Tag: Mississippi River
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The “Hannibal City” Sidewheeler
By Gregg Andrews The Hannibal City was a sidewheel steamboat named in honor of Missouri’s leading port north of St. Louis. The sidewheeler belonged to the fleet of the St. Louis & Keokuk Packet Company. On January 1, 1842, a group of St. Louis investors formed the packet company to operate on the Upper Mississippi…
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Another “Floater” from the Workhouse
About fifty feet to the east lay the river, his only remaining option.
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Banjo on My Knee: Shantyboats in 1936 Hollywood
“We are telling a beautiful love story laid among a certain type of river people that exist on the Mississippi today. They are not drunks; they are not whores.”
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Double Murder Mystery on the Mississippi: Conclusion
By Gregg Andrews A jury in November 1895 convicted Noble Shepard for the brutal shantyboat slayings of Lizzy Leahy and Thomas Morton (Gilroy) near the foot of Potomac Street at Christmas 1894, but the families and friends of the victims were denied justice. Shepard was sentenced to hang on April 22, 1896, but he appealed…
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Double Murder Mystery on the Mississippi: Part 1
The little terrier crouched by the corpse and howled and wailed.
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Doctor Espanto
One of the slickest hucksters and patent medicine peddlers on the Mississippi River. You’ll meet him in Shantyboats and Roustabouts.
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The River Gives Up Its Dead Slowly
By Gregg Andrews My mother was deathly afraid of the Mississippi River, but it was my playground as a child in the river village of Ilasco, Missouri. Try as she might, she couldn’t stop me from swimming in the river or fishing from its banks while she was trimming soles at a shoe factory in…
Lost River Stories 