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126-668: The song is an extended reference to a famed 1870 race down the Mississippi River between two steamboats , the Robert E. Lee and the Natchez . It imagines a fictional steamboat, the Whippoorwill , captained by "Mr. Steamboat Bill," who is determined to beat the record of the Robert E. Lee . He commands his mates to use cargo as fuel if they run out of coal. In some versions of the song, either

252-474: A lost race that had inhabited America even before the Native Americans. This idea is now referred to as the "mound builder myth" and still has supporters in society today. The book grew in popularity because of Priest's views on Native Americans. "It tapped into the widely accepted view of those times that Native Americans were merely bloodthirsty savages, bent on the destruction of all but their own race. It

378-458: A "sister culture" of the Mississippian horizon, or one of the "Mississippianised" cultures adjacent to the main area of the mound building cultures. This culture was also mostly extinct in the 17th century, but remnants may have survived into the first half of the 18th century. While this culture shows strong Mississippian influences, its bearers were most likely ethnolinguistically distinct from

504-520: A continuation of site usage. During the Terminal Coles Creek period (1150 to 1250 CE), contact increased with Mississippian cultures centered upriver near the future St. Louis, Missouri . This resulted in the adaption of new pottery techniques , as well as new ceremonial objects and possibly new social patterns during the Plaquemine period. As more Mississippian cultural influences were absorbed,

630-572: A first-hand description in his Historia de la Florida (published in 1605, Lisbon, as La Florida del Inca ) describing how the Indians had built mounds and how the Native American mound cultures practiced their traditional way of life. De la Vega's accounts also include vital details about the Native American tribes' systems of government present in the southeast, tribal territories, and the construction of mounds and temples. A few French expeditions in

756-582: A formation of 11 mounds from 3 feet (0.91 m) to 25 feet (7.6 m) tall, connected by ridges to form an oval nearly 900 feet (270 m) across. In the Americas, the building of complex earthwork mounds started at an early date, well before the pyramids of Egypt were constructed. Watson Brake was being constructed nearly 2,000 years before the better-known Poverty Point , and the building continued for 500 years. Middle Archaic mound construction seems to have ceased about 2800 BCE. Scholars have not ascertained

882-438: A hunter-gatherer culture, rather than a more settled culture based on agricultural surpluses. The best-known flat-topped pyramidal structure is Monks Mound at Cahokia , near present-day Collinsville, Illinois . This community was the center of the Mississippian culture. This mound appears to have been the main ceremonial and residential mound for the religious and political leaders; it is more than 100 feet (30 m) tall and

1008-406: A hunter-gatherer society, the people of which occupied this area only on a seasonal basis. Successive generations organized to build the complex mounds over 500 years. Their food consisted mostly of fish and deer, as well as available plants. Poverty Point, built about 1500 BCE in what is now Louisiana, is a prominent example of Late Archaic mound-builder construction (around 2500 BCE – 1000 BCE). It

1134-532: A large mound of sand spanning the width of the river 55 feet below the surface, allowing fresh water and large cargo ships to pass over. Fresh river water flowing from the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico does not mix into the salt water immediately. The images from NASA 's MODIS show a large plume of fresh water, which appears as a dark ribbon against the lighter-blue surrounding waters. These images demonstrate that

1260-703: A length of 3,710 miles (5,971 km), making it the fourth longest river in the world after the Nile , Amazon , and Yangtze . When measured by the largest stream source (by water volume), the Ohio River , by extension the Allegheny River , would be the source, and the Mississippi would begin in Pennsylvania . At its source at Lake Itasca , the Mississippi River is about 3 feet (0.91 m) deep. The average depth of

1386-478: A natural process known as avulsion or delta switching, the lower Mississippi River has shifted its final course to the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico every thousand years or so. This occurs because the deposits of silt and sediment begin to clog its channel, raising the river's level and causing it to eventually find a steeper, more direct route to the Gulf of Mexico. The abandoned distributaries diminish in volume and form what are known as bayous . This process has, over

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1512-468: A new husband in the railroad industry (a reference to " The Ballad of Casey Jones "). A 1965 article in the Journal of American Folklore refers to it as a " pseudo-Negro " song and a parody of "The Ballad of Casey Jones". More recently, R. John Brockmann has called into question the time period the song is set in, pointing out that boiler explosions had not been considered an issue for steamboat captains since

1638-564: A representation of a man in flowing robes. When translated, once again by McCarty, the inscription was found to include the entire Ten Commandments , and the robed figure was identified as Moses . Naturally enough, it became known as the Decalogue Stone . Rather than being found beneath only a foot or two of soil, the Decalogue Stone was claimed to have been buried beneath a forty-foot-tall stone mound. Instead of modern Hebrew typography,

1764-473: A single moment. Never dried, never froze, never slept, never rested. The antiquarian author William Pidgeon in 1858 created fraudulent surveys of mound groups that did not exist. Beginning in the 1880s, the supposed origin of the earthworks with a race of giants was increasingly recognized as spurious. Pidgeon's fraudulent claims about the archaeological record were shown to be a hoax by Theodore Lewis in 1886. A major factor contributing to public acceptance of

1890-544: A then-current understanding of pre-Columbian civilizations, including the formative Mesoamerican civilizations such as the (Pre-Classic) Olmec , Maya , and Zapotec . Lafcadio Hearn in 1876 wrote about a theory that the mounds were built by people from the lost continent of Atlantis. The Reverend Landon West in 1901 claimed that the Serpent Mound in Ohio was built by God, or by man inspired by him. He believed that God built

2016-750: Is 208,200 cu ft/s (5,900 m /s). Thus, by volume, the main branch of the Mississippi River system at Cairo can be considered to be the Ohio River (and the Allegheny River further upstream), rather than the Middle Mississippi. In addition to the Ohio River , the major tributaries of the Lower Mississippi River are the White River , flowing in at the White River National Wildlife Refuge in east-central Arkansas;

2142-781: Is a Late Woodland culture (700–1200 CE) in the Lower Mississippi Valley in the Southern United States that marks a significant change in the cultural history of the area. Population and cultural and political complexity increased, especially by the end of the Coles Creek period. Although many of the classic traits of chiefdom societies had not yet developed, by 1000 CE, the formation of simple elite polities had begun. Coles Creek sites are found in Arkansas, Louisiana , Oklahoma , Mississippi , and Texas . The Coles Creek culture

2268-558: Is a meandering river in a broad, flat area, only rarely flowing alongside a bluff (as at Vicksburg, Mississippi ). The Mississippi River is known as the Middle Mississippi from the Upper Mississippi River's confluence with the Missouri River at St. Louis, Missouri , for 190 miles (310 km) to its confluence with the Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois . The Middle Mississippi is relatively free-flowing. From St. Louis to

2394-460: Is a striking complex of more than 1 square mile (2.6 km ), where six earthwork crescent ridges were built in concentric arrangement, interrupted by radial aisles. Three mounds are also part of the main complex, and evidence of residences extends for about 3 miles (4.8 km) along the bank of Bayou Macon . It is the major site among 100 associated with the Poverty Point culture and is one of

2520-447: Is called the Lower Mississippi River from its confluence with the Ohio River to its mouth at the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of about 1,000 miles (1,600 km). At the confluence of the Ohio and the Middle Mississippi, the long-term mean discharge of the Ohio at Cairo, Illinois is 281,500 cubic feet per second (7,970 cubic meters per second), while the long-term mean discharge of the Mississippi at Thebes, Illinois (just upriver from Cairo)

2646-591: Is considered ancestral to the Plaquemine culture. Around 900–1450 CE, the Mississippian culture developed and spread through the Eastern United States, primarily along the river valleys. The largest regional center where the Mississippian culture was first definitely developed is located in Illinois along a tributary of the Mississippi and is referred to as Cahokia . It had several regional variants including

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2772-868: Is controlled and managed as a series of pools created by 26 locks and dams. The Upper Mississippi River is joined by the Minnesota River at Fort Snelling in the Twin Cities ; the St. Croix River near Prescott, Wisconsin ; the Cannon River near Red Wing, Minnesota ; the Zumbro River at Wabasha, Minnesota ; the Black , La Crosse , and Root rivers in La Crosse, Wisconsin ; the Wisconsin River at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin ;

2898-509: Is largely a multi-thread stream with many bars and islands. From its confluence with the St. Croix River downstream to Dubuque, Iowa , the river is entrenched, with high bedrock bluffs lying on either side. The height of these bluffs decreases to the south of Dubuque, though they are still significant through Savanna, Illinois . This topography contrasts strongly with the Lower Mississippi, which

3024-535: Is now the Eastern United States, stretching as far south as Crystal River in western Florida. During this time, in parts of present-day Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana, the Hopewellian Marksville culture degenerated and was succeeded by the Baytown culture . Reasons for degeneration include attacks from other tribes or the impact of severe climatic changes undermining agriculture. The Coles Creek culture

3150-423: Is the largest pre-Columbian earthwork north of Mexico. This site had numerous mounds, some with conical or ridge tops, as well as palisaded stockades protecting the large settlement and elite quarter. At its maximum about 1150 CE, Cahokia was an urban settlement with 20,000–30,000 people. This population was not exceeded by North American European settlements until after 1800. Some effigy mounds were constructed in

3276-559: Is the name for a Native American culture that flourished from 1000 to 1650 CE among a people who predominantly inhabited land along the Ohio River in areas of modern-day southern Ohio, northern Kentucky , and western West Virginia . A continuation of the Coles Creek culture in the lower Mississippi River Valley in western Mississippi and eastern Louisiana. Examples include the Medora site in West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana; and

3402-528: Is the only true waterfall on the entire Mississippi River. The water elevation continues to drop steeply as it passes through the gorge carved by the waterfall. After the completion of the St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam in 1963, the river's head of navigation moved upstream, to the Coon Rapids Dam . However, the Locks were closed in 2015 to control the spread of invasive Asian carp , making Minneapolis once again

3528-570: Is unlikely. The spread of the Mississippian culture from the late 1st millennium CE most likely involved cultural assimilation, in archaeological terminology called "Mississippianised" cultures. 19th-century ethnography assumed that the Mound-builders were an ancient prehistoric race with no direct connection to the Southeastern Woodland peoples of the historical period who were encountered by Europeans. A reference to this idea appears in

3654-604: The American Civil War , the Mississippi's capture by Union forces marked a turning point towards victory , due to the river's strategic importance to the Confederate war effort. Because of the substantial growth of cities and the larger ships and barges that replaced steamboats, the first decades of the 20th century saw the construction of massive engineering works such as levees , locks and dams , often built in combination. A major focus of this work has been to prevent

3780-494: The Anna and Emerald Mound sites in Mississippi. Sites inhabited by Plaquemine peoples continued to be used as vacant ceremonial centers without large village areas much as their Coles Creek ancestors had done, although their layout began to show influences from Middle Mississippian peoples to the north. The Winterville and Holly Bluff (Lake George) sites in western Mississippi are good examples that exemplify this change of layout, but

3906-831: The Arkansas River , joining the Mississippi at Arkansas Post ; the Big Black River in Mississippi; and the Yazoo River , meeting the Mississippi at Vicksburg, Mississippi . Deliberate water diversion at the Old River Control Structure in Louisiana allows the Atchafalaya River in Louisiana to be a major distributary of the Mississippi River, with 30% of the combined flow of the Mississippi and Red Rivers flowing to

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4032-674: The Grand Village close to present-day Natchez, Mississippi . In 1729 the Natchez revolted and massacred the French colony of Fort Rosalie. The French retaliated by destroying all the Natchez villages. The remaining Natchez fled in scattered bands to live among the Chickasaw , Creek , and Cherokee people . They traveled with them on the trail of tears when federal Indian removal policies after 1830 forced

4158-615: The Gulf of Mexico , part of the Atlantic Ocean. The total catchment of the Mississippi River covers nearly 40% of the landmass of the continental United States. The highest point within the watershed is also the highest point of the Rocky Mountains , Mount Elbert at 14,440 feet (4,400 m). In the United States, the Mississippi River drains the majority of the area between the crest of

4284-582: The Minnesota River , James River , and Milk River valleys. When the ice sheet completely retreated, many of these "temporary" rivers found paths to Hudson Bay or the Arctic Ocean, leaving the Mississippi Basin with many features "over-sized" for the existing rivers to have carved in the same time period. Ice sheets during the Illinoian Stage , about 300,000 to 132,000 years before present, blocked

4410-693: The Norse colonization of North America . In 1797, Barton reconsidered his position and correctly identified the mounds as part of indigenous prehistory. Notable for the association with the Ten Lost Tribes is the Book of Mormon (1830). This provides a related belief, as its narrative describes two major immigrations to the Americas from Mesopotamia : the Jaredites (ca. 3000 - 2000 BCE) and an Israelite group during 590 BCE (termed Nephites , Lamanites and Mulekites ). While

4536-767: The Plaquemine culture and the Fort Ancient culture , were still active at the time of European contact in the 16th century. One tribe of the Fort Ancient culture has been identified as the Mosopelea , presumably of southeast Ohio, who spoke an Ohio Valley Siouan language . The bearers of the Plaquemine culture were presumably speakers of the Natchez language isolate. The first written description of these cultures were made by members of Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto 's expedition, between 1540 and 1542. The namesake cultural trait of

4662-1175: The Rock River at the Quad Cities ; the Iowa River near Wapello, Iowa ; the Skunk River south of Burlington, Iowa ; and the Des Moines River at Keokuk, Iowa . Other major tributaries of the Upper Mississippi include the Crow River in Minnesota, the Chippewa River in Wisconsin, the Maquoketa River and the Wapsipinicon River in Iowa, and the Illinois River in Illinois. The Upper Mississippi

4788-403: The Rocky Mountains and the crest of the Appalachian Mountains , except for various regions drained to Hudson Bay by the Red River of the North ; to the Atlantic Ocean by the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence River ; and to the Gulf of Mexico by the Rio Grande , the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers, the Chattahoochee and Appalachicola rivers, and various smaller coastal waterways along

4914-429: The headwaters region and serve multiple purposes, including power generation and recreation. The remaining 29 dams, beginning in downtown Minneapolis, all contain locks and were constructed to improve commercial navigation of the upper river. Taken as a whole, these 43 dams significantly shape the geography and influence the ecology of the upper river. Beginning just below Saint Paul, Minnesota , and continuing throughout

5040-422: The most recent Ice Age . The southernmost extent of this enormous glaciation extended well into the present-day United States and Mississippi basin. When the ice sheet began to recede, hundreds of feet of rich sediment were deposited, creating the flat and fertile landscape of the Mississippi Valley. During the melt, giant glacial rivers found drainage paths into the Mississippi watershed, creating such features as

5166-483: The primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States . From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota , it flows generally south for 2,340 miles (3,766 km) to the Mississippi River Delta in the Gulf of Mexico . With its many tributaries , the Mississippi's watershed drains all or parts of 32 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian mountains. The river either borders or passes through

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5292-409: The 1560s reported staying with Indian societies who had built mounds. Later explorers to the same regions, only a few decades after mound-building settlements had been reported, found the regions largely depopulated with its residents vanished and the mounds untended. Conflicts with Europeans were dismissed by historians as the major cause of population reduction since few clashes had occurred between

5418-479: The 1560s, likewise noted Native American groups using existing mounds and constructing others. He produced a series of watercolor paintings depicting scenes of native life. Although most of his paintings have been lost, some engravings were copied from the originals and published in 1591 by a Flemish company. Among these is a depiction of the burial of an aboriginal Floridian tribal chief, an occasion of great mourning and ceremony. The original caption reads: Sometimes

5544-479: The 17th century ( Beaver Wars period). Carbon dating seems to indicate that they were wiped out by successive waves of disease. Because of the disappearance of the cultures by the end of the 17th century, the identification of the bearers of these cultures was an open question in 19th-century ethnography. Modern stratigraphic dating has established that the "Mound builders" have spanned an extended period of more than five millennia so that any ethnolinguistic continuity

5670-452: The 1880s. Brockmann suggests that the song recalls memories of the mid-19th century when such explosions were common. Arthur Collins , a ragtime singer, sang for the first recording in 1911. The song was a longtime hit in Tin Pan Alley and was covered as late as 1951, by the Delmore Brothers . Bolstered by the Buster Keaton and Mickey Mouse references, the song created lasting interest in steamboats and showboats . At least one showboat

5796-402: The Earth's mantle (specifically, the Bermuda hotspot ) that was undergoing a period of intense activity. The upwelling of magma from the hotspot forced the further uplift to a height of perhaps 2–3 km of part of the Appalachian-Ouachita range, forming an arch that blocked southbound water flows. The uplifted land quickly eroded and, as North America moved away from the hot spot and as

5922-492: The Earth." Charles Whittlesey , who was one of the foremost archaeologists at that time, pronounced the stone to be authentic. The Newark Holy Stones, if genuine, would provide support for monogenesis , since they would establish that American Indians could be encompassed within Biblical history. After his first expedition, Wyrick uncovered a small stone box that was found to contain an intricately carved slab of black limestone covered with archaic-looking Hebrew letters along with

6048-400: The French rendering of the Anishinaabe ( Ojibwe or Algonquin ) name for the river, Misi-ziibi (Great River). In the 18th century, the river was set by the Treaty of Paris as, for the most part, the western border of the new United States. With the Louisiana Purchase and the country's westward expansion, it became a convenient boundary line between the western and eastern halves of

6174-588: The Gulf of Mexico by this route, rather than continuing down the Mississippi's current channel past Baton Rouge and New Orleans on a longer route to the Gulf. Although the Red River was once an additional tributary, its water now flows separately into the Gulf of Mexico through the Atchafalaya River. The Mississippi River has the world's fourth-largest drainage basin ("watershed" or "catchment"). The basin covers more than 1,245,000 square miles (3,220,000 km ), including all or parts of 32 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. The drainage basin empties into

6300-409: The Gulf. The Mississippi River empties into the Gulf of Mexico about 100 miles (160 km) downstream from New Orleans. Measurements of the length of the Mississippi from Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico vary somewhat, but the United States Geological Survey 's number is 2,340 miles (3,766 km). The retention time from Lake Itasca to the Gulf is typically about 90 days; while speed varies along

6426-404: The Illinoian Stage. Timeline of outflow course changes In March 1876, the Mississippi suddenly changed course near the settlement of Reverie, Tennessee , leaving a small part of Tipton County, Tennessee , attached to Arkansas and separated from the rest of Tennessee by the new river channel. Since this event was an avulsion , rather than the effect of incremental erosion and deposition,

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6552-421: The Indians had not built them." Priest's racism has also been discussed in detail by author Robert Silverberg , archaeologist Stephen Williams , and author Jason Colavito . Later authors placing the Book of Mormon in this context include Silverberg (1969), Brodie (1971), Kennedy (1994), and Garlinghouse (2001). Some nineteenth-century archaeological finds (e.g., earth and timber fortifications and towns,

6678-424: The Middle Mississippian culture of Cahokia, the South Appalachian Mississippian variant at Moundville and Etowah , the Plaquemine Mississippian variant in south Louisiana and Mississippi, and the Caddoan Mississippian culture of northwestern Louisiana, eastern Texas, and southwestern Arkansas. Like the mound builders of the Ohio, these peoples built gigantic mounds as burial and ceremonial places. Fort Ancient

6804-408: The Midwestern and eastern U.S. These earthquakes created Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee from the altered landscape near the river. When measured from its traditional source at Lake Itasca , the Mississippi has a length of 2,340 miles (3,766 km). When measured from its longest stream source (most distant source from the sea), Brower's Spring in Montana , the source of the Missouri River , it has

6930-416: The Mississippi River between Saint Paul and Saint Louis is between 9 and 12 feet (2.7–3.7 m) deep, the deepest part being Lake Pepin , which averages 20–32 feet (6–10 m) deep and has a maximum depth of 60 feet (18 m). Between where the Missouri River joins the Mississippi at Saint Louis, Missouri, and Cairo, Illinois, the depth averages 30 feet (9 m). Below Cairo, where the Ohio River joins,

7056-411: The Mississippi River has experienced numerous large and small changes to its main course, as well as additions, deletions, and other changes among its numerous tributaries, and the lower Mississippi River has used different pathways as its main channel to the Gulf of Mexico across the delta region. As Pangaea began to break up about 95 million years ago, North America passed over a volcanic " hotspot " in

7182-415: The Mississippi River near New Madrid, Missouri , between Memphis and St. Louis, is related to an aulacogen (failed rift) that formed at the same time as the Gulf of Mexico. This area is still quite active seismically. Four great earthquakes in 1811 and 1812 , estimated at 8 on the Richter magnitude scale , had tremendous local effects in the then sparsely settled area, and were felt in many other places in

7308-409: The Mississippi River. Mound Builders Many pre-Columbian cultures in North America were collectively termed " Mound Builders ", but the term has no formal meaning. It does not refer to specific people or archaeological culture but refers to the characteristic mound earthworks that indigenous peoples erected for an extended period of more than 5,000 years. The "Mound Builder" cultures span

7434-404: The Mississippi near Rock Island, Illinois, diverting it to its present channel farther to the west, the current western border of Illinois. The Hennepin Canal roughly follows the ancient channel of the Mississippi downstream from Rock Island to Hennepin, Illinois . South of Hennepin, to Alton, Illinois , the current Illinois River follows the ancient channel used by the Mississippi River before

7560-415: The Mississippians, possibly belonging to the Siouan phylum. The only tribal name associated with the Fort Ancient culture in the historical record is the Mosopelea , recorded by Jean-Baptiste-Louis Franquelin in 1684 as inhabiting eight villages north of the Ohio River. The Mosopelea is most likely identical to the Ofo ( Oufé , Offogoula ) recorded in the same area in the 18th century. The Ofo language

7686-529: The Missouri River; the Middle Mississippi, which is downriver from the Missouri to the Ohio River; and the Lower Mississippi , which flows from the Ohio to the Gulf of Mexico. The Upper Mississippi runs from its headwaters to its confluence with the Missouri River at St. Louis, Missouri. It is divided into two sections: The source of the Upper Mississippi branch is traditionally accepted as Lake Itasca , 1,475 feet (450 m) above sea level in Itasca State Park in Clearwater County, Minnesota . The name Itasca

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7812-413: The Mound Builders was the building of mounds and other earthworks. These burial and ceremonial structures were typically flat-topped pyramids or platform mounds , flat-topped or rounded cones, elongated ridges, and sometimes a variety of other forms. They were generally built as part of complex villages. The early earthworks built in Louisiana around 3500 BCE are the only ones known to have been built by

7938-510: The Mound Builders were not identical to the Southeast Woodland Native Americans of the 18th century. It is now thought that the most likely bearers of the Plaquemine culture , a late variant of the Mississippian culture, were ancestral to the related Natchez and Taensa peoples. The Natchez language is a language isolate. The Natchez are known to have historically occupied the Lower Mississippi Valley . They are first mentioned in French sources of around 1700, when they were centered around

8064-431: The Native Americans out of the Southeast and west of the Mississippi River to Indian Territory (admitted in the early 20th century as the state of Oklahoma . The Natchez language became extinct in the 20th century, with the death in 1957 of the last known native speaker, Nancy Raven . Based on the idea that the origins of the mound builders lay with a mysterious ancient people, various other suggestions were belonging to

8190-422: The Nephites, Lamanites, and Mulekites were all of Jewish origin coming from Israel around 590 BCE, the Jaradites were a non-Abrahamic people separate in all aspects, except in a belief in Jehovah, from the Nephites. The Book of Mormon depicts these settlers building magnificent cities, which were destroyed by warfare about CE 385. The Book of Mormon can be placed in the tradition of the "Mound-Builder literature" of

8316-443: The Ohio River confluence, the Middle Mississippi falls 220 feet (67 m) over 180 miles (290 km) for an average rate of 1.2 feet per mile (23 cm/km). At its confluence with the Ohio River, the Middle Mississippi is 315 feet (96 m) above sea level. Apart from the Missouri and Meramec rivers of Missouri and the Kaskaskia River of Illinois, no major tributaries enter the Middle Mississippi River. The Mississippi River

8442-467: The Plaquemine area as a distinct culture began to shrink after CE 1350. Eventually, the last enclave of purely Plaquemine culture was the Natchez Bluffs area, while the Yazoo Basin and adjacent areas of Louisiana became a hybrid Plaquemine-Mississippi culture. This division was recorded by Europeans when they first arrived in the area. In the Natchez Bluffs area, the Taensa and Natchez people had held out against Mississippian influence and continued to use

8568-430: The Upper Mississippi River is the Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam in Minneapolis. Above the dam, the river's elevation is 799 feet (244 m). Below the dam, the river's elevation is 750 feet (230 m). This 49-foot (15 m) drop is the largest of all the Mississippi River locks and dams. The origin of the dramatic drop is a waterfall preserved adjacent to the lock under an apron of concrete. Saint Anthony Falls

8694-426: The Upper Mississippi is a simple steel culvert, through which the river (locally named "Nicolet Creek") flows north from Lake Nicolet under "Wilderness Road" to the West Arm of Lake Itasca, within Itasca State Park . The earliest bridge across the Mississippi River was built in 1855. It spanned the river in Minneapolis where the current Hennepin Avenue Bridge is located. No highway or railroad tunnels cross under

8820-409: The age of the earthworks. In his book, Antiquities Discovered in the Western States (1820), Atwater claimed that "Indian remains" were always found right beneath the surface of the earth, while artifacts associated with the Mound Builders were found fairly deep in the ground. Atwater argued that they must be from a different group of people. The discovery of metal artifacts further convinced people that

8946-555: The areas drained by them. Denser salt water from the Gulf of Mexico forms a salt wedge along the river bottom near the mouth of the river, while fresh water flows near the surface. In drought years, with less fresh water to push it out, salt water can travel many miles upstream—64 miles (103 km) in 2022—contaminating drinking water supplies and requiring the use of desalination . The United States Army Corps of Engineers constructed "saltwater sills" or "underwater levees" to contain this in 1988, 1999, 2012, and 2022. This consists of

9072-461: The basin in increasing numbers. The river served sometimes as a barrier, forming borders for New Spain , New France , and the early United States, and throughout as a vital transportation artery and communications link. In the 19th century, during the height of the ideology of manifest destiny , the Mississippi and several tributaries, most notably its largest, the Ohio and Missouri , formed pathways for

9198-470: The best-known early examples of earthwork monumental architecture. Unlike the localized societies during the Middle Archaic, this culture showed evidence of a wide trading network outside its area, which is one of its distinguishing characteristics. Horr's Island , Florida, now a gated community next to Marco Island , was excavated by Michael Russo in 1980. He found an Archaic Indian village site. Mound A

9324-498: The captain or the crew is threatened with death if the boat is not fast enough. A gambler from Louisville, Kentucky (home of the Kentucky Derby ) places a bet against Bill that the Whippoorwill will be unable to beat the record. Bill's obsession with speed causes the steam engine to explode , killing them both. The final verses imagine Bill and the gambler ascending to heaven, and his wife telling their children she will seek out

9450-522: The characters on the stone were blocky and appeared to be an ancient form of the Hebrew alphabet. Finally, the stone bore no resemblance to any modern Masonic artifact. In 1870, Whittlesey declared finally that the Holy Stones and other similar artifacts were "Archaeological Frauds." In 19th-century America, many popular mythologies surrounding the origin of the mounds were in circulation, typically involving

9576-582: The country. This is reflected in the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, which was designed to symbolize the opening of the West, and the focus on the " Trans-Mississippi " region in the Trans-Mississippi Exposition . Regional landmarks are often classified in relation to the river, such as "the highest peak east of the Mississippi " or "the oldest city west of the Mississippi". The FCC also uses it as

9702-427: The course of the river, this gives an overall average of around 26 mi (42 km) per day, or 1 mi (1.6 km) per hour. The stream gradient of the entire river is 0.01%, a drop of 450 m over 3,766 km. The Mississippi River discharges at an annual average rate of between 200 and 700 thousand cubic feet per second (6,000 and 20,000 m /s). The Mississippi is the fourteenth largest river in

9828-453: The deceased king of this province is buried with great solemnity, and his great cup from which he was accustomed to drink is placed on a tumulus with many arrows set about it. Maturin Le Petit , a Jesuit priest, met the Natchez people , as did Le Page du Pratz (1758), a French explorer. Both observed them in the area that today is known as Mississippi. The Natchez were devout worshippers of

9954-403: The delta of the Chippewa River of Wisconsin as it enters the Upper Mississippi, is more than 2 miles (3.2 km) wide. By the time the Upper Mississippi reaches Saint Paul , Minnesota, below Lock and Dam No. 1, it has dropped more than half its original elevation and is 687 feet (209 m) above sea level. From St. Paul to St. Louis, Missouri, the river elevation falls much more slowly and

10080-586: The depth averages 50–100 feet (15–30 m) deep. The deepest part of the river is in New Orleans, where it reaches 200 feet (61 m) deep. The Mississippi River runs through or along 10 states, from Minnesota to Louisiana , and is used to define portions of these states' borders, with Wisconsin , Illinois , Kentucky , Tennessee , and Mississippi along the east side of the river, and Iowa , Missouri , and Arkansas along its west side. Substantial parts of both Minnesota and Louisiana are on either side of

10206-464: The dividing line for broadcast call-signs , which begin with W to the east and K to the west, overlapping in media markets along the river. Due to its size and importance, it has been nicknamed The Mighty Mississippi River or simply The Mighty Mississippi . The Mississippi River can be divided into three sections: the Upper Mississippi , the river from its headwaters to the confluence with

10332-424: The early 2000s. In a January 2023 episode of Tucker Carlson 's Fox Nation show Tucker Carlson Today had a guest who stated that: "They didn't build 'em. Someone before them built 'em". Carlson replied: "That's right" and said there was "skeletal evidence of people who bear no genetic resemblance to the current Indians". On June 29, 1860, David Wyrick, the surveyor of Licking County near Newark , discovered

10458-481: The great Mississippian culture . De Soto observed people living in fortified towns with lofty mounds and plazas and surmised that many of the mounds served as foundations for priestly temples. Near present-day Augusta, Georgia , de Soto encountered a group ruled by a queen, Cofitachequi . She told him that the mounds within her territory served as burial places for nobles. The artist Jacques le Moyne , who had accompanied French settlers to northeastern Florida during

10584-529: The great flood disappeared, Noah and his ark landed in America. While surveying the land, Noah also discovered mounds that had been constructed before the waters rose. Upon seeing this, Noah questioned where these agricultural phenomena came from. "Surveying the various themes of mound builder origins, he could not decide whether the mounds were the work of Polynesians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Israelites, Scandinavians, Welsh, Scotts, or Chinese, although he felt certain

10710-411: The hand tools available, move the soil long distances, and finally, workers to create the shape with layers of soil as directed by the builders. However early mounds found in Louisiana preceded such cultures and were products of hunter-gatherer cultures. From about 800 CE, the mound-building cultures were dominated by the Mississippian culture , a large archaeological horizon, whose youngest descendants,

10836-469: The height of their owners estimated at 14 feet (4.3 m). President Abraham Lincoln referred to the giants whose bones fill the mounds of America. But still there is more. It calls up the indefinite past. When Columbus first sought this continent – when Christ suffered on the cross – when Moses led Israel through the Red-Sea – nay, even, when Adam first came from the hand of his Maker – then as now, Niagara

10962-496: The hotspot's activity declined, the crust beneath the embayment region cooled, contracted and subsided to a depth of 2.6 km, and around 80 million years ago the Reelfoot Rift formed a trough that was flooded by the Gulf of Mexico . As sea levels dropped, the Mississippi and other rivers extended their courses into the embayment , which gradually became filled with sediment with the Mississippi River at its center. Through

11088-528: The largest in North America. Native Americans have lived along the Mississippi River and its tributaries for thousands of years. Many were hunter-gatherers , but some, such as the Mound Builders , formed prolific agricultural and urban civilizations, and some practiced aquaculture . The arrival of Europeans in the 16th century changed the native way of life as first explorers, then settlers, ventured into

11214-402: The last two decades, this number was only 160 million short tons (145 million metric tons) per year. The reduction in sediment transported down the Mississippi River is the result of engineering modification of the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio rivers and their tributaries by dams, meander cutoffs , river-training structures, and bank revetments and soil erosion control programs in

11340-546: The lower 10 miles (16 km) of the Kaskaskia River, forming a new Mississippi channel and cutting off the town from the rest of the state. Later flooding destroyed most of the remaining town, including the original State House. Today, the remaining 2,300 acres (930 ha) island and community of 14 residents is known as an enclave of Illinois and is accessible only from the Missouri side. The New Madrid Seismic Zone , along

11466-415: The lower Mississippi from shifting into the channel of the Atchafalaya River and bypassing New Orleans . Since the 20th century, the Mississippi River has also experienced major pollution and environmental problems — most notably elevated nutrient and chemical levels from agricultural runoff, the primary contributor to the Gulf of Mexico dead zone . The word Mississippi itself comes from Misi zipi ,

11592-577: The more general genre of Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact theories , specifically involving Vikings , Atlantis , and the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel , summarised by Feder (2006) under the heading of "The Myth of a Vanished Race". Benjamin Smith Barton in his Observations on Some Parts of Natural History (1787) proposed the theory that the Mound Builders were associated with "Danes", i.e. with

11718-742: The mound and placed it as a symbol of the story of the Garden of Eden . More recently, Black nationalist websites claiming association with the Moorish Science Temple of America , have taken up the Atlantean (" Mu ") association of the Mound Builders. Similarly, the " Washitaw Nation ", a group associated with the Moorish Science Temple of America established in the 1990s, has been associated with mound-building in Black nationalist online articles of

11844-537: The mounds being built by a race of giants . A New York Times article from 1897 described a mound in Wisconsin in which a giant human skeleton measuring over 9 feet (2.7 m) in length was found. In 1886, another New York Times article described water receding from a mound in Cartersville, Georgia , which uncovered acres of skulls and bones, some of which were said to be gigantic. Two thigh bones were measured with

11970-511: The natives and the Europeans in the area during the same period. The most widely accepted explanation today is that new infectious diseases brought from the Old World, such as smallpox and influenza , had decimated most of the Native Americans from the last mound-builder civilization, as they had no immunity to such diseases. The Fort Ancient culture of the Ohio River valley is considered

12096-449: The new river channel, contiguous with the adjacent state. Also, due to a meander in the river, a small part of western Kentucky is contiguous with Tennessee but isolated from the rest of its state. Many of the communities along the Mississippi River are listed below; most have either historic significance or cultural lore connecting them to the river. They are sequenced from the source of the river to its end. The road crossing highest on

12222-451: The next century. However, there were also other European accounts, earlier than 1560, that give a first-hand description of the enormous earth-built mounds being constructed by Native Americans. One of them was Garcilaso de la Vega (c.1539–1616), a Spanish chronicler also known as " El Inca " because of his Incan mother. He was the record-keeper of the noted De Soto expedition that landed in present-day Florida on May 31, 1538. Garcilaso gave

12348-598: The past 5,000 years, caused the coastline of south Louisiana to advance toward the Gulf from 15 to 50 miles (24 to 80 km). The currently active delta lobe is called the Birdfoot Delta, after its shape, or the Balize Delta , after La Balize, Louisiana , the first French settlement at the mouth of the Mississippi. The current form of the Mississippi River basin was largely shaped by the Laurentide Ice Sheet of

12474-456: The period and has been called "the most famous and certainly the most influential of all Mound-Builder literature". Josiah Priest 's 1833 400-page publication American Antiquities centered around his study of the Bible and antiquarian journals, supplemented by information from his travels. After visiting earthworks in Ohio and New York, Priest concluded that these mounds could be traced back to

12600-877: The period of roughly 3500 BCE (the construction of Watson Brake ) to the 16th century CE, including the Archaic period ( Horr's Island ), Woodland period ( Caloosahatchee , Adena and Hopewell cultures ), and Mississippian period . Geographically, the cultures were present in the region of the Great Lakes , the Ohio River Valley, Florida, and the Mississippi River Valley and its tributary waters. Outlying mounds exist in South Carolina at Santee and in North Carolina at Town Creek . The first mound building

12726-538: The plume did not mix with the surrounding sea water immediately. Instead, it stayed intact as it flowed through the Gulf of Mexico, into the Straits of Florida , and entered the Gulf Stream . The Mississippi River water rounded the tip of Florida and traveled up the southeast coast to the latitude of Georgia before finally mixing in so thoroughly with the ocean that it could no longer be detected by MODIS. Over geologic time,

12852-519: The poem "The Prairies" (1832) by William Cullen Bryant . The cultural stage of the Southeastern Woodland natives encountered in the 18th and 19th centuries by British colonists was deemed incompatible with the comparatively advanced stone, metal , and clay artifacts of the archaeological record. The age of the earthworks was also partly over-estimated. Caleb Atwater 's misunderstanding of stratigraphy caused him to significantly overestimate

12978-403: The reason, but it may have been because of changes in river patterns or other environmental factors. With the 1990s dating of Watson Brake and similar complexes, scholars established that pre-agricultural, pre-ceramic American societies could organize to accomplish complex construction during extended periods, invalidating scholars' traditional ideas of Archaic society. Watson Brake was built by

13104-679: The rising sun, invoking thanks and blowing tobacco smoke to the four cardinal directions". The most complete reference for these earthworks is Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley , written by Ephraim G. Squier and Edwin H. Davis. It was published in 1848 by the Smithsonian Institution, which had commissioned the survey. Since many of the features that the authors documented have been destroyed or diminished by farming and development, their surveys, sketches, and descriptions are still used by modern archaeologists . All of

13230-479: The river, although the Mississippi defines part of the boundary of each of these states. In all of these cases, the middle of the riverbed at the time the borders were established was used as the line to define the borders between adjacent states. In various areas, the river has since shifted, but the state borders have not changed, still following the former bed of the Mississippi River as of their establishment, leaving several small isolated areas of one state across

13356-481: The same sites as their ancestors. The Plaquemine culture is considered directly ancestral to these historic period groups encountered by Europeans. Groups who appear to have absorbed more Mississippian influence were identified as those tribes speaking the Tunican , Chitimachan , and Muskogean languages . Following the description by Jacques le Moyne in 1560, the mound-building cultures seem to have disappeared within

13482-567: The shapes or outlines of culturally significant animals. The most famous effigy mound, Serpent Mound in southern Ohio, ranges from 1 foot (0.30 m) to just over 3 feet (0.91 m) tall, 20 feet (6.1 m) wide, more than 1,330 feet (410 m) long, and shaped as an undulating serpent . Between 1540 and 1542, Hernando de Soto , the Spanish conquistador , traversed what became the southeastern United States. There he encountered many different mound-builder peoples who were perhaps descendants of

13608-400: The site of the head of navigation of the river. The Upper Mississippi has a number of natural and artificial lakes, with its widest point being Lake Winnibigoshish , near Grand Rapids, Minnesota , over 11 miles (18 km) across. Lake Onalaska , created by Lock and Dam No. 7 , near La Crosse, Wisconsin , is more than 4 miles (6.4 km) wide. Lake Pepin , a natural lake formed behind

13734-458: The sites that they identified as located in Kentucky came from the manuscripts of Constantine Samuel Rafinesque . Radiocarbon dating has established the age of the earliest Archaic mound complex in southeastern Louisiana. One of the two Monte Sano Site mounds, excavated in 1967 before being destroyed for new construction at Baton Rouge, was dated at 6220 BP (plus or minus 140 years). Researchers at

13860-486: The so-called "Keystone" in a shallow excavation at the monumental Newark Earthworks , which is an extraordinary set of ancient geometric enclosures created by Indigenous people. There he dug up a four-sided, plumb-bob -shaped stone with Hebrew letters engraved on each of its faces. The local Episcopal minister John W. McCarty translated the four inscriptions as "Law of the Lord," “Word of the Lord," “Holy of Holies," and "King of

13986-524: The state line still follows the old channel. The town of Kaskaskia, Illinois once stood on a peninsula at the confluence of the Mississippi and Kaskaskia (Okaw) Rivers . Founded as a French colonial community, it later became the capital of the Illinois Territory and was the first state capital of Illinois until 1819. Beginning in 1844, successive flooding caused the Mississippi River to slowly encroach east. A major flood in 1881 caused it to overtake

14112-456: The states of Minnesota , Wisconsin , Iowa , Illinois , Missouri , Kentucky , Tennessee , Arkansas , Mississippi , and Louisiana . The main stem is entirely within the United States; the total drainage basin is 1,151,000 sq mi (2,980,000 km ), of which only about one percent is in Canada. The Mississippi ranks as the world's tenth-largest river by discharge flow, and

14238-451: The sun . Having a population of some 4,000, they occupied at least nine villages and were presided over by a paramount chief , known as the Great Sun, who wielded absolute power. Both observers noted the high temple mounds that the Natchez had built so that the Great Sun could commune with God, the sun. His large residence was built atop the highest mound, from "which, every morning, he greeted

14364-462: The time thought that such hunter-gatherer societies were not organizationally capable of this type of construction. It has since been dated as about 6500 BP or 4500 BCE, although not all agree. Watson Brake is located in the floodplain of the Ouachita River near Monroe in northern Louisiana. Securely dated to about 5,400 years ago (around 3500 BCE), in the Middle Archaic period, it consists of

14490-567: The upper and lower river, the Mississippi is further controlled by thousands of wing dikes that moderate the river's flow in order to maintain an open navigation channel and prevent the river from eroding its banks. The head of navigation on the Mississippi is the St. Anthony Falls Lock. Before the Coon Rapids Dam in Coon Rapids, Minnesota , was built in 1913, steamboats could occasionally go upstream as far as Saint Cloud, Minnesota , depending on river conditions. The uppermost lock and dam on

14616-450: The use of a plaster-like cement, ancient roads, metal points and implements, copper breastplates, head-plates, textiles, pearls, native North American inscriptions, North American elephant remains etc.) were well-publicized at the time of the publication of the Book of Mormon and there is the incorporation of some of these ideas into the narrative. References are made in the Book of Mormon to

14742-463: The western expansion of the United States. The river also became the subject of American literature , particularly in the writings of Mark Twain . Formed from thick layers of the river's silt deposits, the Mississippi embayment is one of the most fertile regions of the United States; steamboats were widely used in the 19th and early 20th centuries to ship agricultural and industrial goods. During

14868-473: The world by volume. On average, the Mississippi has 8% the flow of the Amazon River , which moves nearly 7 million cubic feet per second (200,000 m /s) during wet seasons. Before 1900, the Mississippi River transported an estimated 440 million short tons (400 million metric tons) of sediment per year from the interior of the United States to coastal Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico. During

14994-575: Was a burial mound that dated to 3400 BCE, making it the oldest known burial mound in North America. The oldest mound associated with the Woodland period was the mortuary mound and pond complex at the Fort Center site in Glade County, Florida. Excavations and dating in 2012 by Thompson and Pluckhahn show that work began around 2600 BCE, seven centuries before the mound-builders in Ohio. The Archaic period

15120-457: Was actually named after the fictional Whippoorwill . This boat met a disastrous fate when it was hit by the 1978 Whippoorwill tornado , killing 16 passengers and crew. Mickey Mouse whistling a verse from "Steamboat Bill" in Steamboat Willie has been used as the production logo of Walt Disney Animation Studios since 2007. Mississippi River The Mississippi River is

15246-633: Was an early marker of political and social complexity among the cultures in the Eastern United States. Watson Brake in Louisiana, constructed about 3500 BCE during the Middle Archaic period , is the oldest known and dated mound complex in North America. It is one of 11 mound complexes from this period found in the Lower Mississippi Valley. These cultures generally had developed hierarchical societies that had an elite. These commanded hundreds or even thousands of workers to dig up tons of earth with

15372-496: Was chosen to designate the "true head" of the Mississippi River as a combination of the last four letters of the Latin word for truth ( ver itas ) and the first two letters of the Latin word for head ( ca put ). However, the lake is in turn fed by a number of smaller streams. From its origin at Lake Itasca to St. Louis, Missouri , the waterway's flow is moderated by 43 dams. Fourteen of these dams are located above Minneapolis in

15498-492: Was followed by the Woodland period ( circa 1000 BCE). Some well-understood examples are the Adena culture of Ohio , West Virginia , and parts of nearby states. The subsequent Hopewell culture built monuments from present-day Illinois to Ohio; it is renowned for its geometric earthworks. The Adena and Hopewell were not the only mound-building peoples during this period. Contemporaneous mound-building cultures existed throughout what

15624-592: Was formerly classified as Muskogean but is now recognized as an eccentric member of the Western Siouan phylum. The late survival of the Fort Ancient culture is suggested by the remarkable amount of European-made goods in the archaeological record. Such artifacts would have been acquired by trade even before direct European contact. These artifacts include brass and steel items, glassware, and melted down or broken goods reforged into new items. The Fort Ancient peoples are known to have been severely affected by disease in

15750-477: Was inconceivable to Priest and like-minded men that a race so lazy and inept could conceive and build such huge, elaborate structures." Priest speculated that the original dwellers could be the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel . The reasoning Priest gives for his conclusion that there was an even earlier settler than the Native Americans relies upon his interpretation of the Biblical flood story. According to Priest, after

15876-464: Was roaring here. The eyes of that species of extinct giants, whose bones fill the mounds of America, have gazed on Niagara, as ours do now. Co[n]temporary with the whole race of men, and older than the first man, Niagara is strong, and fresh to-day as ten thousand years ago. The Mammoth and Mastodon – now so long dead, that fragments of their monstrous bones, alone testify, that they ever lived, have gazed on Niagara. In that long – long time, never still for

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