Steamboat on the Mighty Mississippi

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Conduit for goods, people, and culture, the Mississippi River made New Orleans a great port and the delta one of the most diverse regions in the country. Though tamed by levees and spillways, the river retains its power to unleash floods, or build new land.

Environmental Concerns

The Mississippi River delta is some of the youngest land in North America. The deltaic sediments that underlie the New Orleans region are less than 4000 years old. Natural process~ deposition if new sediment, erosion, subsidence (setting of sediment)~ maintained a healthy equilibrium between land and water at delta’s edge. Human engineering has upset the balance, blocking sedimentation and increasing coastal erosion. Rising sea levels due to climate change are accelerating the loss~a football field’s worth of land every 45 minutes.

yazoo
jackson
vicksburg
we must have family in almost every city
i spent more time traveling than growing up
guess that’s why i’m still shorter than my old man
he don’t like to stay in one place much
he tell me
soon as people get to know your last name
seem like they want to call you by your first
boy    if someone ask you your name
tell them to call you mississippi
not sippi or sip but mississippi

how many colored folks you know name mississippi

none see

now you can find a whole lot of folks whose
name is canada
just like you can find 53 people in any phone book
whose name is booker t. washington

your mother she was a smart woman
gave you a good name
not one of them abolitionist names

what you look like with a name like
john brown or william lloyd garrison
that don’t have no class

your mother she named you after the river
cause of its beauty and mystery
just like my mother named me nevada
cause she didn’t know where it was

 E.Ethelbert Miller

Mississippi River travel was developing into an economic and travel boon with the presence of a growing number of steamboats and the resulting growth of cities along its route. Memphis, St. Louis and Natchez expanded in population and economic development as they evolved into important port cities. Not surprisingly, with the evolution of port cities came further growth in steamboat development.

The elegantly festooned, multiple decked sternwheelers that grace the river today call up a long and colorful history that helped expand a nation and capture imaginations forever in novel and story.