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River
of Conflict, River of Dreams
Three Hundred Years on the Upper Mississippi
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By
Biloine Whiting Young
320 pages, black & white, illustrations, index
2004, paperbound
ISBN 1-880654-30-X.
Order Number: PP30X
Price: $17.95 |
A
richly detailed history of the early Upper Mississippi as the
major highway into America's Midwest frontier for Native Americans
and for pioneers. Birchbark canoes, romantic passenger steamboats,
log rafts, and grain barges all traveled Mark Twain's river. The
commercial life of the Mississippi ended with the coming of the
railroad. Dams and locks then constricted the river, bringing
floods and dumping refuse and sewage into the water. Ignored and
abused, the river was disregarded by communities for over a century.
Today the Mississippi River is in the midst of a renaissance.
Now, with the water clean enough to swim in, environmentalists
and developers use the river thoughtfully. No longer shunning
this water lifeline, communities are returning to its banks for
housing, recreation and pleasure.
River
of Conflict, River of Dreams
is a hefty-size trade paperback that should enrich the library
of any boater who ever read Mark Twain, listened to the tunes
of "Showboat," or just plain dreamed of boating more and further
on Old Man River.
--Marlin Bree. THE ENSIGN of the U. S. Power Squadron
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