Category: Uncategorized
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Ukraine on the Rural Mississippi
Until the building was torn down in 1938, river travelers and motorists who gazed up at the “Onion Bulb” dome on the bluffs were left to wonder about the origins of such a unique church in a small Mississippi River town in rural Missouri.
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Black River Roustabouts Lost and Found
“The mate walked up and looked over the guard and said, ‘Well, pick up your iron and get out of the way; the man’s drowned now; needn’t be standing around.'”
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The St. Louis Levee and W.C. Handy’s “St. Louis Blues”
“I slept on the cobblestones of the levee of the Mississippi. My companions were perhaps a thousand men of both races.”
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Shantyboat Rose
Rose Mosenthein was a pioneer in women’s competitive rowing and aquatic sports at a time when rowing clubs denied membership to women.
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Fifty-three Feet Down
The Old-World gravestones seem like quaint relics and reminders of our industrial past, especially the dangerous nature of cement manufacturing and the routine expendability of cheap labor. A reminder of the too-often-forgotten underside of the American dream.
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Searching for the City of Dust
Tourists speeding past on the nearby Great River Road (scenic Highway 79) that snaked along the perimeter of the cement plant had no idea that a town with a vibrant working-class history lay buried beneath the pavement.
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Shantyboat River Fiddler
“The children love the old man. They become his friends in whatever cove he lands; in every floating village, he is ‘grandpa.’ He plays for them and tells them wonderful tales of the river—the great wonderful river which they live on but know little about.”
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Iron Shackles & Old Rock Houses on the Mississippi River
To greet me were rusty remnants of iron shackles on the walls, reminders of slavery’s stain on America’s past and its ongoing legacies.
Lost River Stories 