Riverfront Park, Peoria

Posted on May 4, 2021 by admin

Another recent vaccination destination was Peoria. We spent about 24 hours on the trip, there in the afternoon and a return the next afternoon. Shortly after taking care of the shot at a local pharmacy, we took a walk along the Illinois River near downtown Peoria, including a paved section but also parkland.

Riverfront Park gives you some nice views of the Murray Baker Bridge, which carries I-74 across the river. It’s named for an early executive of Holt Manufacturing Co., later Caterpillar Tractor Co., who oversaw its move to Peoria in 1909.

For what I took to be a fairly old bridge (opened 1958), it looked spanking new, a handsome example of bridgebuilding. Turns out there was a reason for that.

“After a final countdown the lights were flicked on and the Murray Baker Bridge was re-opened to drivers of Central Illinois,” 25 Week reported on October 31 last year. “The bridge, which was shut down back in March, went through $42 million worth of renovations. Workers replaced the bridge deck, repaired the structural steel, repainted, and fixed the LED lights, which was one of the most anticipated changes.”

North of the bridge is a curiosity called Constitution Garden, dedicated to the U.S. Constitution.

Looks a little unkempt, at least this spring, and the plaque is dark. Someone’s comment on the state of our fundamental law?

Not far away, overlooking the river, is the Dan Fogelberg Memorial, which has been there since 2010. A couple was there when we arrived — a man and woman maybe a few years older than me — and they expressed their enthusiasm for the musician to us, and had me take their picture in front of the rocks. Then they offered to take our picture (Yuriko was elsewhere with the dog.)

I hadn’t realized Fogelberg was from Peoria, but he was. The rock to our left features lyrics from “Part of the Plan,” which I told Ann was one of his better-known songs. Behind me the middle rock had lyrics from “Icarus Ascending,” a song I didn’t know, and to our right the rock says:

Dedicated to the legacy of
Dan Fogelberg
Musician, Singer, Songwriter, Artist
Born in Peoria August 13th
1951 – 2007

With some lines from “River of Souls,” another song I didn’t know. I liked Fogelberg well enough when I heard him on the radio, but I didn’t listen to him much beyond that, except for the album Phoenix (1979), which one of my college roommates had and I listened to occasionally. “Face the Fire” on that album has the distinction of being an anti-nuke song — nuclear power, that is, not bombs, clearly inspired by Three Mile Island.

Its lyrics didn’t make it onto a rock, unsurprisingly, since I suppose “The poison is spreading, the demon is free/People are running from what they can’t even see” wouldn’t have the right vibe for his memorial. More surprising is no mention of “Same Old Land Syne,” considering that’s a Christmastime sentimental favorite on the radio even now.

A Couple of Hours in Freeport

Posted on May 3, 2021 by admin

The week after I returned from Dallas was second-dose vaccination week for all of us in our house. When I set things up in late March, the only first-shot appointments were at far-flung pharmacies in northern Illinois, meaning the boosters would be at the same places. By the time I got back, I had the sense that I could have rejiggered things to get shots closer to home. But I didn’t. I still wanted to go to those places.

Such as Freeport, Illinois, the only town of any size between Rockford and Galena, and actually much bigger than the latter (23,700 vs. 3,100). When driving into Freeport, I saw a sign advertising a Wrigley Field replica, or miniature, or something. It wasn’t hard to find after our vaccination was done.

Little Cubs Field, it’s called, which is used for Little League, T-ball and other events, and completed in 2008 by serious Cubs fans.

The bicycle in that picture belonged to one of about a half-dozen boys, all maybe about 10 years old, who were hanging out at Little Cubs Field when I arrived and started taking pictures.

“Are you a tourist?” one of them asked me.

“Yes, I’m just passing through,” I said.

“They always take pictures,” another of the boys said to yet another, not me. The first boy then asked where I was from, and I simplified matters by telling him Chicago. I got the sense that he felt that was quite a distant location. A reasonable thing to think at 10.

Off they went, and I took some more pictures.

A short drive away, in Freeport’s small downtown, is its Lincoln-Douglas memorial. I couldn’t very well pass that up.

Every place they had a debate has a memorial now. This was the first of the statues to memorialize one of the events, unveiled in 1992, but hardly the last. Chicago sculptor Lily Tolpo (d. 2016) did the bronzes. Both she and her husband Carl did Lincolns.

The memorial also featured a plaque on a rock.

Not just any plaque, but one dedicated by TR in 1903. A president, I believe, who understood the gravitas of the office he held. Probably felt it in his bones. Not all of his successors have.

We were about to leave, but couldn’t help noticing an ice cream shop next door to the memorial.

The Union Dairy Farms, founded in 1914 and serving ice cream since 1934. We couldn’t pass that up, either, figuring it had to be good. Was it ever.

Southern Loop ’21 Scraps

Posted on May 2, 2021 by admin

Near-summer weather to a tee visited northern Illinois over the weekend — next week will be chillier, I read — with cloud puffs ambling along the completely pleasant warm air, except maybe for persistent strong gusts of wind, a mild sirocco. Those gusts didn’t keep us from walking the dog or me from idling on our deck, reading or resting my eyeballs, but they did put the kibosh on taking any meals as a family out there.

My stop in New Madrid, Missouri, on April 10 was brief, but long enough to get a look at the handsome county courthouse.

“Cornerstone ceremonies were July 4, 1915, for the Classical Greek Revival style building of white sandstone and porcelain brick with a copper box laid in the northeast corner containing copies of all New Madrid County and St. Louis newspapers and carefully prepared historical events, including the names of the citizens who contributed the $20,000, names of all county officers, etc.,” says the courthouse web site. Sounds like a dull time capsule, but never mind.

“Additional funds for finishing the courthouse and jail were authorized early in 1917, but no bids were received… Finally, W. W. Taylor, a master builder from Cape Girardeau, superintended final interior work, which included marble stairways with cast iron railings and a large rotunda with a stained glass window in the ceiling that was completed in January 1919.”

Closed on Sunday. Maybe closed for the pandemic, anyway, so the marble and stained glass and more weren’t visible to me. Hope the courthouse was built to resist seismic events (as much as possible 100 years ago), or refit in more recent years.

A survey marker at Fort Pillow State Historic Site, Tennessee. Always interesting to run across one.

A view of the Mississippi at Fort Pillow.

A retail scene from Clarksdale, Mississippi. Something Amazon cannot replace.

Despite the glowing neon, the shop — called Cat Head — wasn’t open on a Sunday morning.

A scene from rural Mississippi, where perhaps the landowner recognizes no political authority.

Even in small-town Mississippi, you’ll see these.

The American Rose Center is a 118-acre wooded spot just west of Shreveport, and home to the national headquarters of the American Rose Society.

I was a few weeks too early. A few roses were in bloom, but not many. Mostly still buds, and a lot of them. Even so, lovely grounds.

Including a Japanese-style pavilion.

As I said, a few blooms.

You don’t have to go all the way to Corsicana, Texas, to buy a fruitcake at the Collins Street Bakery. There’s a store just off I-20 in Lindale, Texas, with a cafe and a towering sign. I stopped and bought a big fruitcake, which is mostly gone now, eaten a bit at a time by me, Jay, Yuriko and Ann.

In Grand Saline, Texas, a town that salt built, is a structure called the Salt Palace Museum and Visitors Center, which is on Main Street.

Palace it is not, though it is built partly of salt, and there’s a big block of salt to examine out front.

When in Paris, Texas, what does one naturally go to see? The Paris, Texas, Eiffel Tower, of course. Despite the rain.

Less well known is a memorial to the Paris Tornado of 1982. It killed 10 people, injured many more, and did a lot of property damage.

It’s in the same park as this sad-looking memorial.

That’s the Bywaters Park Memorial, with a plaque that says: In grateful memory of J.K. Bywaters, who gave this park to the people of the city he loved so well. 1916.

In Fort Smith, Arkansas, I spotted this mural.

Which is on the backside of this building — First National Bank — next to the bank’s drive-through lanes.

In Bella Vista, Arkansas, which is in the extreme northwest part of the state just south of the Missouri line, is the Mildred B. Cooper Memorial Chapel, a structure dating from 1988, designed by designed by E. Fay Jones and Maurice Jennings. Jones is best known for the Thorncrown Chapel, also in Arkansas.

Sure, the sign said an event was in progress. A wedding, of course, since my visit was on a Saturday. But I saw people clearly dressed for a wedding pouring into the parking lot as I arrived, so I figured I might have caught the place between weddings.

No. People were still inside, with some kind of event going on, so I figure as soon as one wedding ceremony is over on a warm spring Saturday at Mildred B. Cooper, another gets underway. I took a good look at the exterior, anyway. Understated elegance.

In Collinsville, Illinois, you can see the “world’s largest catsup bottle.”

It has its own fan club and web site.

“This unique 170 ft. tall water tower was built in 1949 by the W.E. Caldwell Company for the G.S. Suppiger catsup bottling plant — bottlers of Brooks old original rich & tangy catsup,” the site says.

Philistines almost had it torn down. “In 1995, due to the efforts of the Catsup Bottle Preservation Group, this landmark roadside attraction was saved from demolition and beautifully restored to its original appearance,” the site continues.

The Pink Elephant Antique Mall in Livingston, Illinois, not far northeast of St. Louis, has a big pink elephant in front, as I’ve posted. But that’s not all. Not by a long shot.

This is the mall — a complex of buildings stuffed with antiques, collectibles and other junk. There’s a diner, too.

I didn’t inspect them closely, but I take the statues out front to be made of fiberglass (maybe cast in Wisconsin).

A sign under that fellow wearing the MAGA hat — now, what was his name again? — said NOT A POLITICAL STATEMENT. LOVE HIM OR HATE HIM.

Finally, the grounds included something I’ve long wanted to see, but never had gotten around to, a Futuro House.

The windows, some completely open, were at about eye level for me. Ever wonder what’s in a Futuro House?

Not much, at least this one.

Boneyards Along the Way

Posted on April 29, 2021 by admin

On the second day of my recent trip, as I was leaving Carbondale, Illinois, I spotted the small but pretty (and unimaginatively named) Woodlawn Cemetery. Founded in 1854, it’s two years older than the city. Everything was wet from the heavy rain the night before.

There are a number of Civil War graves.

“In April, 1866, three Carbondale-area Civil War veterans… proposed that the community… gather on the last Sunday of April to honor their fallen comrades and neighbors, by cleaning and decorating their graves,” says the cemetery’s nomination for the National Register of Historic Places.

“On the appointed day, April 29, more than 200 veterans plus approximately 4,000 area citizens gathered at Woodlawn Cemetery… Gen. John A. Logan addressed the assemblage.”

Evidently, this and later commemorations deeply impressed Logan, who on May 5, 1868, issued GAR General Order No. 11.

The 30th day of May, 1868 is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land…

While visiting Clarksdale, Mississippi, I spent a few minutes at Heavenly Rest Cemetery.

In the background are two buildings of First Baptist Missionary Baptist Church (1918), historic in its own right.

At Vicksburg National Military Park is the 116-acre Vicksburg National Cemetery, which holds the remains of 17,000 Union soldiers, a higher concentration than any other cemetery, according to the NPS.

“After the creation of Vicksburg National Cemetery [in 1866], extensive efforts were made by the War Department to locate the remains of Union soldiers originally buried throughout the southeast in the areas occupied by Federal forces during the campaign and siege of Vicksburg — namely, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. However, by the time of these re-interments many of the wooden markers had been lost to the elements, and identification of many of the soldiers was rendered impossible.

“Nationwide, 54% of the number re-interred were classified as ‘unknown.’ At Vicksburg National Cemetery, 75% of the Civil War dead are listed as unknowns…”

The cemetery is closed to burials now, but after the Civil War a number of later servicemen were buried there, including the curious story of Flight Sgt. Edgar Horace Hawter of the Royal Australian Air Force, re-interred there in 1949 from New Guinea.

“Confederate dead from the Vicksburg campaign originally buried behind Confederate lines have now been re-interred in the Vicksburg City Cemetery (Cedar Hill Cemetery), in an area called Soldiers’ Rest,” the NPS says. “Approximately 5,000 Confederates have been re-interred there, of which 1,600 are identified.”

Cedar Hill Cemetery wasn’t hard to find.

Most of the cemetery isn’t Soldiers’ Rest.

Most of the stones are modest, but there are a few larger ones.

Evergreen Cemetery in Paris, Texas, was green enough, and wet with recent rain when I arrived there on April 16.

As a veteran of the Texas Revolution, Dr. Patrick W. Birmingham (1808-1867) rates a Texas flag.

Another plaque told me that Jesus in Cowboy Boots was part of a memorial at Evergreen, but maddingly it didn’t offer any direction about where such a thing would be found. So I did what we moderns do, and did a Google Image search for that term. I got an image easily.

Turned out I was practically standing next to it.

It was a little hard to make out at first, but yes, it does look like that figure is wearing boots rather than, say, sandals. It’s not clear it’s actually a depiction of Jesus, but as Atlas Obscura points out, the name has stuck.

Fort Smith National Historic Site

Posted on April 28, 2021 by admin

As historic sites go, Fort Smith National Historic Site is definitely worth a look, with its main building (former barracks-courthouse-jail), reconstructed gallows, site of a first fort, outline of the second fort’s former walls, parkland and walking paths, and a nice view of the Arkansas River.

But what really caught my attention during my visit on April 17 was painted on one of the sidewalks.

“The line on the sidewalk behind you represents the 1834 boundary between Indian Territory and Arkansas,” the sign nearby simply says. “Indian Territory was defined as the unsettled land west of the Mississippi River not including states or previously organized territories.”

I should note that the line on the sidewalk isn’t the current border between Arkansas and Oklahoma. But it’s pretty close — at that point the line is on the eastern bank of the Arkansas River, at least according to Google Maps (not quite an infallible source).

The pink arrow points to about where the painted line is. As you can see, the modern border zags a bit to the west at that point, so that all of the land of the historic site — and the city of Fort Smith, for that matter — is in Arkansas.

At some point, that line must have been straight and a slice of land east of Arkansas-Poteau confluence was Indian Territory, if the sidewalk line is correct. This Encyclopedia of Arkansas article seems to deal with a border adjustment in the area, in the context of the Choctaw Nation-Arkansas border, which was the subject of decades of dispute.

But the article says the strip was “two miles wide and twelve miles long,” and the Fort Smith slice looks nowhere near that large, so I don’t know how the above border adjustment was made. Some Arkansas or Choctaw historian might, but I’m going to leave it at that.

The fort was originally established in 1817 to patrol the neighboring Indian Territory and named for the otherwise little-remembered Gen. Thomas Smith. The U.S. Army abandoned the first fort in 1824, but by that time a town had grown up near the fort. The Army built a second fort in 1838 that it occupied, except for a short Confederate period, until 1871.

The site of the first fort, entirely forgotten and not re-discovered until 1958.

During the Army period, the handsome main building of the second fort served as a barracks. Late in the 19th century, it was a federal courthouse and jail. Now it’s a museum. Closed when I visited, unfortunately.

Also handsome: the Historic Commissary Building. It too was closed.

Flat stones that mark where the second fort wall used to be. A sign pointed out that most later U.S. Army forts didn’t bother with walls.

Another prime attraction — maybe the prime attraction — is the rebuilt gallows.

“With the largest criminal jurisdiction of any federal court at the time, the Western District of Arkansas handled an extraordinary number of murder and rape cases,” a sign in front of the gallows says. “When a jury found defendants guilty in these capital cases, federal law mandated the death penalty. In Fort Smith, that meant an execution by hanging on a ‘crude and unsightly’ gallows.”

A separate sign lists everyone hanged at Fort Smith during the years (1873-96) that federal executions took place on the site, 87 men all together. The famed Judge Isaac C. Parker sentenced 160 people (156 men, four women) to death in that court, 79 of whom were eventually hanged. “George Maledon, known as the Prince of Hangmen, served as executioner at over half of the Fort Smith hangings,” the sign also noted.

Main Street, Van Buren, Arkansas

Posted on April 27, 2021 by admin

I spent the night of April 16 in Alma, Arkansas, a part of greater Fort Smith, and the next morning I decided to see Fort Smith National Historic Site, so I headed into town via U.S. 71 Business. My breakfast was in a sack in the seat next to me, so I was also looking for a place to stop and eat. Sometimes small parks are just the place, either to eat in the car away from traffic whizzing by, or to find an outdoor table.

I saw a small sign that said PARK –> , so I turned right off the main road. Soon I found myself at the intersection of 6th and Main Street, main artery of the picturesque Van Buren Historic District. I parked on Main and ate my breakfast, and naturally got out for a walk after that.

Except for Fort Smith itself, Van Buren is the largest place in the Fort Smith MSA, with about 23,600 residents, founded on the Arkansas River well over a century and a half ago.

Much more recently, the river got pretty angry.

Though a bit chilly that Saturday, the weather was comfortable enough for a walk on Main Street, mostly sporting buildings of a certain vintage.

Older buildings, but with distinctly contemporary uses, including the likes of Rethreadz Boutique, The Vault 1905 Sports Grill, Sophisticuts, Corner Gifts, The Vault, and Red Hot Realty.

At Main and 4th is the Crawford County Courthouse, dating from 1842 and as such, according to Wiki anyway, the oldest operating courthouse west of the Mississippi.

It wouldn’t be much of a Southern courthouse without its Confederate memorial, dating from 1899.

A detail from the base. Something you don’t see too often.

Something you see even less at courthouses, North or South: a Greek goddess, namely Hebe, goddess of youth and youthful joy.

The original was a 1908 gold-painted iron statue, according to a sign on site. This 2003 bronze is a replacement for the original, which now resides in the Crawford County Museum.

Off to one side of the courthouse is the Albert Pike Schoolhouse, thought to be one of the oldest extant buildings in Arkansas, built ca. 1820 and later relocated to its current spot.

Another memorial on the grounds. I’d never heard of Cyrus Alder before; now I have.

Finally, I spotted some interesting walls in the vicinity of the courthouse. Such as what looks to be a palimpsest ghost sign wall.

In an alley across the street from the courthouse, this. It’s fairly new, as you’d think. Streetview of May 2018 has a blank wall there.

My knee-jerk reaction: izzat so? I never did find the park that I thought might be a good place for breakfast. I did much better, enjoying a bit of serendipity on the road, since I had no inkling of Van Buren, Arkansas before I found myself there.

Talimena National Scenic Byway & The Former Heavener Runestone State Park

Posted on April 26, 2021 by admin

Oklahoma isn’t known as much of a nanny state. So in retrospect it’s no surprise that the U.S. 271 entrance to Talimena National Scenic Byway, which is a two-lane road through the Winding Stair National Recreation Area, was wide open on April 16, a gloomy, drizzly day with the mountains shrouded in clouds.

Some other jurisdiction might have put up barricades to protect drivers from their own foolish impulse to drive the road no matter what, but Oklahoma doesn’t roll that way.
Besides, the facility at the entrance was abandoned. I did see signs for a recreation area headquarters in the nearest town, Talihina, so I supposed the rangers or rangers-equivalent moved there.

I was eager to drive the byway for two reasons. One, it’s a national scenic byway. In my experience, that generally means some good driving on the offing. Some car-commercial driving.

Also, the poetry of that name: Winding Stair Mountains. Even if they really are fairly small mountains, that’s a name and a place on the map that has intrigued me for a long time.

I stopped at an historic marker a short ways from the entrance that told me that the Ft. Smith-Ft. Towson Military Road once crossed the Winding Stair Mountains at that point, but it wasn’t the basis of the modern road, part of Oklahoma State Highway 1, which was completed only in 1969. I took a short walk in the nearby forest. The road also traverses a western section of Ouachita National Forest.

Then I took a look at the road ahead.

I wasn’t discouraged. I figured there might be patches of fog to drive through. Also, I’d seen two cars enter the road ahead of me.

The first few miles were gorgeous indeed, with places to stop that looked like this.

Pretty soon, though, the fog turned thick. I took it slow, about 30 mph, but even so the hazard of the drive was top of mind. I could see maybe 10 feet ahead, on a road that wound around and climbed and dropped — with steep drops into ditches sometimes off one or the other shoulder.

Mostly, I knew that if something appeared in the road ahead of me, such as an animal or worse, a stopped car, I might easily hit it. I don’t think I was risking death or even injury myself that much, just highly inconvenient damage to my car and maybe legal problems.

Now the views off to the side of the pullouts in the road looked more like this.

Yet the way — only about 12 miles on the section I wanted to drive — wasn’t entirely foggy. Sometimes I’d see the fog thin out ahead of me, suddenly, and even more suddenly, clear away completely. The beauty of the surroundings was suddenly clear as well, passing through a contoured forest of wet pine, oak, flowering dogwood and more.

As it happened, I encountered no one else on the road during my drive, neither cars nor motorcycles nor deer, and then headed north on U.S. 59. Take that route and before long you pass through Heavener, Oklahoma, where you see signs for Heavener Runestone Park. Or, and I think not all of the signs have been changed, Heavener Runestone State Park. Even the likes of Atlas Obscura still calls it a state park.

The place hasn’t been a state park for 10 years. Supposedly recession-era budget cuts are to blame, but I suspect that the park had embarrassed the state long enough, maybe since its founding in 1970.

At some point in the past, someone carved runes into a sandstone boulder near Heavener. A local woman, one Gloria Farley, did her own research in the 1950s and determined that Norsemen had shown up in the future Oklahoma during the golden age of Vikings getting around (ca. 1,000 years ago), carved the runes, and then went on their way. Without leaving any other trace.

Apparently Gloria had friends in state government, and so 55 acres were made into a state park, its centerpiece being the rock, with a shelter built to protect it from the elements and vandals.

The boulder and its runes are behind glass inside.

Signs near the glass case carry on the fantasy that Vikings visited Oklahoma.

These days the park belongs to the town of Heavener and is overseen by a nonprofit. I did my little bit to support it, since there is no admission, by buying some postcards in the shop. (Also to support the manufacture of postcards in general.)

I don’t care that the place was founded on a fairly obvious hoax, maybe done by an Scandinavian immigrant in the 19th century with a peculiar sense of humor. In fact, that makes it more interesting, just as the faux Lincoln family log cabin does the Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park.

Besides, the loop to and from the Heavener Runestone, a path along the side of Poteau Mountain, is a good walk, even if wet with recent rain when I was there.

It’ll never be a World Heritage Site, unless some wickedly serious paradigm shift happens, but even so the non-state park preserves, in a pleasant green spot, an eccentric vision.

Poverty Point World Heritage Site

Posted on April 25, 2021 by admin

West from Vicksburg and a little north of I-20 on US 65 is Transylvania, Louisiana, pop. scant. Now I can say I’ve been to Transylvania. I missed a turn, and realized it after a few miles, by which time I was near a school that needs roof repairs. Or an abandoned school building. I pulled over within sight of the structure to consult my maps.

Soon I was headed by the correct small roads to Poverty Point World Heritage Site, which has an address in Epps, Louisiana, but that’s just the nearest currently inhabited town. The site is firmly in the countryside.

Its signs stress the World Heritage status accorded the site a few years ago. Poverty Point also happens to be a U.S. National Monument.

On this site, in the second millennium BC, the people who dwelled here spent centuries building enormous mounds and ridges of earth by hand. The thought of that conjures up a past so remote that our image of them is one of shades, whispering in a language we can’t comprehend, pushing this collective building goal forward for reasons we cannot possibly know.

What you see close after the beginning of the third millennium AD is wide green fields, modestly undulating. Off in the distance are copses of trees, more fields and other natural land contour. The day was pleasantly warm.

“Hand by hand and basketful by basketful, men and women shaped nearly 2 million cubic yards of soil into stunning landscapes,” the site’s web site says. “The result was a massive 72-foot-tall mound, enormous concentric half-circles and related earthworks that dwarfed every other earthen monument site for 2,200 years.”

Mound B beats them all. The largest ever built by a hunter-gatherer population.

A further estimate on a sign near the mound says it would have taken 15.5 million loads of earth to build this single mound.

It’s a brain bender. Imagine a time and place when virtually everything you know, or have seen, or believed, wouldn’t exist for thousands of years.

Vicksburg National Military Park

Posted on April 22, 2021 by admin

Had my second shot today. Now George Soros is controlling my brain. Or is it Bill Gates? Hard to keep all these kaleidoscopic alt-realities straight, you know.

Over the years I’ve bypassed Vicksburg, the city and the battlefield, a number of times, so I made a point of visiting this time. I arrived at Vicksburg National Military Park just after noon on April 11, pausing to eat lunch in my car in the parking lot.

At more than 2,500 acres, it’s a large park, but actually smaller than most of the other national military parks, such as Chickamauga (9,500+ acres), Shiloh (9,300+ acres), Fredericksburg (8,400+ acres) or Gettysburg (6,000+ acres). Takes a lot of land to wage near-modern war, after all.

Still, with its winding roads, thick woods, open fields, and monuments of all sizes and descriptions, the place feels expansive. And lush. Full spring had come to Mississippi, along with a pleasant warmth in the air that must have been blazing hot by the time the siege happened in the summer.

Everywhere you look, a few more cannons. According to Wiki, there are 144 emplaced cannons in the park.

Only fitting, since the event was largely a duel of artillery. Also according to Wiki, the park includes 1,325 historic monuments and markers, 20 miles of trenches and earthworks, a 16-mile tour road, a 12.5-mile walking trail, two antebellum homes, and the restored gunboat USS Cairo, the luckless Brown Water Navy vessel that became first ship ever sunk by a remotely detonated mine.

Each state on both sides that sent men to the campaign has a sizable memorial — as many as 117,000 soldiers took part — but it looks like none is more sizable than Illinois.

“The design was by W. L. B. Jenney and sculptor was Charles J. Mulligan. Jenney served with distinction as a major in the Union Army during the Civil War as an engineer,” says the National Park Service.

“Stone Mountain (GA) granite forms the base and stairway. Above the base is Georgia white marble. There are forty-seven steps in the long stairway, one for each day of the Siege of Vicksburg.

“Modeled after the Roman Pantheon, the monument has sixty unique bronze tablets lining its interior walls, naming all 36,325 Illinois soldiers who participated in the Vicksburg campaign. Atop the memorial sits a bronze bald eagle sculpted by Frederick C. Hibbard of Chicago, who would also sculpt the statue of General Ulysses S. Grant in the park.”

Near the Illinois memorial is one of the aforementioned antebellum homes, the well-restored Shirley House, which survived 1863 against all odds.

As it is now.

As it was then.

Just down the road from the Shirley House is a statue of Gen. John Logan, who commanded the 3rd Division of the XVII Corps of the Union Army in this area, and who ought to be better known for a number of reasons, such as fostering Memorial Day and for his change of heart about black people during the war.

“But what of JOHN A. LOGAN? I will tell you. If there is any statesman on this continent, now in public life, to whose courage, justice and fidelity, I would more fully and unreservedly trust the cause of the colored people of this country, or the cause of any other people, I do not know him. Since [Charles] Sumner and [Oliver. P.] Morton, no man has been bolder and truer to the cause of the colored man and to the country, than has JOHN A. LOGAN. There is no nonsense about him. I endorse him to you with all my might, mind, and strength, and without a single shadow of doubt.”

— Frederick Douglass’ endorsement of John Logan during the 1884 presidential election.

Because of heavy rains (I assume) some of the roads were closed, including the one to Grant’s headquarters, where his equestrian statue is, so I didn’t see that.

Moving along, I came to another impressive state memorial: Mississippi. The home team, so to speak.

Wisconsin. That’s no mere eagle on top, but Old Abe.

Missouri, which is dedicated to combatants on both sides.

Besides the state memorials, there was an array of statues and stones and plaques honoring other men and groups of men, or detailing movements during the siege.

The USS Cairo, partly protected from the elements. Its visitor center was closed, not for Sunday but still for the pandemic.

The view from Fort Hill.

I’m glad I got around to Vicksburg. Also glad to report a fair number of other visitors, most clearly tourists from other places, though some people were out jogging or walking their dogs. Best of all, I spotted some people with their kids (or grandkids) in tow. Maybe being the weekend had something to do with that, or that the city of Vicksburg is fair-sized. Even so, I remember how few other people I saw on the summer day I visited Shiloh — and only one or two families with children.

Clarksdale and Vicksburg Walkabouts

Posted on April 21, 2021 by admin

No question about it, Clarksdale, Mississippi, is a poor Delta town. The median household income in Coahoma County, of which Clarksdale is the seat and only town of any size, is $29,121 as of 2019, according to the Census Bureau, and over 38% of the population lives below the federal poverty level. For all of Mississippi — by household income the poorest state in the union — median household income is just over $45,000, and 19.6% of the population lives in poverty. (The U.S. figures are about $68,700 for median household income, with 10.5% living below the poverty level.)

Coahoma County is also majority black, 77.6%, compared with 37.8% for Mississippi as a whole. Since 2010, the county has lost 15.4% of its population; Mississippi has managed to eke out a 0.3% gain over the same period.

By contrast, Warren County, whose seat is Vicksburg, Mississippi, is considerably more prosperous by the same metrics, though it too lost population in the 2010s: down 6.9%. Median household income is $45,113, just over the state median, and about 20% of the population officially lives in poverty. Black and white are more evenly divided in Warren County, at 49.3% and 48.4%, respectively.

I took a walk around the downtowns of both Clarksdale and Vicksburg on the same day, Sunday, April 11, fairly early in the morning for the former, and late in the afternoon for the latter.

Poor it may be, Clarksdale is distinct as the hub of the Delta blues, a fact that the town very much plays up in the early 21st century, with a museum, music venues, plaques, public artwork and more. Funny, I have a hunch that the city fathers in segregationist Clarksdale a century or so ago didn’t give a fig for the music that the black population was creating and exporting to Chicago and other places.

Few other people were about on that Sunday morning. The first thing that caught my attention was a large mural.

That’s the back wall of the Ground Zero Blues Club, and the mural must be of recent vintage, since a Streetview image from September 2019 shows a few smaller murals, but mostly a blank wall.

That’s hardly the only public artwork in downtown Clarksdale.

The town sports a lot of interesting old buildings in various conditions, some music oriented, some ordinary commercial structures.

One of the music businesses is a place called Deak’s Mississippi Saxophones and Blues Emporium. Not something you’re likely to see anywhere else.

Late that day, I took a walkabout of similar duration in Vicksburg, after visiting the local battlefield.

It’s a larger town with larger buildings, such as The Vicksburg, formerly the Hotel Vicksburg, which I’ve read is the tallest building in town and in recent years an apartment building. Next to it are the Strand Theatre and the B.B. Club, formerly the B’nai B’rith Literary Association building, and now an event venue.

Some smaller structures grace downtown Vicksburg as well, of course.

The city is mostly on a loess bluff overlooking the Mississippi.

Old Man River.

The damage that Old Man River can do, when he’s in the mood. There’s no doubt that 1927 is the one to beat, and not just in Louisiana, though 2011 was a whopper too.

That’s on the river-facing side of the modern floodwall system protecting Vicksburg. On the town-facing side are a lot of different murals. Some details:

My own favorite, “President McKinley Visits the Land of Cotton,” is based on a photo of an arch built from cotton bales to greet the president, who visited for a little less than two hours on May 1, 1901, not long before his date with Death in Buffalo.

If possible, I like to see a presidential site on each trip. That counts as one for the trip.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Been There