Driving up the Great River Road

View of Mississippi River from our Campsite

 Friday/Saturday Aug. 27-28, 2021

We left Memphis this morning and headed across the Mississippi to begin our drive up the Great River Road, a designated All-American Road on the Arkansas side. Our first destination was the town of Marion, to visit the Sultana Disaster Museum. I found this site the night before, when I downloaded the Great River Road app which tells about interesting stops all along the route up the Mississippi from Louisiana to Wisconsin. 

Photo taken of Sultana the day before disaster

The Sultana was a steamboat which was destroyed on April 27, 1865, when its boilers exploded. The boat was loaded far beyond its official capacity of less than 400 people; there were about 2200 on board. The majority of them were Union soldiers who had been prisoners of war at Andersonville or Cahaba POW camps. Through corrupt kickbacks from the boat's captain to Union officers, soldiers were loaded onto the boat to sail north to their homes. A photo of the Sultana taken the day before the explosion shows the decks overloaded with people, horses and mules, listing to the port side. According to our guide, more than 1700 people were killed (more than the 1200 originally counted.) It was the worst maritime disaster for the United States, surpassing even the Titanic in casualtiies.

We were amazed that we'd never heard of this event before! The museum was small but very comprehensive, with a list of ALL the passengers about the Sultana and notes as to whether they survived. We started out with a short video overview of the event, and then a docent gave us details about the exhibits.  There was a cabinet with photos of many of the people on board, a model of the boat, and photos and articles. There was also an exhibit describing the Andersonville prison camp, which was known for being the most deadly camp a soldier could be sent to.  It seems that even soon after it happened, news of the wreck of the Sultana was overshadowed by other events: within the same 24 hour period, Lincoln's funeral train left Washington, DC, John Wilkes Booth was killed, and General Joe Johnson surrendered the last large contingent of the Confederate Army. So the Sultana disaster is almost unknown.

When we finished our visit at the museum, we decided to have lunch--we were parked in a shady spot off the main street, and there was plenty of area to walk Cassie too. It was almost 2pm when we headed north again. Our next stop was the Hampson Archaeological Museum State Park. Dr. Hampson owned property which contained relics of the Nodena Indians, and he spent his retirement digging up pottery and other evidence of their culture. The museum is quite small, but it's impressive that it really represents one man's dedication to learning about an early indigenous culture. We spent about an hour there (we were literally the only people there except for the park ranger and a secretary.)

Nodena Pottery human image

Nodena pottery display

After that, we had to take the interstate rather than the more mellow Great River Road route, because we would not have gotten to our campsite before dark otherwise. We spent the night at the Trail of Tears State Park in Missouri. We were parked right next to railroad tracks, and just on the other side of those was the Mississippi River. It was very mellow and we got a very good night's sleep, despite the train coming through periodically about 50 feet from our bedroom. 

Our morning started with a visit to the park's Visitor's Center to see the exhibit on the Trail of Tears. The relocation of the Cherokee Nation from western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee is well known--partly because the Cherokee had one of the most "modern" cultures of any Native Americans. They had a written version of their language, and during their "golden age" in the early 19th century, they had a newspaper, schools, and a governing council with its own laws. However, they were pushed westward as a government policy in order for white settlers to move into Cherokee land, despite advocates for their cause going as far as the Supreme Court. President Jackson was not interested in upholding the rights of the Indians to their land, and in the end they were forcibly relocated.

Trail of Tears Diorama

Reading the details of the governmental machinations which are so similar to some of the justifications used today to trample the rights of people was very sad. The Cherokee, once resettled in Oklahoma, once again established their own community with laws and elected leaders. But eventually they were absorbed into the new Oklahoma Territory, and they gradually had to relinquish their own government in preparation for statehood.

Joe and left the Visitors Center after a chat with the ranger, saying that when you think about it, the arc of history is a very sad one--all progress comes at the expense of someone else, it seems. 

We went back to the RV, had some lunch, did some planning for tomorrow, and finally packed up to leave. We headed up the Great River Road again, and after an hour, we crossed the river into Illinois on the eastern shore. The main reason we crossed was to go through the town of Chester. Its claim to fame is that it is the "home" of Popeye the Sailor Man, or to be more specific, of Popeye's creator, who came from Chester. As soon as we crossed the river, the statue was there to greet us, along with a parking lot sufficient for us to pull over into, and a lot of folks taking their photos with Popeye! There was a visitor center there too, but I didn't even go in--we didn't want to linger forever. Joey did take my photo with Popeye, however--unfortunately, only one came out where he didn't manage to chop of Popeye's head!

We spent about 30-40 minutes in a traffic jam for one mile from the bridge to the main route north--they desperately need a stoplight at that intersection! But it gave us time to snap a photo of another Chester--Home of Popeye sign, which also wished a happy 50th anniversary to Loren & Peggy Jany. I think Highland Park should put up a sign to wish US a happy anniversary tomorrow!

Once we finally got on the route north, it took about 90 minutes more driving and we arrived at the Draftkings at Casino Queen RV Park. This is a huge parking lot, basically, but it is set up with all pull-through sites with full hookups. There's a laundry, showers, etc right here as well, and it is 15 minutes from St. Louis. I decided last night that we should "do something special" so we'd at least remember what we did on our 50th anniversary. So I booked us reservations to go on a riverboat cruise for an hour in the morning, and then (after time to come check on Cassie, and to have lunch) a ticket to the movie about the building of the St. Louis Arch, followed by a tram ride up to the top of the Arch. So we will be tourists at the St. Louis Arch tomorrow, learning all about the Westward Expansion, and (mostly) staying out of the expected heat in the 90s yet again. And we'll look for someplace for a nice dinner, too. I'm hoping we have a memorable day.