In another century, this is how people will remember the giants of the past...

quote:

---

on the Mississippi

---

They may have been on the Mississippi for a hot minute before they went up the Missouri.

There aren’t rock walls anywhere along the Missouri River that look like what would be required for these statues.

quote:

---

the Mississippi

---

There are some uneducated ones on this board for sure.

But I like the idea

Put them at mouth of Mississippi

quote:

---

There aren’t rock walls anywhere along the Missouri River that look like what would be required for these statues.

---

That’s because before it was channelized like it is today, it was immensely wide, muddy, fast, and depending upon the season a raging debris filled torrent or a wide flat relatively shallow mud hole. Where I live the E. side of the Missouri bluffs are 400 feet high and you can barely see with the naked eye the W. side bluff across its original flood plain.

I’m a history buff, actually got my minor in it. I’m positive 99% of the people in this country have absolutely not an idea what a monumental undertaking the Corps of Discovery was and the daily grind involved. They didn’t sail up the Missouri, especially since they left STL. right at the spring thaw and the spring runoff was at full swing, a river chock-fill of sediment and debris, like full size Missouri Oaks. They pulled, cordelled(Fr.) their 55-foot Keel boat and multiple smaller craft up the Missouri along the eastern bank. It took them over 2 months upon leaving STL. to reach present day Independence, Mo. outside of KC sometime around the 4th of July, that’s how Independence got it’s name…a distance of roughly 350-400 miles.

quote:

---

Because they were traveling upstream against a notoriously fast, muddy, and debris-filled current, pulling the boats—known as cordelling—was one of their primary methods of moving forward.

Moving the fleet (a 55-foot keelboat and two large rowboats called pirogues) up the Missouri River was an agonizing, daily grind with multiple methods used:

---