The last two bus tour days we had to be boarding the bus at 8 AM. Today, we got to sleep in for a couple of hours and not board the bus for our Mississippi River Lunch Cruise until 10 AM.
The bus took us to downtown St. Paul and we boarded the Betsey Northrup river barge for our lunch tour on the Mississippi. As you would expect, crusing on a river you will see both banks with some interesting sights along the way. This is not like the European river cruises you see advertised but it was fun none the less.
View of downtown St. Paul from the dock of the Betsey Northrup.
A couple of interesting stories that we heard on this lunch cruise. The first is how St. Paul got its name. Back in the early 1800's a rather unsavory character lived in a cave on the banks of this portion of the river. The character was missing an eye due to a knife fight and the other one was bugged out, he was known as Pigs Eye. He ran a bootleg liquor business out of the cave and the trappers, explorers and soldiers from nearby Ft. Ripley frequented the place. A small settlement began to spring up in this area and it was also known as Pigs Eye. A Jesuit priest came into the area and built a small church out of logs and he named it after his favorite Saint, Saint Paul. He traveled around the area urging people to come to his church. Due to the location at the confluence of the Minnesota River and the Mississippi more people started to come into the area. Over time people started referring to the area as St. Paul. The name stuck and when the new state of Minnesota established a capital they called it St. Paul. So if not for the Jesuit Priest, the capital of Minnesota would have been known as Pigs Eye, MN.
Pigs Eye cave was just up the ravine seen here.
The other interesting story was when the railroad wanted to come into the area, they began building a swing bridge to cross the river yet allow the water traffic to continue. At one time more than 60% of the grain that the country exported came down this section of the river. The advent of the railroad reduced this traffic and today this section of the river sees very little commercial traffic compared to the southern part of the Mississippi.
While the swing bridge was being built an old gentleman with a corn cob pipe would sit in a chair on the bank above the construction and watch it being built. The swing bridge was designed to be symmetrical when viewed for balance and aesthetics. The big day came when they were going to dedicate it and let the first train across. All the dignitary's were gathered, the Mayor and Railroad President cut the ribbon and ordered the bridge to swing out to connect the tracks. At that moment the old man came from the crowd and demanded that they stop. He said the bridge was going to swing onto his land and he would not allow it. After sometime and discovering he did indeed own the land the Mayor accused him of wanting to raise his price for the land. He stated that he was not raising the price, he never gave them a price. You see, he was an old steamboat captain that was put out of work by the railroad and swore he would never sell anything to the railroad. Long story short, they had to redesign the bridge to shorten one end so that it would not interfere with his land. It is this reason you see a unsymmetrical bridge with a large concrete weight on one end. The bridge is still in use today.
Bridge with concrete ballast on one side only.
We are on a barge so we need a river tug to power us up and down the river.
Thursday is a free day for us which means taking care of the RV, replenishing groceries and sleeping late! Tomorrow, the 13th, we travel to Prairie Du Chien, WI and on the way we will be treated to a show at the National Eagle Center. Bald eagles use this waterway to migrate, live and breed. it is going to be interesting. Thanks for coming along with us!
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