Wisconsin Stories is a partnership of the Wisconsin Historical Society and Wisconsin Public Television.

I'm Tracy Will of Wisconsin Public Television. I'm Debbie Kmetz with the Wisconsin Historical Society. On this edition of Wisconsin Stories we're going to look at some of the history of the Mississippi. Over the next half-hour, we'll cover everything from the early explorers on the river to the great paddlewheel steamboat era to clamming, to pearl button days. We'll also look at locks and dams and how the river once was and still is a major transportation route and how people live and work on the Mississippi river. It's a lot to cover, so let's get started on this program we call "The Great River."

Funding for Wisconsin Stories is provided in part by an advised fund of the Community Foundation of Southern Wisconsin; the Estate and family of Lois Backus; the Halbert and Alice Kadish Foundation; and Philip J. and Elizabeth B. Hendrickson encouraging you to support history on Wisconsin Public Television and to visit Wisconsin's treasured historic sites.

Kmetz: The Mississippi river forms 190 miles of the western border of Wisconsin.

"Mississippi" is an American Indian name "Mech-e-sebe" which translates into "Great River."

The first white men to see the upper Mississippi river in Wisconsin were two Frenchmen: Louis Joliet and a Catholic priest, Jacques Marquette, in 1673. They left a fur trader's post near Green Bay they canoed down the Fox river and portaged over land to the Wisconsin river. They went down the Wisconsin river to where it enters the Mississippi river just south of Prairie du Chien.

Upon entering the Mississippi from the Wisconsin Father Jacques Marquette declared: After we arrived at the mouth of our river Wisconsin we safely entered the Mississippi with a joy that I cannot express.

Kmetz: Ever since, this great river, the Mississippi has dazzled and seduced those who see it and live near it.

Some 95 years after Marquette and Joliet another early explorer, Jonathan Carver also entered the Mississippi from the Wisconsin. He described the Indian trading post at Prairie du Chien: This town is the great mart, where all the adjacent tribes and even those who inhabit the most remote branches of the Mississippi annually assemble about the end of May bringing with them their furs to dispense of to the traders.

Kmetz: In the early 1800s Stephen Long followed the same route. Near La Crosse, Long wrote: Here might the poet or bard indulge his fancy in the wildest extravagance while the philosopher would find a rich repast in examining the numerous phenomena here.

Kmetz: Another early Mississippi river traveler George Featherstonhaugh departed Prairie du Chien in 1838. He recorded these observations: These scenes never satiate the eye and the mind.

Kmetz: That was the river of the 1800s a free-flowing river-- A free-flowing river that in times of high water often caused severe flooding. In times of low water, it was almost unnavigable. Then, a series of locks and dams were constructed in the 1930s. The navigation pools, which were created by the dams provide a nine-foot channel for commercial barge traffic.

But long before diesel-powered river towboats were developed the Mississippi river served as a means of travel and the movement of freight. Think of the Mississippi river as a road. A road for people to travel on a road for the movement of commercial goods a road for migratory wildlife to follow.

This river, this road has seen heavy traffic from the beginning. First, American Indians and early explorers used canoes to travel up and down the river then fur traders used bull boats; pioneers used flatboats and keelboats then came the romantic paddlewheel steamboats.

Will: Before the 1930s navigation on the Mississippi river was largely dependent on weather conditions. It was extremely difficult. Will: Ed Hill is the former archivist for the University of Wisconsin La Crosse Library. What made the river so dangerous? Well, it was very shallow. And of course, it was not charted. A steamboat going upriver was, of course, an obstacle in itself, going upstream. But these people did not have the charts and navigational aids that we now have or even those that came along 20 or 30 years later, in terms of where the deepest channel was where the sandbars were where the deadheads and the logs were which channel even to take. Will: On the upper Mississippi water depth varied from three feet at St. Paul, Minnesota to five feet at Cairo, Illinois. The channel was constantly shifting. New sandbars and islands would come and go. And every river trip became an adventure. Hill: It was extremely hazardous. That meant they went very slowly. They were taking soundings constantly. If there was a stump under water, six inches that you couldn't see and your hull hit it your boat usually sank right there. Will: Because of the hazardous navigation the life of a paddlewheel steamboat on the upper Mississippi river in the early 1800s was only about three years.

The Wisconsin Historical Society has a collection of steamboat-era photographs taken by Gerhard Gessell. Gessell was a German immigrant who established a photo studio in Alma, in 1876. In this half-hour, we'll see some of his photos that portray many aspects of life on and along the Mississippi river.

The first steamboat to travel the upper Mississippi river from St. Louis to St. Paul was the "Virginia" in 1823. For the next 50 years more than 300 paddlewheel steamboats worked the upper river from St. Louis to St. Paul often with stops in Prairie du Chien and La Crosse.

Hill: La Crosse was called the "Gateway City." It was a gateway in those years for points farther west at a time when the river was still a considerable barrier to trade. It was less a barrier than it had been but keep in mind that bridges over the river were very uncommon in that time.

Will: The golden age of Mississippi river steamboats was between 1840 and 1862 the decade before the Civil War. With grand ballrooms and ornate woodwork they were often referred to as floating palaces.

After the Civil War steamboats were used to move log rafts downstream. This river road has always been used to move goods-- trade with the Indians, and lead from southwestern Wisconsin and after the 1850s, lumber. Hill: Minnesota and Wisconsin had trees. And especially the southern United States and the farther south United States St. Louis, and so on, needed lumber. And at that point, the lumber companies began to develop very quickly. Will: In the 1860s, lumber companies were logging along the Chippewa river in western Wisconsin. They floated the logs down the Chippewa river to a boom site they had at "Beef Slough," just above Alma, Wisconsin. Here, the logs were sorted out and made into rafts for the sawmills downstream. Hill: And then, from that point on the various rafters would then bring that raft down to the proper lumber mill where they would be made into lumber. There were some rafts of full-size logs that went on downstream.

Will: The upper Mississippi river became busy with river commerce in the mid- to late-1800s. And immigrants came by the thousands to explore and establish homesteads. Hill: So, that brought a lot of immigrants many of them agricultural people, farmers, tradesmen to the upper Midwest. Will: America was created by people riding its rivers. And the rapid growth and settlement of the upper Midwest can be traced, in part, to the paddlewheel steamboat.

By about 1890, most of the money made by steamboat companies came from carrying passengers. Railroads had begun to take over the freight and mail business. Hill: The railroads had actually put a bridge across in 1876. That was one of the reasons for the demise of the steamboats. The railroads could go east and west and furthermore, they could do it year round.

Will: Today, there are replica paddlewheel steamboats like the "Julia Belle Swain" that operate on the upper Mississippi river. They are excursion trips carrying passengers on overnight trips. They are a reflection of a past era.

Kmetz: The Mississippi river not only served as a transportation route it also provided many forms of food and work for those who lived near it. In the upper river, there are many locations where there are clam beds with thousands of clams. Now, are clams in a bed? How do they live? Yes, they're called a clam bed. They're buried in the sand on the bottom a little bit of them sticking out. For a shell like this size, here they'd be sticking out like this, here. They'd be buried into the bottom like up to here. Kmetz: For a time, clam beds of the upper Mississippi did provide a way of life for commercial clammers.

Many farmers, and others along the upper Mississippi river set themselves up with a clamming operation. All they needed was a flat bottom boat a length of pipe or wood to which were attached lines. At the end of these lines was a wire crowfoot hook. This type of clamming was called the "braille system." Valley: About every three inches apart there's a set of hooks hanging like this. This pulls along the bottom. On the bottom of the river? Right. And when these hooks get in the mouth of the clam they'll snap shut on it. They'll hold on and they won't let go. Kmetz: The boatload of clams was brought ashore and the clams were put into a big tub of boiling water. The clams would open, and all the meat was removed. The clam shells and meat were checked for "slugs" river pearls. Did you ever find any pearls yourself? Yes, I have. Pearls are fascinating. Tell me a little about Mississippi river pearls. Well, I have a few here we can-- These are different sizes and shapes. And they're from clams? They're from Mississippi river clams? Each one of these come out of a clam on the river. Kmetz: In the late 1800s the Mississippi clam shells were used to make buttons. There were many pearl button factories on the upper Mississippi river. One of the largest was in Muscatine, Iowa.

Whole clam shells would be shipped by paddlewheel steamboat to Muscatine. Some clammers cut round blanks out of the shells. When the blanks arrived at the button factories they were sliced thin polished and had holes drilled into them. This here is a shell that they cut pearl buttons out of. Oh, my goodness! It's a washboard shell. Each one of these is a button? Yep. And here's what the buttons look like. Like that, there. Oh, look! When they finished with this and got the buttons, they just discarded it? They would throw away the shell. They'd cut all the good buttons they could out of it then they'd get rid of the shell. Kmetz: Some clamming is still done on the upper Mississippi river. But it is under federal control. There are size limits and clammers have to be licensed. Some clammers still use the braille method but some prefer to use diving equipment.

The shells are shipped to Japan. But they don't make buttons out of the shells. The Japanese put small pieces of the Mississippi clam shell into an oyster and the oyster makes a pearl from it. There was millions and millions of pounds of shells come out of the river here and went to Japan for cultured pearls. Kmetz: Don Valley, of Prairie du Chien was a clammer for over 20 years, starting in the 1960s. Can you tell me a little bit more about how to make the cultured pearl? Well, what they do is you start with the washboard, like this here a three ridge. They take these and cut them into slugs. They'll machine them. They'll cut this up into pieces? Right. Then, they machine them to turn them into beads. These are all clam shells? These are all from clams, yeah from Mississippi river clams. Look at that. Then, they surgically implant them into oysters. The oyster puts a coating on them after a year and a half or two years. That's what cultured pearls are made from. Kmetz: So, many of the pearls that women wear began on the bottom of the Mississippi river. When you did make a living at it was that something you did all year round or just in the spring? In the spring, pretty much or when the water was high enough to pull your boat. When you couldn't do that you'd go back to fishing or do something else. Kmetz: Commercial clamming went into decline when Japan had a red tide that killed many oyster beds. And then the zebra mussel invaded the river. Commercial clamming is over with. It's just over? Yeah. Zebra mussels cover everything up in the river. The Department of Natural Resources says in some places they're two to three-foot thick on the bottom the zebra mussels. And when they lay over the clams are they suffocating the clams? Yeah, to where the clams can't feed and can't reproduce.

Kmetz: Like the paddlewheel steamboat, commercial clamming on the Mississippi river is not what it used to be. But old clam shells with round holes cut in them can still be found along the banks of the Mississippi where there used to be a button factory.

John Gorman: The lock is like a bathtub. Traffic heading downstream enters the lock with the lock full. Then, the tub is drained and you sail out at the lower elevation. In reverse, when you want to head upstream enter the lock, the gates are closed fill the lock, go out at the higher level. Simple as that. Will: John Gorman grew up on the river and worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as a surveyor. I started working for Corps in 1945 and I worked with them until 1953. The initial work was working on a survey crew as a rod person. That was making maps, mostly topographic maps sometimes measuring river depths. Some of the surveys determined the stability of structures such as locks and dams along the river-- maintenance operations. Will: Gorman lived on the river before the locks and dams were built and worked on the river after they were put in. Over the years, he's made a study of the river. It's been on my mind, yes, for many, many years. I've been living on it. I grew up on it. I learned to swim in it in La Crosse. I just like the valley and everything about it. Will: In his study of the river Gorman has maps that show how the river was before the locks and dams were put in. There were a lot less water expanses. There was more land showing than there is now evident by the raise of the water levels. Will: Gorman says the lock and dam system built in the 1930s was intended for a special reason: transportation.

As early as 1830, the federal government knew that the upper Mississippi river served an important role in the settlement of the upper Midwest. The Army Corps of Engineers did everything they could to improve navigation on the Mississippi river. They removed snags and deadheads. They dredged out sandbars. They dynamited rock in the channel to make navigation safe between St. Louis and St. Paul.

In 1907, a six-foot channel was authorized by congress. The Army Engineers installed thousands of brush and rock wing dams. These wing dams were piles of rock extending out from shore sometimes 500 to 600 feet.

The wing dams confined the river to a narrow channel during low water periods so it was deep enough for the steamboats to navigate. By the late 1920s, it became clear that the upper Midwest could benefit economically if a dependable nine-foot channel could be provided on the upper Mississippi river.

So, in 1930, congress passed legislation that authorized the Army Corps of Engineers to build a lock and dam system from St. Louis to Minneapolis. There are nine lock and dams on the Wisconsin border. Now we have a nine-foot channel.

Gorman: Two things happened there. One was the Depression and the want for jobs positions for people, to bring them a livelihood. And the other was the cue and cry of the industrialists and farmers in the Midwest to get a form of transportation that they could depend on being in for a stable price. Railroads pretty well had them hammered.

Will: So, the locks and dams were built for a less expensive form of moving goods, like grain fertilizer and cl, says Gorman. And were not intended to control river floods. Flood control was attempted through construction of levees and dikes along the river. It was perfectly logical thing just as the river operators wanted river improvements for their purposes towns and villages and cities wanted protection from floods. And here again, the Corps of Engineers steps in to do this. They welcomed the opportunities to straighten the river, channel it, put up levees-- all kinds of protective walls for towns and villages. And of course, one of the things this did was to make the flood when it reached a certain point, even more destructive. That water's got to go somewhere. Will: The lock and dam system creates pools of water above the dams. The Village of Stoddard became a river town in 1937 when the pool created by lock and dam number eight put the river at its doorstep. And there have been other changes in the river since the locks and dams were put in. Al Reed: But it seems like, since about the '80s till now the water's always like at an eight-foot level or above. And nothing has a chance to grow so you don't have no vegetation on the steep shorelines. So, consequently, all the boat waves and wind waves just keep washing it out. Will: Al Reed has lived all his life near the river. His ancestors have lived in Prairie du Chien since the 1820s. He believes the water levels are too high. Like even the islands over here, right in back of us. When I was a kid, you had just about enough room to get through there with your boat. Now, there's hardly any island there. There are six or seven islands that are completely gone. Hill: It's a massive ecological system which is undergoing a lot of changes. In most cases, man made changes. Will: When they put in the lock and dam system which we have now the water level was raised above the stone wing dams. Wing dams that were part of an earlier attempt to channel the river. Hill: There are all kinds of horror stories of people who forget to watch for the wing dams. Some wing dams are only about this far under the water. And some of the local businesses do a very wonderful trade in propeller repair.

Will: For those who choose to live near the river there are many ways to make a living. Fishing, hunting, trapping. One has to like being outdoors and, perhaps, a jack of all trades. They're called "river rats." Yep, sure, call us all river rats. Will: And what is a river rat? Well, just anybody that works on the river. I've been working on the river 44 years. Started out in 1934 and then quit in 1977. Will: Dick Schickling, of Prescott, is a former river pilot. Well, I have five brothers and they all worked on the river. Four of them were pilots. Will: Schickling started working on the Mississippi in the 1930s as a deck hand on a barge. We'd help make up tow and clean the boat up paint it mop the decks-- splash lines. Ropes are called lines out on the river. Cables are called wires. Will: Schickling received his river pilot's license in 1942. Schickling: Well, you have a written examination about 150 questions. And you've gotta get about 85 percent of them right. And you have to draw a map of the river. You had to put down the wing dams, and the towns and the bridges, and the railroad bridges the widths and the heights of it, everything. Will: He worked as towboat pilot on the river from 1942 to 1977 helping barges get up and down the river. Schickling: Well, you had to follow the channel Will: Schickling knows just about every slough and back water on the Mississippi. Schickling: Well, you're going around a bend, yeah. It ain't a turn on the river, it's a bend. You get used to it just like driving down the highway. Well, you gotta know what you're doing especially in high water. Will: Like many who live and work near the river Schickling did a little bit of everything. He was once a commercial fisherman. Schickling: Carp, buffalo, catfish, sheephead-- We would take them down to Pepin, Wisconsin. They had a fish market down there. I had a smokehouse sitting right here and a tree over there, a great big tree. And it fell down, hit the roof, smashed the smokehouse. Will: Schickling smoked carp in his backyard. He'd take his home-smoked carp downtown and sell them. But he says it was more of a hobby. It was beer money. Oh, we'd stop on the way home. By the time we got home, we'd be broke. Will: The markets for Mississippi river fish began to close down one by one in the last ten to 15 years. And it's getting harder and harder to make commercial fishing on the river a full-time job.

The river changes, and yet it stays the same. This great river continues to impress and awe those who come to know it. Once the river gets in your blood, it's hard to get out. The river's brought a lot of fulfillment to me. I've enjoyed every bit of it-- still do. Ah, it's a wonderful place. It's a wonderful place. I was only about three years old when I went down to the ferry line and I fell in. I threw a rock in and went in with it. The guy on the ferry pulled me out and took me home. My mother gave me a good spanking. Ten minutes later, I'm down on the river again. I just fell in love with the river. Hill: The people who want to live along the river they want to have their feet wet. There is something about the river that attracts a certain kind of resident. Will: Ed Hill says he never tires traveling the Mississippi river valley. He likes to drive the great river road that hugs the river-- Highway 35. Hill: I never get tired of it. I never get tired of stopping and having a meal and a drink in a river town café or bar. 
( laughs )
 That's my problem I'd like to stop in all of them! There's so much feel for the river. You know they've been there a long while. The people who live there are absolutely locked in in terms of their attitude. You talk to them and they would never live anywhere else. That's because of this vast, metaphorical river, this stream going from history forward, from history to the future. It's a metaphor that I think any human being can relate to because that's how life is. It's a beautiful place. Yes.

[Captioning services provided by Wisconsin Public Television.]
 www.wpt.org

 Funding for Wisconsin Stories is provided in part by an advised fund of the Community Foundation of Southern Wisconsin; the Estate and family of Lois Backus; the Halbert and Alice Kadish Foundation; and Philip J. and Elizabeth B. Hendrickson encouraging you to support history on Wisconsin Public Television and to visit Wisconsin's treasured historic sites.