After the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, the greatest real estate deal in history, the United States gained control of one of nature’s most beautiful and economically bountiful features, the Mississippi River. Soon steamboats by the hundreds were transporting goods and people up and down that 2,000 mile waterway. Later a boy from Hannibal, Missouri, named Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, instilled a love of “Old Man River” into America’s literature and history. Gene Schmiel’s talk will cover that history as well as how the course of the river and modern boats/transports continue to make the “Father of Waters” a key element of American life today.


LLI Coordinator: David Pace