Hannibal

Hannibal draws a lot of tourists eager to step into the world created by Mark Twain, which is a remarkable thing considering he wrote about a world that existed (more or less) 150 years ago. Hannibal has a lot of Twain to offer, but it's also an old river town worth getting to know on its own merits.

By |2024-05-27T08:54:53-05:00August 18th, 2018|Missouri|Comments Off on Hannibal

St. Louis

Population (2010) 319,305 Introduction St. Louis, my hometown, is a city with a long and layered history. As residents of Flyover Country, we tend to make the national news only when something goes wrong. Sure, we have our problems, but so do plenty of other places. We are a

By |2026-04-22T18:20:00-05:00August 17th, 2018|Missouri|Comments Off on St. Louis

Mississippi’s Great River Road

Mississippi today is full of contrasts and contradictions. Along the state's border defined by the Mississippi River, you'll find tall casinos rising above old cotton farms, vast agricultural lands carved out of the old bottomland forests, a rich musical heritage that arose from great poverty, and antebellum towns and plantations, some in better shape than

By |2017-11-18T13:08:10-05:00November 19th, 2017|Of Places|Comments Off on Mississippi’s Great River Road

Enduring Benefits of the CCC and WPA

In 1932, the US Gross National Product dropped a record 13% and nearly one-quarter of the adult population was unemployed; in three years 40% of American banks had failed. In the first few weeks after his inauguration in March 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt launched a series of ambitious public works programs to get people

By |2018-12-21T15:00:06-05:00April 9th, 2016|About the Mississippi Valley|Comments Off on Enduring Benefits of the CCC and WPA

Nauvoo

Population (2010) 1,147 Introduction Nauvoo is a town with an outsized history, where big dreamers and idealists came to make their plans a reality and where some of those dreams sparked epic conflicts, especially during the town's Mormon era. While much of the town’s Mormon history has been preserved

By |2024-05-26T13:33:39-05:00September 22nd, 2015|Illinois|2 Comments
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