#Mississippi July 10

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MISSISSIPPI is a fun word to pronounce. The river that bears it’s name is also fascinating to learn about.

In June my wife and I took a River Boat Cruise on the might MISSISSIPPI and learned a whole lot about its history. As part of the #Coach4adayChallenge for July I am sharing what I learned.

There are has some 250,000 rivers in the United States many of them small. Combined they cover some 35 million miles. The ten longest rivers include names you might recognize like the Missouri, MISSISSIPPI, Colorado, Rio Grande, and Ohio River. My perception that the “Might Missip” was the longest was incorrect. The longest RIVER is the Missouri it measures 2,341 miles some 140 miles longer than the Mississippi.

Each river has a beginning which is called headwaters and each river has an end called the mouth. Each of us has a beginning and an end. For the MISSISSIPPI it begins at Lake Itasca in Minnesota and it ends at the Gulf of Mexico. On its journey from north to south it has over 7,000 other rivers and tributaries pour into it.

Flooding on the MISSISSIPPI is at times often epic. Yet, floodwaters did not create the deadliest disaster the river has been involved with.

On April 27, 1865, the United States experienced the deadliest maritime disaster ever in U.S. history. In fact, records say that sinking of the Sultana in the Mississippi river claimed more victims (close to 1,800 Civil War Union soldiers) than the Titanic. The Sultana was a 260-foot-long wooden steamboat, built in Cincinnati in 1863, which regularly transported passengers and freight between St. Louis and New Orleans on the Mississippi River.

Although it was designed to only hold 376 persons, more than 2,000 Union troops were crowded onto the steamboat – more than five times its legal carrying capacity. The boiler exploded eight miles north of Memphis. The blast resulted in the center of the boat being blown apart. It also started an uncontrollable fire. Many of those who were not killed immediately perished as they tried to swim to shore. 

The MISSISSIPPI River has a lot of history.