I have a strong passion for books. I seem to accumulate quantities of them. I have about 8 feet of shelf containing books I haven’t read. I’ve resolved to myself not to buy any more books. My resolve was tested this summer when we went to the Putnam Museum to see the new I-Max theatre. We were early and spent some time in the museum gift shop. I ran across a book entitled “Upper Mississippi River History, Fact-Fiction-Legend” by Captain Ron Larson of Winona, Minnesota, a retired steamboat captain. I thumbed through it and found countless accounts concerning the river and events occurring on it, complete with 165 pictures and illustrations. I looked at the price. $ 45. My resolve reasserted itself and I put the book down and started to walk out of the gift shop. I had taken about 3 steps when my resolve dissolved and I said to myself “I must have that book!” So I picked up the book and since I didn’t have enough money, had to ask my wife to buy it for me. Humiliation knew no bounds! Very much like an alcoholic falling off the wagon. I justify it by saying “This is a limited, numbered edition” (my book is # 3045). It is autographed by the author. Someday it may be valuable. If you can think of any more rationalizations please let me know. I need all I can get.
What I like about this book is that it tells about many of the well known events but tosses in some facts that are usually left out in the description of these events. For example: You’ve all read about the first railroad bridge across the Mississippi and perhaps seen the marker on Arsenal Island that shows where it was. The first train crossed over it April 21, 1856 amidst a huge celebration on both sides of the river, complete with parade, fireworks, and speeches by the President of the railroad, governors of both states, and the mayors of Rock Island and Davenport. Quite a bash. Unfortunately, 15 days later on May 4, 1856, the sidewheeler Effie Afton, after off-loading freight and passengers in Davenport started up river. Right after passing the open swing bridge the starboard paddle wheel broke. The Effie Afton floated back into the bridge. Her smokestacks fell and the wood burning stove in her galley tipped over. Both boat and bridge caught fire. A great many skiffs and a local ferryboat got the passengers and crew off with no loss of life.. You’ve all heard this before. Now we come to what Paul Harvey calls: “the rest of the story”. I’ll bet you never heard that there were 300 head of oxen on the main deck and all of them went in the river. It was about a week before they were all rounded up. That’s what I mean about this book. The picture of these wild eyed, snorting cattle roaming through Rock Island and Davenport is a fact to be savored.
Of course Abraham Lincoln was employed by the railroad to defend them in the subsequent lawsuit and did it so well he started gaining the reputation that ultimately put him in the White House.
By the way, to continue “the rest of the story” the belief of the steamboat interests that the bridge was a menace to navigation was not totally untrue. In 1966 the Coast Guard declared it one. River pilots called it the “Gate of Death”. Captain Smith Harris of the Eagle Packet Boat Company hit it with the steamer Gray Eagle and the boat sank. Harris gave up steamboating because of the incident. It wasn’t till 1872 that a new bridge was built down river and the ill-fated bridge was torn down.
We’ve mentioned in these columns about Steven Hanks of Albany, Illinois and the first log rafts on the river. Captain Larson has another “rest of the story” about this. Steven Hanks (a relative of the same Abraham Lincoln mentioned above) was farming near Albany. His father had died leaving the 15 year old Steven to be head of the household. He raised beef cattle. The market for beef was not very good locally, but the enterprising boy knew that to the north, in the logging camps of Wisconsin beef would bring premium prices. Problem was in getting the cattle there. Steve organized some of his neighbors who also had cattle to help drive the cattle north. Not an easy task when the only road was an Indian Trail. They left late in the Fall after the crops were in. They got there and sold the cattle but it was to late to get back. They spent the winter working for the loggers. In the spring of 1844 the logs that had been cut in the winter were rolled into the St Croix River and floated down to a sawmill at Marine, Minnesota. While the logs were in a holding basin a flash flood occurred and most of the logs ended up in Lake St Croix. The loggers felt getting the logs back to the mill over land was to big a job so when Steve got the idea that they could make a raft and float it down to St Louis where logs brought a good price the loggers were happy to sell them to him. He used some of the cattle money to buy the logs. and he and his neighbors made a raft and set out down the St Croix River and into the Mississippi. It took 30 days for them to get to St Louis and sell the logs for a premium price. After that Steve Hanks spent more time rafting than he did farming. He eventually became a steamboat captain. Not bad for a teen-ager.
It’s this kind of detail that I like to read to get the picture. Don’t be surprised if I don’t find more in Captain Larson’s book to put in this column.