Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1918-07-10

But levees were put in and now the
old town is safe. Around is very fine
farming land-rich soil and bushels
of wheat raised every year-that bot
tom is certainly rich!
The Illinois pe%nitentiary at Chester
lies OF the east bank between Kaskas-
kia, Ill, and St. Genevieve, Mo. The
penitentiary walls are high and cupo-
la towers guard every point Of es-
cape. Distinctly better to look at
from the outside in than the inside
out-we imagine.
Down at Fl. Gage, also called Pere
Menard, is the bed Marquis de La
fayette slept in when he was last a
visitor to this country. This is across
the river from Kaskaskia. The re-
gion is full of historic ~anecdote.
The steamboats, have been built
since 1884 by the Howard Ship Yards
company Of Jeffersonville, Ind. Cap
tain Crane says that after endless ex-
perimenting nothing better has been
found than the old primitive style of
boat. So now one travels on substan-
TALLY the same type of boat described
by Mark Twain in Life on the Missis-
sippi." Right here be it said that
those interested in river anthology
can find it in full in this very good
book. We recommend it to all.
Discrimination in freight rates and
unfair competition by the railroads
have killed the river business. The
river men say they would rather the
government gave them a little help
toward a just deal in a business way
and leave the river as she wants to
run! Instead the government spends
millions in river improvement with
no boats running. Of course the
farmers on the bottoms are protected
from the rivers ravages.
The old river is almost deserted of
travel in these decadent days. Cap
tain Crane, our pilot, said that when
he began "steamboatin'" the line he
worked for had II boats on the river.
Trips were made to all points up and
down stream from St. Louis to st.
Paul and New Orleans. Now the riv-
er is carefully improved with markers
for steering, snags are cut away and
the banks are %riprapped to prevent
cutting-but the traffic is nil.
There is a boat a week between st.
Louis and Memphis and a boat up the
Tennessee river from st. Louis. No
boats to st. Paul! Most of the traffic
is done by tow barges handling the
slow freight. Some of these tow
thousands of tons Of bauxite ore from
the White river in Arkansas to st.
Louis where it is refined for alumni
mum.
To indicate the volume of river
traffic in an early day it is said that
1000 wrecks lie in the river between
Cairo and St. Louis. Of course a
corresponding number at other places
in the stream. This seems incredi-
BILE unless we consider that for years
the big river was the only traffic
highway for all points of the COM
pass. Then too the stream was un-
charted in those days and only the
pilots knew where the snags and
reefs were. The old wrecks still lie
in the stream but they have been dyn-
amited below navigation and cause
NO harm.
The distance by water from st.
ing, is 415 miles. The St. Louis &
Tennessee River Packet Co. has one
boat a week over the route. If one
wishes to it is possible to catch a
boat at Paducah for the upper river
and thus go clear to Florence Ala,
the head of navigation.
The officers and crew of the st. Lou
is are extremely obliging and court
eous, the table good and the state
rooms clean. Every effort is made by
those in charge to have the passen-
gers enjoy themselves. The trip as
a whole is pleasant and Inexpensive
less in fact than the rates at a first
class hotel.
Those who have an idea that st.
Louis is an uninteresting city will
simply have to guess and try again.
st. Louis is all there. Our party
hired a voluable and friendly young
Irishman to conduct US over the
town and he did so in splendid shape.
AII0I d uIINS CnIOuSn GnC 0uO111COO
district we visited the new Saint
Louis Cathedral, said to be the larg-
est church structure outside of Rome.
(Our Irish driver said this and while
we slightly doubt him we will pardon
his boast.) We are not going into a
long description of this beautiful
building. If you ever go to St. Louis
see it. Then we drove through the
fashionable section containing homes
that are simply superb. Forest
Park came next with it's stretches OF
woodland, geological gardens, Greek
theatre and art building. Shaw's
Botanical Gardens was the next place
and the superintendent kindly gave
us full access to the grounds although
we were several hours ahead Of the
opening time. This wonderful place
contains, it is said, nearly every plant
and shrub known to science. We
put the nearly" in to allow for lat
itude. After another drive through
the city we passed the Anheuser-