewhat renovated so that it was, you know, was a store, and I talked to the owner. I mean, I had done some research so I knew what the history was and but I talked to the owner, and he lived above the store, and he took me up to his living quarters. And that’s the ceiling of the old synagogue was above me. I mean, it was this, you know, kind of arched or peaked old wood. And he had had taken up the floors from downstairs to use as his floors. So he had the old pine floors from the store. And I had talked to a woman who, elderly woman, who had gone there, I guess, before it was shuttered. So she’d gone there in the maybe late ’20s, early ’30s. That was her synagogue, and she recalled for me what it looked like, and I got an artist to take her words and draw what it sounded like. And it showed it to her, and she said, “That’s exactly it.” So I gave it to Ace Hardware, along with a little history of the synagogue, and they have a double sided poster, and it’s up in their window. When the last time I was down in Donaldsonville, it was still up in their window. explaining what it was and, you know, and they’re there architectural elements that, if you know where to look, are still there.

Dean Klinkenberg 45:37

You won’t see any Hebrew lettering anywhere at this point, I imagine, though.

Mary Ann Sternberg 45:40

No, and I don’t know that there was much there at that point, either, other than anyway, but that was fun. And then the the cemetery, cemetery is still there. So, yeah, the presence is noted.

Dean Klinkenberg 46:02

Right. I had, I did wander through the Jewish cemetery a few years ago when I was down there, and it, yeah, it’s, it’s a good reminder of the the people who’ve lived in that area. I’ve kind of, yeah, I don’t know if there are many others like me, but I like wandering through cemeteries from time to time, even as a tourist, to get a sense of looking at the names and the story, and sometimes there are short stories, even on on tombstones, it’s a good way to get a sense of the people who’ve lived in that area. Are there other cemeteries, kind of, along the River Road that you think would be an interesting experience for visitors?

Mary Ann Sternberg 46:38

For people who who like meandering cemeteries. This, St Charles Borromeo church in I guess Destrehan has a very old cemetery. Lots of old, old tombstones. St John in Edgard has a really old cemetery. The big Catholic Ascension Catholic Church in Donaldsonville has some terrific old tombs. Freddie, I mean, any of the churches that have any age on them have good have, you know, good cemeteries. The problem, of course, is you can wander through and not know who any of the people are. So, you know the old River Road names, you know, Haydel, Becnel, whatever. And you can see that. And if you have a sense of who they were, you know, here lie they.

Dean Klinkenberg 47:51

Right, you can kind of judge their material success, at least, by the size of their monuments.

Mary Ann Sternberg 47:56

Sometimes, yes.

Dean Klinkenberg 47:57

We’ve kind of skipped past this part of it, but you know, at some point in the fairly recent past, this area really transformed from primarily agricultural to heavy industry. Can you talk a little bit about that transition, and what some of the major industries are that are along the stretch of the River Road now. The types of industries.

Mary Ann Sternberg 48:24

Petrochemical, of course, you know, you didn’t say it so I will, most recently, the area has been referred to as Cancer Alley. And it’s because, of course, the toxicity of a lot of the products that are coming out of these various plants, and the fact that sometimes they’re not as well regulated or monitored, perhaps, and most of the people who live around them or are certainly poor, and many of them are black. So until recently, there wasn’t what they would are calling now environmental justice. That said, you cannot argue that industry is new to the River Road, because in the time of sugar, there was a mill at the back of almost all the plantations. And that was big industry of the 19th century. You know, sugar mills were, that was what that’s how you transformed the product in the field to something that people could use. And the petrochemical industry along the river probably started when Standard Oil came to Baton Rouge in 1909. They put they built a refinery in Baton Rouge in 1909 on the river. And then, I can’t remember who was the next refinery could have been Shell down in Norco, what is now Norco. But one of the reasons of course, well, the main reason was the river, because you get barges coming down the river from north and you get ocean going vessels coming up the river from the Gulf, and they can go as far as Baton Rouge. So industry has access to markets all over the country and worldwide, and because the land was plantations agricultural. Louisiana has this law about heirs having to divide the land equally anyway, families often sold off tracks of land, rather than getting into a squabble about who didn’t want it and who wanted to buy who out. And it wasn’t going to work. And industry came in and they would buy them out for a nice price, and people would get rid of the land, and then the industry would use the land to build a plant.

Dean Klinkenberg 51:43

Right. Probably was far easier for those families just to sell what they owned and split the profits or the dollar amount from that, rather than trying to figure out who was paying who for that acre or half acre. Yeah, I didn’t think about that. That makes a lot of sense.

Mary Ann Sternberg 51:57

Yeah. So you know, I know that industry and, I mean, there are other things besides petroleum and chemical. You know, it being the river,I mean, there’s all kinds of maritime businesses, and they’re, I get places where there’s aluminum ore. And I mean, actually, you know, coming along on the inside of the river is fascinating to see everything from the inside, as opposed from the outside of the levee. And, you know, so there’s a lot of industrial hardware into the river in terms of, I don’t know, what are those chutes and things to load, load and unload, and the petrochemical industry is certainly a big part of Louisiana’s economy. But in recent years, there have been groups, kind of grassroot groups, that have grown up in these various areas to try and protect the people from overreach by the industries in terms of not monitoring what was happening, what is happening.

Dean Klinkenberg 53:45

That’s part of the dilemma I found when driving through this area. So let’s kind of transition to offering some tips for people who are traveling through here. There are a lot of places where you have the levee you know between you and the river. You may not see the river unless you go out of your way to get on top of the levee somehow, or when you’re in a town and you’re at a park next to the river, you’ve got all the private property from industry. I kind of understand why people focus on plantations, because it’s an easy thing to do and visit, an obvious thing to do when you’re driving through this area. So what can visitors do to sort of get out of that mindset where the only thing to see and do are plantations. What else can people be looking for and experience?

Mary Ann Sternberg 54:33

Well, I will not argue with you. Visually lots of places seem derelict and there is nothing there. But that was the reason I did along the river road the way I did it, which was a similar format to the old WPA guides, where you set your odometer and you along by miles because there are still historic old buildings. They may look derelict, but they were a slave cabin, or, you know, at a specific plantation, or they were an old plantation store, or something like that. Or, for instance, Crevasse Street, there are all kinds of things, and so ‘Along the River Road’ was written to explain what things are as you’re driving along, or what things were. That makes make it a lot more interesting. That said, I cannot defend the fact that there are expanses of nothing. I mean, well, something but nothing of historic or cultural interest. You know, so mean, you can tuck in and out of the river road, because in certain areas, I mean, in St James Parish, for instance, it’s pretty dense with interesting sites. In St Charles Parish, for instance, particularly on the west bank, it’s all pretty much petrochemical or other industry. And so if you only had a day to look at anything, you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t target there. Donaldsonville, I think they’re doing a better job now of explaining the town to visitors. But I mean, Donaldsonville is a fabulous old river town. And, you know, I discovered so many things in Donaldsonville. And, you know, I mean, people who lived around here said, “Really, in Donaldsonville?” And, yeah, really, you know, Plaquemines is another river town. Yeah, it just, you’re right on the face of it, you can ride and you just see an open field, or you see falling down houses, and you think, why does she think I want to be out here? And she thinks you want to be out there because they’re hidden stories, and I’m digging them up for you so you don’t have to and trying to tell you that this is really a fascinating place, and it’s not, it may look it’s not Colonial Williamsburg,. It’s a real place, and it’s changed. And you can go this year and something’s gone that was there last year.

Dean Klinkenberg 57:44

Like the Cajun Museum. Yeah, I will say I really enjoyed having your book with me when I was driving through that area along the River Road, I felt like you helped make the invisible visible for me as I was traveling through.

Mary Ann Sternberg 58:01

That’s what I was trying to do. I was trying very hard to get people to see how much more was out there than was obvious, because most of it isn’t obvious. And I was hoping that by making people see how much history and culture was still out there that they wouldn’t regard it as just Cancer Alley or Plantation Parade. And I’m not sure that I was highly successful, but I spent over 20 years attempting to do this, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Dean Klinkenberg 58:41

Well, good. And I completely agree with you on Donaldsonville, too. I thought that was a cute little town. There was a lot more there to see than I expected, and Plaquemines, I felt the same way. I wish I’d had more time to poke around there. So there are definitely places to see and do things. I think what makes it a little challenging is that maybe you need that sort of curation or that help to to know what to do if you’re just driving through on your own without any reference or anything to help you out. I think you’re going to miss a lot, and I think that’s where your book really comes in handy to bring some of those stories out, but also to suggest places to visit that are still open, that you could spend some time at. I’m mindful of the time, and I do want to touch on a couple more things, You mentioned in one of your books, the batture lands. Can tell us a little bit what the batture is, and maybe give us an idea of a place or two that would be kind of fun for visitors to pop over and get a look at the batture?

Mary Ann Sternberg 59:39

All right, well, in the upper river, I guess, since there’s no levee, there’s no real batture. Batture is the land that’s between the toe of the levee and wherever the water is. So in high water, there’s no batture. Well, it’s there, but it’s covered. And in low order, the batture offers many different things. I mean, in some places, of course, marine services are on the batture. They’re on the inside of the levee. One of the and it’s hard to go to a batture because so much of the levee is privately owned. The trying to think, I mean, there are few places where you can climb up the levee and go down on the batture out by LSU, where there’s a walking and biking trail on the top of the levee, and really down by New Orleans, although I think St Charles Parish is the only one that’s included in my book. I didn’t, as you probably noticed, I did not go into the New Orleans area at all, in terms of this, in terms of the books, because there’s been so many wonderful books written about New Orleans that there was sort of no point where there was much more point trying to bring attention to this area. But any place there is a trail on top of the levee that’s public, you can go wander off and, in Baton Rouge, you can go down and there’s a eagle’s nest in a tree. The eagle come back every year, and the tree is growing, you know, on the batture. In some places, the batture look very much like they’re wild, overgrown all kinds of different trees and shrubs. And you could kind of wander through there, thinking you’re really out on a hike in the country somewhere. And then, of course, other parts of the batture are, as I said, are owned by plants or maritime services. And so it’s full of machinery, equipment, structures.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:02:21

If my memory is right and my geography is right, I think there was a really nice area of batture in front of Destrehan Plantation. There’s a bike trail, I think, that passes on the other side of the road from the plantation, and then on the other side of that bike trail there’s a pretty broad batture area. I don’t know how accessible all that is to walk around, but if nothing else, but I’d like the way you described it. And it’s basically these little peaks into the old world of the Mississippi. These are these sort of natural areas that that are left pretty much on their own. In some places, they’re pretty narrow.

Mary Ann Sternberg 1:02:59

Yeah, Evergreen had a swamp tour in their batture some years back. They don’t do it anymore, but their batture was quite wide, and it had developed as a swamp. And, you know, there were alligators the whole bit.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:03:22

Nice, well, I would be negligent if I didn’t at least ask about food. You know, it’s a part of the country famous for good food. New Orleans gets plenty of coverage for its food. If you’re driving along the River Road like what I don’t want to recommend specific restaurants. Restaurants come and go. I’m not interested in that, but just in terms of types of food, what can people expect to see if they just stop into local establishments in this part of the river?

Mary Ann Sternberg 1:03:49

Fried seafood, you know. Well, I will say I was out cruising around one day, and I pulled into a gas station in where was I? Near Vacherie, and I don’t know there was the gas station was selling oyster poor boys. You know, fried oyster poor boys. So I bought a half of one. It was one of the best oyster poor boys I ever had. So I would say, don’t discount anywhere. May turn out to be terrible, but it could also turn out to be surprisingly good. And, you know, there’s some restaurants. There’s a restaurant in Lutcher that’s in an old building by the railroad. The building’s over 100 years old. And, you know, does plate lunches and things, and it’s very atmospheric. It’s fun. I won’t say the name of it, because you don’t want to advertise. You know Houmas House has has restaurants. Oak Alley. I mean, some of the plantations have restaurants. But the truth of the matter is, if you just kind of wending your way along, when you stop for an attraction, ask the people who live around there, “Where should I go get something to eat? Where should I go get lunch?” And they’ll tell you, because, you know.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:05:14

People have their favorites, and the people who live there know best.

Mary Ann Sternberg 1:05:19

Well and there are, there are places that are, that are of the place, as opposed to being a, you know, a chain restaurant on the Airline Highway or something,

Dean Klinkenberg 1:05:31

Right. And even, like the restaurants at the plantations, tend to cater towards certain tastes, or they may be very good, but it’s probably going to be a different experience then you pop into a place that’s been there for 50 years and serves primarily a local crowd. So I’m completely with you on the gas station food too. I remember when I was especially when we were south in New Orleans and heading down toward Venice in that area, the po’ boys we had at the gas stations were some of the best po’ boys I had the whole trip. So don’t discount that.

Mary Ann Sternberg 1:06:01

Right. Exactly.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:06:03

Well, Mary Ann, this has been a delight to talk to you. Fantastic to have you share your passion for this part of the river and the knowledge about the history and people of the area. If people are interested in keeping up with your work or finding out more about you, how would they best do that?

Mary Ann Sternberg 1:06:22

I have a website, which is maryannsternberg.com and if they want the books, they’re available on Amazon and also through the LSU Press, Barnes and Noble too. I think actually online.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:06:42

Do you have any social media accounts, like are you posting to Instagram or anything like that?

Mary Ann Sternberg 1:06:48

I gave that up?

Dean Klinkenberg 1:06:50

Yeah, probably wise.

Mary Ann Sternberg 1:06:51

I just, you know, so the answer to that is no.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:06:55

All right. Well, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it, and perhaps someday our paths will cross down along the River Road somewhere.

Mary Ann Sternberg 1:07:04

I do hope so. Thank you.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:07:06

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the series on your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss out on future episodes. I offer the podcast for free, but when you support the show with a few bucks through Patreon to help keep the program going, just go to patreon.com/dean.klinkenberg. If you want to know more about the Mississippi River, check out my books. I write the Mississippi Valley Traveler guidebooks for people who want to get to know the Mississippi better. I also write the Frank Dodge mystery series that’s set in places along the river. Find them wherever books are sold. The Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast is written and produced by me Dean Klinkenberg. Original Music by Noah Fence. See you next time.

In this episode, I talk with Jim Gass, Director of Research and Education at the Centre for French Colonial Life, about the long and rich history of Sainte Genevieve, Missouri. We begin with a discussion of what we know about the indigenous people who lived in the area before Europeans arrived, then talk about the French settlers who moved into the region in the 18th century. Jim describes their daily lives, the crops they grew, connections to other early settlements (including New Orleans), and how they had fun. We then talk about the architectural style the town is best known for today, including how it developed, what makes it unique, and its advantages and disadvantages. We talk about the different organizations working to preserve Sainte Genevieve’s architectural past and wrap up with a discussion of the work of the Center for French Colonial Life.

Centre for French Colonial Life

Ste. Genevieve National Historical Park (NPS)

Felix Valle House State Historic Site

Sainte Genevieve tourism info

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Sun, Oct 19, 2025 10:29AM • 1:18:47

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Ste. Genevieve, French colonial life, Center for French Colonial Life, early settlers, Spanish rule, French architecture, historic preservation, Guignolée, Jour de Fete, Louisiana Purchase, French Canadian descent, Osage people, Cahokia Mounds, New Year’s Eve festival, historic buildings.

SPEAKERS

Dean Klinkenberg, Jim Gass

Jim Gass 00:00

Some of the names would be, it would include the Valle family, the Pratte family. That’s p, r, a, t, t, e. The Boyers are a big one. Some of their ancestors helped to settle what is now Old Mines, which is a community to the west of here, which ended up being inhabited by a lot of Missouri French families, especially after the Louisiana Purchase. Aubuchon is another one, is another big name that you see in the early documents, and several others. You know, at times you see these families that are immediately traceable back to French Canada. Others, I believe, are more readily traceable down to Lower Louisiana, to New Orleans, but generally the trend you see is families that came down from French Canada.

Dean Klinkenberg 01:08

Welcome to the Mississippi Valley Traveler Podcast. I’m Dean Klinkenberg, and I’ve been exploring the deep history and rich culture of the people and places along America’s greatest river, the Mississippi, since 2007. Join me as I go deep into the characters and places along the river, and occasionally wander into other stories from the Midwest and other rivers. Read the episode show notes and get more information on the Mississippi at MississippiValleyTraveler.com.

Dean Klinkenberg 01:36

Let’s get going. Welcome to Episode 69 of the Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast. Today, we’re boarding our time machine, and we’re going back to old Ste. Genevieve. I’m going to talk with Jim Gass, who is Director of Research and Education at the Center for French Colonial Life in Ste. Genevieve. A historian by background. So we focus on the telling the story of early Ste. Genevieve, after we cover his interest in history, how he got started in history himself, we talk about some of the what we know about the indigenous people who lived in the area before Europeans arrived. We talked about those early French settlers who arrived, who they were, where they came from, what crops they grew, what their day to day lives were like. We spent a little time talking about life under Spanish rule and who moved to Ste. Genevieve after the change in ownership of nearby lands. We talked a little bit about what you could do for fun in Old Ste. Genevieve, what some leisure activities might have been. And then we get into some of the things that the town is best known for today. We talk about the architecture, the architectural style that those early French settlers used to construct their buildings. Many of those buildings are still available to visit today, so we talk about the different players involved and who’s managing what properties, if you’re a visitor, where you should start, what kinds of sites you ought to put on your short list to visit, especially if you have limited time. And we just sort of wrap it up with a broader view of the work of the Center for Colonial Life.

Dean Klinkenberg 03:24

Ste. Genevieve is one of my favorite places to visit. It’s a good spot to use as a base, especially if you’re going to visit the area. They’re known for their bed and breakfast inns. They have some nice places to eat. There’s a lot to do in that immediate area. A lot of people go as a day trip, which is fine too. You can see most of the buildings in a day trip, but I think it’s probably more rewarding to stick around for a couple of days, use Ste. Genevieve as your base and go out and see some of the other sites within an hour or two.

Dean Klinkenberg 03:57

Well, thanks to those of you who continue to show me some love through patreon for as little as $1 a month, you can join that community, and you get early access to these podcasts as a result of your generosity. Plus it makes me happy. So to join the patreon community, go to patreon.com/deanklinkenberg, and there you can decide what level you’d like to become a contributor at. Not your thing. Well, you can show me some love by buying me a coffee. I consume coffee every single day. I appreciate every little bit that helps me offset the cost of that wonderful habit. Want to know how to do that? Go to MississippiValleyTraveler.com/podcast, and you’ll find a link there where you can buy me a coffee. And at that same address, MississippiValleyTraveler.com/podcast you’ll find a list of all 68 previous episodes. You can read the show notes and see the photos I post with the show notes for each of these episodes. MississippiValleyTraveler.com/podcast. And now on with the interview.

Dean Klinkenberg 05:15

Jim Gass currently serves as Director of Research and Education at the Center for French Colonial Life in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri. Jim has worked for the Center for five years now, starting with an internship during graduate school in 2020. Jim holds an MA in Public History from the University of Missouri St Louis, and a BA in History from Illinois State University. His work at the Center entails archival research as well as supervising interns and new hires. Jim, welcome to the podcast.

Jim Gass 05:44

Thanks for having me, Dean.

Dean Klinkenberg 05:45

Tell us a little bit about your interest in history. How did you how did you become the go to person for French colonial history in Ste. Genevieve?

Jim Gass 05:54

Well, it really starts with museums to tell you the truth. I mean, I spent a lot of time in them. As a little kid, my grandparents took me to a lot of the same historic sites that you probably cover, Dean. Cahokia Mounds was always a favorite. Fort de Chartres was also a favorite. And you know that that was mostly, you know, before I was 10, but about the time that I wrapped up high school, I was interested in becoming a history teacher. That led me to Illinois State University, but I tended more towards research and language than anything else. Initially I studied East Asian history. In fact, I still have a minor in East Asian Studies from Illinois State but by the time I graduated my my focus shifted again, as it tends to do with a lot of us historians. It shifted pretty decisively to US history, especially around the end of the 19th century, early 20th century and World War I. But after I graduated, I took a couple years off, spent a lot of time traveling with AmeriCorps, and then started my master’s degree during the first year of Covid. They sent me here as an intern, here to the Center for French Colonial Life. And as a result of doing a lot of the primary source research that you know, The Center has been kind enough to let me do, you know, I’ve really absorbed a lot of the lore and the history of this place, and that’s that’s why I’ve continued to remain on here, is so as not to let a lot of that accumulation of the historical knowledge go to waste.

Dean Klinkenberg 07:31

How much did you know about Ste. Genevieve history before you started as an intern?

Jim Gass 07:35

Not much to tell you the truth. I was vaguely aware that there was a town with that name to the south of St Louis, and I was beginning to become familiar with the French history of the City of St Louis specifically. I didn’t know it at the time, but one of the authors that I was reading at the time also wrote the definitive book on Ste. Genevieve’s history, Dr Carl Ekberg. And gradually I became aware of the site, and thought, well, this is kind of interesting that they still have these buildings down here. And then Ste. Genevieve came up as one of the historic sites that the University of Missouri St Louis partnered with for their internship program. And they asked me, Would I like to come down here? It was a bit of a drive that I was already at least passingly familiar with the site. So I said, Sure. You know, that sounds really interesting. Be a cool site to work for, and I’ve been here ever since, since August of 2020.

Dean Klinkenberg 08:33

Awesome. It’s a good place to be. There’s a deep history to this town, and we’re going to get into some of that as we get going a little bit. Let’s dig a little deeper into that history too, and tell me, like, what do we really know about the people who lived here before the first Europeans came about, the indigenous folks who lived in this area.

Jim Gass 08:50

The first nation that usually comes up in that discussion would be the Osage people, the probably the biggest and most prevalent nation to live in what is now southern Missouri and northern Arkansas at the time that the first European settlers got here. They have a wealth of oral tradition that you know we that we lean on for for a better understanding of what their lives were like and what their culture was like. As far as what I can tell you, they lived throughout the southern half of what is now Missouri for centuries prior to the arrival of Europeans, and they spoke Dhegihan Siouan language, a southern Siouan language, meaning that their language is part of a group that includes the Lakota, the Crow, the Hidatsa, but is much closer to the languages of the Quapaw and the the Omaha people. Osage tradition holds that they and other Dhegihan peoples descend from the people who originally built The Mounds in what is now Cahokia Heights, Illinois, which I figured most of your listeners are probably pretty well aware of.

Dean Klinkenberg 09:56

I hope they are. They better be.

Dean Klinkenberg 09:58

Oh, yeah, considering it’s a World Heritage Site and everything. No, the Osage were fully on this side of the Mississippi. However, by the time the first French settlements were built, the Cahokia Mounds civilization sort of peaks in population in the 1300s, I think is generally the range of years that’s agreed upon. But the Osage were fully on this side of the river a few 100 years later, when the French first the first French settlements were built. Worth noting, the Osage Nation, very recently reacquired Sugarloaf Mound in St Louis, which is the last of the mounds that still remains on that side of the river in the City. It was built by their ancestors somewhere between 600 and 1200 A.D. and which speaks to how long they were in the area. I believe there are present plans to build a cultural center atop the Mound, which is in the southern part of the city.

Dean Klinkenberg 10:52

Right. You can catch a glimpse of it on Interstate 55 if you’re going if you’re south of downtown. So that very timely news that was it was just announced in the last week or so, I think they acquired all the properties associated with that. So that’s really good. We destroyed all the rest of the mounds though.

Jim Gass 11:07

Right, and I was getting ready to say that is worth noting that the Missouri side of the river was, you know, you know, dotted with mounds of all different sizes and shapes for years. You know, when the when Europeans were first landing here. But, of course, they were, you know, gradually bulldozed with the land, you know, spread back around, you know, to clear fields for farming. The whole Mississippi River Valley, of course, is dotted with mounds from this, from this era. But it’s, it’s mentioned by a lot of the early French historians that the area directly around like Monks Mound in Cahokia Heights was was largely uninhabited at the time. There were, you know, some some native nations still in the area, but very few lived in close proximity to Monks Mound at the time that they arrived. The name Cahokia is the name of the nation that was living in the area at the time. But as for the original name of the people who built the mounds, that, as far as I know, is still lost to history.

Dean Klinkenberg 12:12

I don’t think we know what they called themselves. So well, interesting. That’s great. Let’s move into the French history. Then I think one of the things that surprises a lot of people when they think about old communities along the Mississippi, they think about New Orleans, maybe Natchez, they think about the French presence at the southern end of the river. A lot of people don’t think so much about the French presence here, but many of these communities were actually founded before there was a New Orleans or a Natchez. Tell us a little bit about some of the early French settlement in this part of the Mississippi, and when people started building what became Ste. Genevieve.

Jim Gass 12:51

Well, Ste. Genevieve is on the young side compared to some of those communities you just mentioned. Like the earliest French explorer to pass through the area along the Mississippi with Jacques Marquette in the summer of 1673, His expedition got well to the south of the Ohio River, where it intersects with the Mississippi, but they turned back around not long after there. Ste. Genevieve’s exact year of founding has been debated, but it falls between 1735 and 1750 and its existence as a town was first documented 1750. There are definitely French speakers visiting the area as early as 1718, however, with the goal of harvesting salt from the Saline Creek, which is just a little to the south of here, along Highway 61. The river, at the time, was fed by a salt spring, and it was a great geological feature to build your settlement next to. All that saltwater that can then be boiled off for the solid stuff that can then be stored for long term usage. However, the soil along the Mississippi was ideal for grain production, and that had caused people to settle on the other side of the river well before 1718. The French founded the Village of Kaskaskia around 1703 initially, it was mostly Kaskaskia native peoples and missionaries that lived there. The Kaskaskia had moved several times due to ongoing wars with the Iroquois, and they ended up settling and just a little bit to the south of where we’re sitting now, just on the Illinois side of the river. And soon they were joined by a great number of French settlers, including relatives of a lot of the people who initially settled Ste. Genevieve just a few decades later. So there are maps, you know, going back to as early as 1718 that show, you know, a couple little buildings right by the Saline Creek on the on the Missouri side, but you start to see a village formally referred to as Ste. Genevieve appear in the documents in the 1750s so that’s, that’s the date that we typically give people for when the town first, first gets its start.

Dean Klinkenberg 14:54

Right. And my understanding, too, is a lot of those early French folks who came here were the missionaries. I don’t remember, were they Jesuit? I forget what order.

Jim Gass 15:04

Primarily. There are several orders involved in this at this time, like in the ministries to the native peoples, but the Jesuits are probably the biggest one. And yeah, they, you know, the black robes, as they were called, Jacques Gravier, I believe, is the main father who’s responsible for a lot of the primary source documents that we have from the end of the 1600s for Kaskaskia, specifically.

Dean Klinkenberg 15:29

Right. Because this is one of the things I always point to, hopefully correctly. But my understanding is that Cahokia, what’s now, Cahokia, Illinois, was really the first presence for missionaries, at least that 1699 there was a Catholic mission that was established at Cahokia, which is a suburb of St Louis today. I don’t know if it’s been continuously inhabited since 1699 but it’s an area. It’s certainly an area with probably the oldest history along the Mississippi, from what I can tell.

Jim Gass 16:01

That’s accurate, to the best of my knowledge, and it’s, you know, fits in with the dates of earlier settlements. You know, Peoria, Illinois had a French presence there in the in the late 1600s. See, a lot of these villages do tend to move several times over. So, you know, in the like in the case of Ste. Genevieve, the original village was a lot closer to the river. It was a couple miles from where we’re standing right now, but it shifted over time due to repeat flooding by the Mississippi and you see the same story play out elsewhere in the Mississippi River Valley. So it may be, you know, continuously occupied site. It’s just that the like the center of the settlement will have moved, you know, two or three miles over the course of its many, many years of existence.

Dean Klinkenberg 16:47

That pesky river has a has a habit of overflowing its bank and getting people to reconsider where they were building their homes and farming. So tell us a little bit then about what, regardless of the exact year who were some of those first people who settled at what became Ste. Genevieve?

Jim Gass 17:07

Most of them were of French Canadian descent. Most of them arrived down here by taking the Mississippi, but sometimes also coming by other routes, like taking the Illinois down from what is now the portage of Chicago, others came down the Wabash and then through the Ohio and then up the Mississippi, from there to the Ste. Genevieve area. At least at one point, a good number of settlers from Vincennes, Indiana came over here, though that might be a little bit later than the time period that we’re describing most of or some of the names would be, it would include the Valle family, the Pratte family. That’s P, R, A, T, T, E. The Boyers are a big one. Some of their ancestors helped to settle what is now Old Mines, which is a community to the west of here, which ended up being inhabited by a lot of Missouri French families, especially after the Louisiana Purchase. Aubuchon is another one, is another big name that you see in the early documents, and several others you know, at times you see these families that are immediately traceable back to French Canada. Others, I believe, are more readily traceable down to lower Louisiana to New Orleans. But generally, the trend you see is families that came down from French Canada.

Dean Klinkenberg 18:28

So a lot of them probably would be able to trace their roots back to Montreal or Quebec City or places like that. And over time, the families moved west. Why here? What attracted them to this particular plot of land?

Jim Gass 18:41

Well, it was the soil for one thing, just because you know, the upside to the Mississippi flooding again and again is the ongoing deposit of silt and minerals in the soil that fronts on the river makes it ideal for grain production. Historians of Ste. Genevieve note that the people here didn’t even really feel the need to practice crop rotation it wouldn’t seem, that they mostly just continuously plowed the fields there and were rewarded for their efforts time and time again. That’s one of the big draws. Lead is another big draw. There’s a good amount of that in the hills to the west of town, which some Missouri communities still bear, that their names that have mine as part of them, but, but as far as you know, what, more broadly, what drew people to this area, it was, I think, just the promise of a lot of open land and somewhat more hospitable climate than you would find down in Louisiana or lower Louisiana or up in up in Montreal, where the Missouri occupies kind of a nice middle ground between the two, where, you know, we we experienced some very hot, humid summers, but the winters are fairly mild and not not altogether bad to live as a wheat farmer.

Dean Klinkenberg 20:03

So was wheat the primary crop that they were growing then?

Jim Gass 20:06

That is the single big one. Yeah, there’s a good amount of corn and tobacco grown grown down here as well. I couldn’t give you a percentage for how much was for subsistence versus sale, but I can tell you that merchants from as far as like Philadelphia were exporting wheat to New Orleans in the 1790s so the few remaining French speaking communities on this side of the river were not meeting all of New Orleans grain needs, despite exporting a good amount of it every year. Now in times of not famine, but in times where the, you know, floods had wiped out most of the crops, there would typically be a brief moratorium on shipping grain down to the city, just to make sure, you know, people up here had plenty to eat. They also, I can tell you had to generally ship the wheat down there intact, as opposed to having it milled first, which you know leads to the spoilage, unfortunately, of some of the volume, but you do see periods in Ste. Genevieve’s history where there wasn’t a mill that was up and running that could keep up with the capacity of what was produced here at that time.

Dean Klinkenberg 21:12

That’s really interesting. So there was, early on, there was a strong trade relationship, a mercantile connection, between this part of the river and New Orleans. So obviously it’s easier to imagine, you know, loading up a boat with harvested wheat and shipping it down river. At some point, the money or other trade goods then have to come back up in exchange.

Jim Gass 21:33

That’s, that’s where our central figure, that we deal with here at the Center, Louis Bolduc, really comes in. He is, he’s a much later settler to the area than a lot of his neighbors. Bolduc comes down from from a little bit east of Quebec City as a young man in about 1760 but that is what he spends most of his life here doing, is shipping large amounts of grain along with other products, down to New Orleans and then bringing a lot of finished manufactured products back up here to sell to his neighbors. So he makes himself pretty, pretty wealthy as a wholesale merchant, you know, for for the next 40 years of his life, doing pretty good business here in Ste. Genevieve, which was apparently had a large enough market for import goods to keep him and at least a few other merchants, like pretty well, pretty well supplied.

Dean Klinkenberg 22:24

So what during those 40 years then, was he basically kind of a distributor, like he would collect wheat that everybody in the area grew, that he would then bring down to New Orleans to sell, and then bring back payment for that, as well as things to sell. Or was he selling his own stuff?

Jim Gass 22:41

We figure it varied year to year because he was, he was a sizable landowner. He owned several tracts of land down by the Mississippi. I’ve also heard, but haven’t seen the documents for tracts of land he owned closer to St Louis. He co owned a good sized acreage to the north of here, close to what is now Bloomsdale at one point. We have the document for that. So it would seem that during a lot of this time, there was a lot of grain being produced on his land, likely through slave labor. But it also seems that he probably bought and sold other people’s grain too, you know, given the opportunity, or, you know, if he felt that he could, that the that it could be sold successfully in New Orleans, which given, given just how much they’re, how hungry they were for wheat down there, it seems that it was pretty likely that, that he would have a market for it.

Dean Klinkenberg 23:39

So if you’re, if you’re living in Ste. Genevieve at that time, and you’re, you’re a farmer, you’re maybe growing some wheat as a cash crop, what’s your day to day life like? You must be growing or you must be having other animals and crops that you’re growing to feed your own family too. So what’s that look like?

Jim Gass 23:59

If you’re living in town at the time, if you’re of modest means, like more, say, more modest means than Monsieur Bolduc, who we figure was probably in the top five wealthiest men in town for much of his life. You might own a lot in town that’s maybe just shy of 200 by 200 feet. The unit of measurement is the arpent, which is about 192 feet. Usually, you might have a sizable yard behind the house where there’s going to be vegetable gardens that are being tended, you know, to produce produce, while your actual grain growing operation is going to be much further closer to the river, especially at a slight elevation decline, you know where the soil is, a lot closer to the water’s edge. Your land will is, you know, part of a long, narrow strip that’s maybe only about 200 feet wide, but it might extend for quite a distance, running up to the river’s edge. That’s how, that’s how they draw it on the. On maps of farmland that are, you know, sketched from this time and for the next, you know, few decades, a lot of that land is going to be plowed by oxen, you know, with with iron plows. Some of those oxen, as well as other farm animals, will be fed on a kind of a common area of the fields that are, you know, you know there for the use of people’s animals, that they’re that they’re that they’re grazing. A good amount of the labor, depending on your level of you know, relative wealth, a good amount of the labor might be provided by enslaved people during this time, too. It was not uncommon to own at least one or two slaves of African descent that would often be working alongside you in the field, depending on the size of your estate. Of course, there are some who are, you know, having pretty much exclusively slaves tend their land, but one or two is a lot closer to the norm here and it and as a result, a lot of this grain is being produced, which, again, if, you know, if there’s a merchant who is interested, you could have a lot. You could sell a lot of that to him, which he will then turn around in New Orleans, or, you know, later on in St Louis, where they where they badly need it during the first couple years of that city’s existence. And, but again, yeah, you also might be raising cattle on the side, livestock for for slaughter, for the to feed your own family. You’d likely hunt whenever or fish whenever you get the chance to bring in extra food. That way. You see, in some properties, you don’t see hardly any fish skeletons, you know. And the in the archeological digs and other properties, you see quite a few of them. So it does seem to have been to varied from family to family, just how much they took from the river.

Dean Klinkenberg 26:51

Social class thing maybe, like, if you were a poor person, where you may be more dependent on fishing for subsistence than if you were richer, you had livestock or whatever?

Jim Gass 27:00

That seems to be pretty accurate. I mean, you know, one or two, you know, one or two farm animals seem within the reach of most people here, based on what I’ve read. But also, of course, we don’t really get the voices of, like, the poorest people in town, you know, recorded for us to read generations later. You know, we most of the documents we have, most of the primary source documents we have are, you know, business papers, you know, wills and estate documents, land transactions, that sort of thing. And you know, those, even among the people concerned in those documents, they tell us fairly little about the day to day experiences of those people. But, you know, we can figure or we can get quite a bit from the existing literature on what their lives were like back in French Canada, and on documents and letters from Spanish and before that, French officials in this area, who can kind of relay some of these stories back to us secondhand, hundreds of years later, of course.

Dean Klinkenberg 28:01

So I remember, I think this stat is about right, wasn’t it something like 40% of households in Ste. Genevieve in the 18th century at least had at least one slave

Jim Gass 28:11

Yeah, I don’t have the exact percentage in my notes, but to give you an idea, the largest slaveholder that I’m aware of during the colonial period would have been Jean Baptiste Valle towards the end of the colonial period, who had around 30 people enslaved on his various properties. So that was, that was sort of where that figure topped out for the colonial period here.

Dean Klinkenberg 28:31

All right, so then there was a major change across the river that impacted Ste. Genevieve’s future at the end of the French and Indian War, 1770?

Jim Gass 28:45

Little bit earlier than that. 1763 is when the Spaniards, or sorry, 1762 is when the Spaniards technically take possession of this side of the river of what we now call the Louisiana Territory. The war itself, I believe, ends in ’63 but ’62 is when the French and the Spaniards signed the treaty that transfers all of this over to Spain. And then that comes up in the negotiations for the end of the French and Indian War, where the British are not overly thrilled that the Spaniards are taking possession of everything west of the Mississippi, but they’re getting everything to the east, and the French are gone. So that you know that that is where the status quo ends up after the war ends. And it’s in about 1768 that the Spaniards really move in and establish their their presence as the as the governors of of the Louisiana Territory.

Dean Klinkenberg 29:44

On the Illinois side. Then they became British subjects. And there were a number of people in some of those villages, Kaskaskia, for example, that didn’t really want to be British subjects, so they moved over here. I think right?

Jim Gass 29:56

Good number from Cahokia, from Kaskaskia, from Vincennes. Probably a good number from further north than that, up in French Canada and some of the other French towns around the Great Lakes. But yes, there’s plenty of them that moved over to Ste. Genevieve specifically to continue to be under the rule of a Catholic monarch, as opposed to a Protestant one.

Dean Klinkenberg 30:18

Was there much change in day to day life for people under Spanish rule?

Jim Gass 30:21

Generally, not really. The Spaniards tended to govern in what you might relatively hands off kind of way. They left a lot of administrative duties actually to like Francois Valle, the first who was one of the central figures of Ste. Genevieve, of the early years of Ste. Genevieve. They entrusted him with quite a lot. They actually rented a house from his family to serve as a barracks for the few Spanish soldiers that lived in the area. They were known for being a little the Spaniards were known for being kind of tight fisted when it came to trade with the native peoples, much less open handed than the French had been, and this generated some tension where there had been a little bit less prior to their arrival, but really, especially in a community this remote, they were content to let most things continue on as they had for the previous few decades. They really focused more of their governing efforts on New Orleans and the immediate environment around there, because the Port of New Orleans was really the most valuable part of the Louisiana Territory, as they saw it. There are some minor changes, though, at the time of the American Revolution, for instance, Carlos III is on the throne of Spain. He’s seen as kind of a enlightenment monarch. He’s trying, with some success, to sort of modernize the way the Spaniards govern the New World, to sort of cut through the layers of bureaucracy that had developed over the previous few centuries. One of the big reforms that we see at this time is referred to as coartación, is where an enslaved person in what is now Spanish Louisiana is able to demand that their master set a price on their freedom. And if then they can raise, they can raise that amount of money, then they’re able to buy their way out of bondage, which was possible in many cases in these French speaking communities where enslaved people, people typically took the day off after mass and then just went and did more work, but for pay, you know, for other folks in town. So you do see the possibility of freedom, you know, appearing to some of these people, possibly for the first time. You also see a decrease in the enslavement of native peoples at this time throughout Spanish Louisiana. It was something I really read into when I first started working here, trying to kind of figure out if that was totally set in stone among the Spaniards. We know that the initial military governor of Louisiana, Alejandro O’Reilly, outlawed the enslavement of native peoples, or at least the trade and enslaved native peoples. But I believe a lot of scholars have looked and have not been able to find if the king finally, like, signed off, ultimately signed off on that. So it carried some weight of the law. You know, while O’Reilly was still in government or still governor, but how well it was really enforced is kind of up for debate.

Dean Klinkenberg 33:30

Interesting. There was a lot going on in that period of time, like government, changes in government and the American Revolution happened. Do you know, like, is there much written about the what folks thought about the American Revolution here on the Ste. Genevieve side of things?

Jim Gass 33:47

Not much in terms of what they thought about the revolution as it was ongoing. The Spaniards, you’re probably aware were pretty sympathetic to the revolution and were happy to ship a lot of supplies up the river and then up the Ohio to, you know, be used by the Continental Army. There’s a couple American merchants who are already very active in New Orleans at this time. But as far as what people felt about the revolution here in Ste. Genevieve, it’s pretty it’s pretty unclear. Some of their cousins over in, you know, Cahokia and Kaskaskia were, were apparently pretty amicable, you know, to George Rogers Clark when the opportunity arose to, you know, to to at least somewhat oppose, you know, the continued British rule of that side of the island and or that side of the river.

Dean Klinkenberg 34:41

Yeah, they practically laid out the welcome mats when he showed up with his troops.

Jim Gass 34:46

Some of them were also happy to redeclare their allegiance to Britain once the British came back through. But you can’t, you can’t blame people you know, for, for, you know, being this far out on the frontier, and you know, see, seeing this, this disruption of their daily life as something that will, you know, pass when it passes, and just, you know, trying to keep afloat until then. You know, after the revolution begins, is when relations with Spain start to take kind of a turn. You also, you also see the Spaniards actively recruiting people, you know, ostensibly American citizens to sort of defect over to this side of the river to begin, you know, filling up a lot of the territories here in Louisiana that the Spaniards were hoping to reinforce. They were offering pretty good rates on land. I think in some cases, they were offering, like, free land grants to people who would move over to the side of the river, who would take a loyalty oath to Spain and at least nominally convert to Catholicism, though, I think they dropped that requirement after a couple years. And you may be familiar with the town of New Madrid, which is to the south of here that that was initially settled under Spanish authority, but was primarily Americans who settled there and and as a result, you know, you get a lot of English speaking peoples that are moving to the side of the river. Those folks, the French settlers of Ste. Genevieve, were not as big a fans. I can I can tell you that much, depending on who you ask. Some of them were model citizens. Others were rabble rousers, a change that I wanted to cite specifically is Henry Marie Brackenridge, who was one of the early chroniclers of the history of Louisiana at this time. He spends time in Ste. Genevieve as a very young boy to learn French and to kind of learn to navigate these settlements. He comes back as an adult and is dismayed. He says, to find that people are openly wearing weapons, you know, through the streets in Ste. Genevieve, including like when they even when they go to court. It’s something that he noted as a marked change in the 20 or so years since he had, since he had spent his boyhood here. I think just the rapid increase in the size of the settlement and the development of the sort of frontier ethic that was being created at the time that involved somewhat of a readiness to violence that is associated with the early 1800s and the growth of towns along the frontier.

Dean Klinkenberg 37:19

Lots of new people coming through, a lot of transient people coming through. So yeah, probably created a sense of vulnerability. If you were a person living here.

Jim Gass 37:30

That’s fair to say. I would think, I would think, and around that same time too, especially after the Louisiana Purchase, when Brackenridge is writing from as an adult, you also see a good number of French speakers moving westward to Old Mines and to other communities that are further out from Ste. Genevieve. And I, you know, based on what I’ve read, I can’t help but contribute or attribute that to the influx of American settlers. You know, who, again, were, you know, spoke a different language and were largely Protestant. And this would tend to and you know, as they were coming to outnumber the people here who spoke French, you would tend to see some of those French speakers move away to places that might still more consistently use their language, as opposed to English.

Dean Klinkenberg 38:20

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Dean Klinkenberg 38:58

So if you’re, if you’re living here in the colonial period, what do you do for fun?

Jim Gass 39:06

As far as the leisure time that they really had? We see a lot of card games that were becoming popular, you know, across across Europe at this time, that are also becoming popular here. Faro is the big one that we demonstrate to people at the living history house, which we keep open on Saturdays, that’s that’s sort of a banking game, similar to Blackjack, in some ways. But a lot of other card games are really becoming popular at this time. A lot of people are unaware the standard deck of 52 cards that were that we’re used to today, that is something that comes to us from France. There are playing card sets of all different kinds throughout Europe, you know, from about the 1500s on, but the one that we are most used to is specifically French. You see other games, like Monty, like Euchre appeal, appear during this time. You know, gambling, while frowned upon you know, by some authorities, was something that was likely very popular. Billiards is something that we also know they played here in Ste. Genevieve. There are documents where the local priest was complaining of the amount of time that people spent in billiards halls. You know, here in town in Ste. Genevieve in the 1790s there’s also a good number of, you know, of seasonal holidays and feasts that people took part in. I know one of your other questions was about Guignolée, that is a New Year’s Eve festival that takes place every year that has a that sees sort of carolers, you know, make their way from home to home on New Year’s Eve, singing and dancing, specific, specific seasonal songs with the hope of being rewarded with with a bite to eat or a few drinks, you know, either beers or spirits, with, with the idea that they continue to rove through town as and the whole thing gets merrier and merrier over.

Dean Klinkenberg 40:57

Well, a lot of that food and drinks are better, right? So this is a New Year’s Eve tradition?

Jim Gass 41:02

Still practiced around here. There’s still an association that does that and busses people around from Prairie du Rocher to here and some of the other communities. And it’s a good time. You know, people, people get really into it consistently from year to year.

Dean Klinkenberg 41:16

Yeah, we’ll come back to that. Maybe we’ll maybe, yeah, when we get to contemporary Ste. Genevieve too. So this is, this wasn’t Puritan New England, right? So there were places to play billiards. Like you said, drinking was fine. Generally speaking, there was not a frown. People didn’t frown on drinking so much.

Jim Gass 41:35

It’s something you see in the primary sources where there’s a constant back or there’s a constant tension between some of the religious authorities in the area who are appealing to the government, like the secular authorities, to kind of curb some of the tendencies towards partying that you see throughout these communities, and just based on how it’s an ongoing item of complaint. You get the sense that the secular authorities really weren’t putting a stop to all of it, that it was sort of ongoing throughout the French period. I mean, it’s something that the Jesuits were complaining about going back to the late 1600s for fear that the habits of some of these French settlers would be a bad influence on the native folks that they were trying to convert, perhaps not without reason given, you know, the proliferation of alcohol in some of those communities as a result of, you know, contact with French traders, but, but yeah, it you’re correct, and it is not Puritan New England by, by any means.

Dean Klinkenberg 42:38

So what would, what would it be like to step into a tavern, then, like you would have people from across social class, maybe some travelers passing through. What would you drink? Would there be food? What would the experience be like?

Jim Gass 42:51

As far as the specifics on food or drink, the documentation is pretty sparse on that. We know that there were a couple stills and a couple breweries that were in operation here as early as the 1790s. You actually see the Valles, I believe, buy the rights to a couple of these from some of the early American settlers to make it to this side of the river. So beer and spirits were both available. As far as the food goes, I couldn’t point to any specific recipe, and, you know, it is a great tragedy, but the documentation we have on early Ste. Genevieve is really, really light in terms of recipes, you know, that would be characteristic of the region or the town itself.

Dean Klinkenberg 43:34

So do we know even have a sense for what people might eat at home?

Jim Gass 43:37

As far as what people ate at home. A lot of a lot of stews, gumbo was big up here too, same as it was down in Louisiana. You know, wheat bread of all different consistencies and qualities, was available here too. You know, they, they sort of lived and died based, based around wheat. You know, that was the single biggest thing that they produced here in town, so is the it was sort of the centerpiece of a lot of their diets, you know, usually, you know, stew with several kind of game meats, some livestock and a large hunk of bread to soak it up. That’s something that you see in a lot of the histories of the area. Beyond that there, you know, were, there were things like persimmons and pawpaws and pecans that were available, you know, for forage here that people did come to enjoy. And some in parts of Louisiana, not, not all of them, but in parts of Louisiana, people were coming to appreciate corn as well as something that they would grow and assist and subsist on.

Dean Klinkenberg 44:44

That took a while. They were wheat first people, right?

Jim Gass 44:47

Very much so, yeah.

Dean Klinkenberg 44:50

All right. So let’s talk about the buildings, then tell us a little bit about their style of architecture, what they built and and how it was built.

Jim Gass 45:01

So the styles of architecture used by the French colonists here fall into the categories of poteaux-sur-sol or poteaux-en-terre. Poteaux-en-terre, post in earth, is probably the most basic form of this type of construction. Probably goes back the furthest, very simply put, you would simply make, make these vertical logs that would then be placed upright in a trench that was dug in the shape of a house, and the post would sit directly in the earth. And then you would fill the spaces between the those logs with a mix of mud and clay and straw. Bousillage was the term that the French used for it at the time, although the contemporary term in Normandy France is torchis , spelled with a T the and this is probably the most like what you see most people in Ste. Genevieve have at this time. The building, the posts themselves are very thick, sometimes up to a foot in width. You know, they were built to last. And this is a style that goes back to Normandy, France specifically, that’s where not just a lot of the families here, but a lot of the families that settle French Canada, more broadly, draw their descent from. It makes for a for a very sturdy building. In the long term, they tend to build the roofs very steep. They mostly build those roofs without nails as well. Like the beams that actually hold them together are pinned in place using mortise and tenon joints and the and then heavy wooden spikes run through those joints to lock them in place. Makes them very sturdy in the long term, but also very flexible in the sense that they can sort of readjust as the ground settles out underneath them. Now, for for wealthier folks in town, you would see the emergence of what we call poteaux-sur-sol, which is post on sill. Same basic design, but instead of building directly on the ground, they would create an elevated sill made of dressed or undressed stone that would that you would then build on top of the vertical logs would sit on that and thus be insulated from the moisture and the bacteria and whatnot in the ground enables, you know, the building of houses with materials like oak, they’re very sturdy, but not exactly rot proof, versus the cypress and the mulberry and the other rot resistant timbers that they would be limited to for building a post in Earth structure. And what’s more, the presence of those stone sills creates kind of a half basement underneath the house. I tend to call it a crawl space, generally, not that deep, unless you built a really large sill to elevate the house very far off the ground, which is not, you know, not outside the realm of possibility for a lot of these wealthier builders. What you also see in Ste. Genevieve and elsewhere, you know, further to the south is the emergence of the gallery, the wrap around covered porch that characterizes so many or our image of buildings in French Louisiana and the French Caribbean that was also present up here in Ste. Genevieve because, not just because of the influence of the Caribbean and Louisiana making its way up the river, but also because it tends to cool the house down substantially. It keeps the sun and the rain off, cuts down on light that’s getting through the windows and heating up the building and and also gives you a comfortable place to potentially sleep at night if it’s just too hot to bear inside the house.

Dean Klinkenberg 48:32

Basically an extra room, in a sense, right?

Jim Gass 48:34

Yeah, and at times they even built extra rooms on the porch. The Bolduc House has one example of this. It’s something you see, especially at the end of the 1790s where they just walled off sections of the porch and called it good. You suddenly had a new utility room added to the building without having to redo the whole roof in the process.

Dean Klinkenberg 48:52

So basically, would it be if you’re a person of regular means, not a rich person, it’s one room, like you build this house and you have one room that you kind of figure out ways to divide the space for your use.

Jim Gass 49:05

One or two, yeah. The something that we hear about in some texts is that they that the French crown, and later to the Spaniards tax these properties based on the number of rooms that you saw. I haven’t seen the documentation for that. So I’m not positive that that there’s not more to it than that, but it would make sense given just how few rooms they tend to build to start with. You do see some people of means draw plans for like, a house with, say, six rooms, like in the case of Delassus, who was a French Noble who fled here from the revolution, but that’s the that’s the only indication of a house of that size that I’ve seen others, even folks like Louis Bolduc, had one or two rooms, maximum three over the course of their lives.

Dean Klinkenberg 49:53

So they they built with posts vertically, and probably because that’s the style they knew. From their their family, their their cultural history. Are there advantages or disadvantages to that building style compared to what was more common on the American frontier, where the posts would be horizontal to the ground rather than vertical to it?

Jim Gass 50:13

As far as disadvantages, I can the big one you know that really jumps right out at you, are these posts are incredibly heavy. They would be very labor intensive to build. They would have to be hauled a great distance, and then, you know, then hauled upright, which I’m sure is no easy task. The advantages was include that, you know, the house would be incredibly sturdy as a result, the parts, like the beams themselves could be replaced fairly easily with, you know, another with another log that you would pre cut to fill to, you know, fill in for it. Although a lot of the time, if there was, you know, an instance where there was rot or insect damage, they would just saw the that piece off. And, you know, find a new, new use for that particular log. The longevity of these structures, you know, is pretty readily testified to, given that, you know, we still have five or six of them with the original walls, you know, still here in town. In addition the thickness of the walls, as well as other measures taken, probably made for a building that was much more livable during the wintertime up in French Canada and in the northwest of France. Of course, you see buildings that are somewhat more lightly built over time. As you know, as you know, sawmills become more and more available as sawn timber becomes more and more available. In addition the way that they they filled the spaces between the timbers with the bousillage material, you know. All of that was very readily available, you know, and it tended to pack very dense and act as a good insulator. But so you could read, you could easily fill the spaces between your walls to keep out a lot of the drafts, but then you could also readily replace it in the event that some of it started to rot.

Dean Klinkenberg 50:14

So for the roofs, then, would they have tiling or something, or would they cover the roof with some other material?

Jim Gass 50:51

A good number of roofs in town were still thatch at the well into the 1700s roof with shingles like the Bolducs. That was that seems to have been kind of a mark of status or of relative wealth, which and then, you know, up in Canada, at least, you see people who are the next step up from there, have houses that are made of masonry. At this time, a lot of those buildings still stand out in Quebec City. I know down here you don’t see that as often. I couldn’t point to a specific house from like the late 1700s that still stands that was made of stone. But as far as slate tiles on the roof, that’s something you see more in Canada, and would require you to have them shipped from pretty well outside of town, if you wanted such a thing down here. I couldn’t point to a surviving example that where the original slate roof would have lasted, you know, into the into the modern era.

Dean Klinkenberg 51:34

Right. That was probably more of a 19th century material is more available, yeah. Well, you talked a little bit about the river. Let’s touch on that just a little bit more. Obviously, the river was important for trading. For a lot of people, that’s how they came here initially, was probably by river. And then for some folks, there was some subsistence provided by fishing from the river. And then I guess, like the you mentioned, the way the properties were laid out. It’s so common in French territories. You see this so clearly in maps of between Baton Rouge and New Orleans in particular, where everybody’s got a little bit of frontage on the river, and these really deep, long, narrow plots, and that was the case here too, I guess, for the same reason, so that everybody had river access, in theory?

Jim Gass 53:54

It seems to really have just been the French practice throughout the New World, because you see old maps of The St Lawrence River, where the lots take pretty much the same shape. So as for whether that was to guarantee river access, I couldn’t really say, but at least to we tend to think of them packing a lot of the most intensively farmed areas in to a central location so that they’re more easily monitored and possibly defended against attacks from say, say, hostile native folks or possibly the English, you know, at different times, and that those practices would tend to hold over even during times of relative peace. And it, you know, it also made the community more centralized. You don’t see as much of a trend with the French settlers as you would later see with American settlers, where their farms would be pretty far spread out, you know, over throughout the frontier, where, whereas the French settlements tend to be much more closely packed, where people are living in a closer proximity to each other with with relatively few people permanently settling out in the hinterland.

Dean Klinkenberg 55:07

Right. So I guess I wanted to clarify that too, because, as I understand it then, so you’d probably have a house in town, but the land that you farmed would be you’d have to travel to a little bit, but then there so they were, you would grow grains and crops there. But then there were also common grounds for the city, where most people would graze some of their livestock?

Jim Gass 55:29

Graze their livestock, and I believe, collect firewood as well. But yes, yeah, that is, believe there is one of those common areas delineated in one of the maps that we have of the riverfront at this time, though, that map, a lot of these maps tend to blur together in my head over time, but that, that one may be from the earliest years of after the Louisiana Purchase. But yeah, it’s, I believe it is labeled like the common field, but that is, it is worth differentiating that from Le Grand Champ, “the big field,” which was the collective name for the individual lots that were all stacked next to each other at this time.

Dean Klinkenberg 56:11

Okay, all right. So 1785 we had a big flood, and so prior to that year, the actual town was a little further downriver where we the town is.

Jim Gass 56:26

Yeah, right about two or three miles is to the southeast of here, and, yes, directly on the river. And you know, nobody is totally sure of the layout or the exact location of any particular building within the old village. But the Army Corps of Engineers has done a little bit of scanning of the route, the approximate spot. And, you know, found at least some, you know, at least some archeological evidence in the form of, I think, impacted lots where the old village would have been. But by now, the rivers changed course enough that most of its underwater. But yeah, the 1785 flood, it was it. It wasn’t. It wasn’t so catastrophic that it just changed everybody’s perspective all at once. It was just the latest in a series of floods, and it was a particularly destructive one. I I dug through or back through accounts of the flood the other day, I couldn’t find evidence that anybody was killed, you know, as a consequence of it, but it did destroy a good number of crops down there at Le Grand Champ, and encourage people to begin moving up in this direction, which is to the north and west, to settle a little bit further away from the river and at slightly higher ground. Some accounts say they moved at the suggestion of the Osage too. That it was the Osage who told them that this would be a much more suitable location for a permanent settlement.

Dean Klinkenberg 57:54

So did the river ever get high enough to flood up here too?

Jim Gass 57:56

The closest it ever came, to the best of my knowledge, would be 1993 the main street that runs in front of the Bolduc house dips a little bit when you get towards the railroad bridge, and as far as I know, the river almost reached the top of that little hill there in 1993 so it didn’t affect the Bolduc House, but it did affect a great number of houses that were that are only about five feet lower in terms of elevation, from what I understand, they called it Lake Ste. Genevieve for a little while, because the river from pretty close by resembled more so a giant lake.

Dean Klinkenberg 58:33

Right. It was kind of an epic battle to continually reinforce the levee to protect the town in 1993 and for the most part, it worked. So, all right, so at some point, Ste. Genevieve starts to lose its sort of exclusively French character. So tell us a little bit about that transition.

Jim Gass 58:56

Well, the transition begins, you know formally, after 1803 after the Louisiana Purchase, like I said earlier, there were a decent number of Americans that had started to move over to this side of the river well before that. But with the Louisiana Purchase, with the opening of the territories to the west of the Mississippi, you see a much larger influx of people starting to move west here and they don’t necessarily, you know, remain in Ste. Genevieve forever. A lot of people just move through on their way to found, you know, other communities to the west of here, we have, you know, within, within a few miles, we have communities with German names like Zell or Weingarten and and you start to, but you do start to see, you know, the relatively small French population overtaken by this larger population of Anglo Americans as well as Germans that are starting to move to the area at the time and the. But there the language is, you know, maintained colloquially, you know, by the old families for quite a while. But it is, you know, it ceases to be the language of public affairs. Like prior to 1800 all the business documents were done in French originally. After say, 1803 you start to see a number of them done in English, some of them translated into both languages, you know, for the convenience of all parties involved. But then by the time, by the time of, like, the 1840s pretty much all the documents I see, at least in the Ste. Genevieve collections that have been compiled, pretty much all of them are English language and, you know, done more in a format that was suitable to the to the United States government, as opposed to the Spaniards who had been governing up until that point in 1803. Yeah, the territory does retro seed back to France in 1800 but the Spaniards are the ones continuing to administer this territory on the ground all the way up until 1803

Dean Klinkenberg 1:01:00

So it’s interesting that, you know, basically like this transition away from exclusively French begins around 1803, 220 years ago, and here we are today, in 2025, and you can still feel the French influence. There’s still these cultural relics, you know, French cultural relics in town. How did, how did they survive?

Jim Gass 1:01:27

Tradition, you know, is maintained, I think, by a lot of the descendants of the original families, until, you know, really recently as late as the 1950s or ’60s. In a lot of cases, they say that even in St Louis as late as the 1930s you could still hear people speaking to each other in “paw paw French.” You know, if you happen by the right kitchen window at the right time, I’ve heard it lasts even longer in some families, you know, further into the rural parts of Southeast Missouri. As for what accounts for how that those traditions are maintained since that time, I do really think it’s the relative isolation, you know, that a lot of people were able to live out their lives in, you know, but, but over time, you know, we it we, everybody comes to speak English as their primary language, and to just find further fewer and fewer uses for this older dialect that, you know, that is mostly spoken by the by the elderly that are still in the area. It’s, you know, more interesting to us today, because it is such a curiosity. It’s and it’s, you know, something that you know, in hindsight, we all you know wish had you know been maintained, you know, on equal footing with English, you know, to preserve sort of the region’s identity going back to the French period. But, you know, unfortunately, you see that disappear in a lot of places. So lower Louisiana is the same. Is you know, much the same vein, but on a much larger scale, just given how many more speakers of French dialects that you see down there compared to up here.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:03:13

When did the interest in building preservation in particular begin?

Dean Klinkenberg 1:03:18

Right. So for people who come here today, some of these experiences may be relatively seamless, maybe not. I don’t know. There’s more than obviously, as you hit it, there’s more than one player involved in preserving the buildings and offering tours of them. So can you just kind of get us give us an overview of who’s doing what?

Jim Gass 1:03:18

That really begins, I think going back to at least the ’30s, the you see, if you go on the Library of Congress website, the Historic American Building Survey collections, some of the earliest photos in those collections are of Ste. Genevieve, of historic houses that were, you know, photographed down here. There are a number of scholars and museum professionals from St Louis that you know gravitate towards Ste. Genevieve as a place that is worth studying for its architectural history. Some of those figures go on to assist with our parent organization, with the National Society of Colonial Dames, in preserving some of these buildings in the long term, the Dames provide the organization and fundraising necessary to to buy and then restore the Bolduc House, starting in about 1949 that lasts for about that process takes almost 10 years in terms of getting the house restored, but also getting the museum collections put together so that the house can open, and that that starts right before the start of the 1960s and that’s really where I would place the dawn of interest in preserving these structures. That starts off a wave of historic preservation here in town that hasn’t really ended to tell you the truth. I mean, National Park Service moved in in about 2017. As of now, they, you know, operate four structures here in town. And, you know, good on them for maintaining these the structural integrity of these buildings, you know, long enough for them to continually be updated and restored. We try to do the same thing with our with our resources. Yeah, and it attracted, you know, numerous groups that are interested in historic preservation, and we all try to maintain a good working relationship with each other, sending guests in each other’s directions to, you know, can hopefully continue to spread, you know, the our various missions through word of mouth.

Jim Gass 1:04:52

So our organization, the Center for French Colonial Life, which is an independent nonprofit, takes care of four buildings, the Bolduc House, the Bolduc-LeMeilleur House, the Linden Living History House, and hopefully opening by the next year, the Francois Valle II House. Then the National Park Service oversees the Jean Baptiste Valle House, the Green Tree Tavern, and now the Amoureux House, and they are also maintaining, for the time being, the Delassus-Kern House, which is down on St Mary’s Road, which is in pretty rough shape. And then the State Department of Natural Resources maintains the Felix Valle House, which is just around the corner from us. That’s their only property here in town. And then a separate nonprofit, the Foundation for Restoration of Ste. Genevieve, manages the Guibourd-Valle House, which also goes back to the 1790s and they also maintain their headquarters at the Kiel Schwent House, which is a masonry building with a lot of German history, as well as their library that they maintain there. And there’s other historic buildings in town, but they’re all owned by private individuals. Some of them live actively, lived in. Others, not or others are empty, but relatively well maintained by their private owners.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:07:00

So if you want to you know if somebody’s coming into town and they want to tour some of the properties, what would you recommend as kind of, what are the must see places that people should go? And you could start with the Center for French Colonial Life.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:07:12

And then so those cover the houses. If, when people come here to The Center for Colonial Life, you have a museum here too. What do you showcase here?

Jim Gass 1:07:12

I mean, I always recommend the Bolduc House. You know, is that really the first one to see? But also the Green Tree Tavern. The Bolduc House is not as old as the Green Tree. The Green Tree is older by about three years, is the general consensus. But the Bolduc House has, you know, some of the most intact original parts still, you know, still on it, probably as a result of the family continuing to live there through the end of the 1940s and maintaining a lot of the original structural elements all the way through. Then I try to direct people to the Felix Valle House too. Because if you take our tour, you see the Bolduc House 1793 and the Bolduc-LeMeilleur House, 1820. If you go to the Felix Valle House, you’re getting even more on the later development of the town through, you know, through the perspective of Felix Valle, who’s a grandson to the Valle family and is one of these Creole descendants who really makes good on his family’s connections, and is a is able to, you know, find a pretty lucrative place in the new American order. But that’s the, you know, that’s the state’s story to tell there. I would let them explain better, you know, the story of his life and the house that he inhabited.

Jim Gass 1:07:46

We keep, usually, two exhibits in the building, you know, on a rotating basis. At present, you know, as of this recording in October, October 1, 2025, we have our longer running exhibit Saving St Louis, which deals with the Battle of Fort San Carlos in May of 1780. A lot of Ste. Genevieve militiamen took part in that battle in what is now downtown St Louis. We are looking at replacing that exhibit within the next couple months with one that we’ve been working on for some time about Creole culture and what it means for this area, as well as as well as Lower Louisiana. And then our other exhibit is To Shelter and Sustain and that’s all about the architecture and the construction methods used here in town during the colonial period, including a lot of details on outbuildings and other structures that are lost to us today, in addition to the surviving houses, and those are the two that we have currently. They get updated every two or three years, depending on the you know, what resources are available and like, what we’re able to to research and write in that time. But it is worth, even if you visited before, you know, it’s worth checking out a couple additional times every every few years or so. You know, we continue to update this stuff periodically.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:09:58

So then, in terms of, like, I, I’m always a fan of trying to find some of the lesser visited or maybe less well known places, and I may be a weirdo for this, but I like cemeteries, so the old cemetery just on Market Street. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Jim Gass 1:10:13

I can tell you that a lot of the stones in there at least go back to the first couple decades of the 1800s and some of them back further than that. It’s been a long time since I took a walk through there, I’ll admit. But there are headstones that had rubbings done of their their surfaces back in the 1940s that were already old then. So it is, it is worth checking out just to see if you can still discern what is carved into them. Because, you know, time is not kind to these, these limes, these lime headstones, unfortunately, but yeah, a lot of those graves go back, at least to the end of the colonial period, lots of Valles, lots of Prattes, you know, lots of Boyers, and probably quite a few more names that I’m just not thinking of at the moment.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:10:59

And then there are some festivals or annual events here that celebrate different aspects of you know, that have some French connection to them. You mentioned the New Year’s Eve. Tell us a little bit about that.

Jim Gass 1:11:12

Yeah, so that that we’ll typically be open for a couple hours on that night. That’s, that’s New Year’s Eve. The organization that still that, you know, transports a lot of the Guignolée crew, you know, we have a good relationship with them. We see them every New Year’s Eve, usually a little bit before midnight, where they are bussed from site to site, usually wearing a variety of period clothing and singing, you know, the traditional French carols that are sung on that night, you know, and having been given quite a few drinks, you know, at different points throughout the night, depending where they’ve stopped and, and it’s, you know, it’s, it was a very merry occasion, you know, 200 years ago. It still is today. And typically, there’s more than one organization involved in that. I’m a little bit less familiar with the actual administrative duties that go into that. That’s, Guignolée.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:12:11

Anybody’s welcome to be part of that?

Jim Gass 1:12:13

You’d have to contact the right folks to sign up for it. But yes, that’s, that’s overall, that’s, that’s the impression I get. And then again, we typically open our site for a couple hours around the time that they show up, so people are able to come through and peruse the exhibits and wait for the carolers to arrive. That’s New Year’s Eve. There’s also Jour de Fete, which translates to “feast day.” That’s usually midway through August. That’s typically the biggest draw for people from out of town. It also draws a lot of people who grew up in Ste. Genevieve back if they’ve moved outside the area. As far as specific French cultural practices that are on display there. There’s nothing in particular that I can point to, but it is also the appointed date for Project Pioneer, which is done by a separate initiative here in town to honor at least one French family going back to the colonial period every year by sort of reexamining and republishing a lot of the genealogical records, requesting new photos or new narrative details from surviving family members and and, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s worth checking out whenever, whenever they do that in early August. Those are the two big ones I can point to there. As far as other festivals go, there’s plenty without a specific, you know, without a specific historic focus. We have the Pecan Festival, Pecanapalooza, every fall, as well as Rural Heritage Day, that usually falls a little bit earlier in the in the early autumn. But it is worth checking the town’s website for all the way from August to November, because they will usually have a lot of those dates laid out well in advance.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:14:03

And what about the church? The there are some burials in there, maybe, or there, I kind of vaguely remember some connections to the French history too?

Jim Gass 1:14:14

Francois Valle II is buried underneath that church that you know, his house is the one that we’re hoping to open by this this coming year, he is one of the very few individuals that is honored in that way. He and I believe his young son, who died in infancy, are both buried underneath the church. You can see the stone marker for it next to the altar. The that church itself only goes back to the early 20th century. However, the lot on which it sits was occupied by Ste. Genevieve’s Catholic church for many iterations prior to that, so that his remains are still down there to this day. But yeah, it’s very worth visiting regardless of your faith. It’s a beautiful building and you know, it’s, as a result, pretty representative of the faith and heritage of Ste. Genevieve as a at one point, a predominantly Catholic settlement.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:15:09

And it’s free, yes. So there is that.

Jim Gass 1:15:11

There is that.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:15:12

Did I miss anything? Is there anything else you want to highlight about this French, the French Connection here at Ste. Genevieve?

Jim Gass 1:15:20

I just want to elaborate just on the work of our organization. Originally, it really was just limited to maintaining the Bolduc House and conducting tours. Used to be the museum was just that property and a few people in period costume that would take you through the house, you know, during the summers and early autumns. But since then, we have expanded to offering House tours year round, every day, how the out of the year, except, except usually Christmas. We also maintain the Bolduc LeMeilleur House, which is a nice bookend to the colonial period being built in 1820. On Saturdays during the warmer months, we open the Living History House where we have a lot of reenactors hang out and explain their crafts to people. And then again, we’re hoping to open the Francois Valle II House sometime next year, and that will be our fourth one. So in addition to our main building, the center that we’re currently sitting in, we offer quite a lot for just the one organization, and we are continuously expanding. Our historic mission has gone beyond just the preservation of one building and overall the over towards the overall preservation of the French culture and history that is available here. That’s about all that I really wanted to point to there, just emphasizing our mission and our ongoing role here in town.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:16:44

So if folks want to learn more about the Center, what are the main places where they can go? I can post a link to the website in the show notes. Are there social media accounts where you post very much?

Jim Gass 1:16:57

We are active on Facebook and that, and that’s really the other place to look for us. But other than that, the website is the first place that we would recommend checking out. We can also be reached at info@frenchcolonialamerica.org, if you have any questions, or if you want to ask about putting together a group tour or a group visit, we offer discounts to groups above 30.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:17:23

All right, Jim, thank you so much for your time and for sharing your expertise. That was fantastic. I really appreciate it.

Jim Gass 1:17:32

Thanks for having us on Dean. We also appreciate it. You know, we figure you got a lot of listeners who are very interested in the history of the Mississippi Valley, and you know, we’re happy to to help add to that in any way we can.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:17:47

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the series on your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss out on future episodes. I offer the podcast for free, but when you support the show with a few bucks through Patreon you help keep the program going. Just go to patreon.com/deanklinkenberg. If you want to know more about the Mississippi River, check out my books. I write the Mississippi Valley Traveler guidebooks for people who want to get to know the Mississippi better. I also write the Frank Dodge mystery series that’s set in places along the river. Find them wherever books are sold. The Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast is written and produced by me Dean Klinkenberg. Original Music by Noah Fence. See you next time.