From the Tri-States to the Quad Cities

Back on The Great River Road, Tim and I jumped across the Mississippi River several times

All aboard the George M. Verity Towboat

in one day as
the two of us drove from Hannibal through
the Tri-State area (Missouri, Iowa and Illinois) to
the Quad Cities (Davenport and Battendorf, Iowa / Rock Island and Moline, Illinois),
stopping at attractions in five river towns (Keokuk, IA; Nauvoo, IL; Burlington, IA; Fort Madison, IA and Muscatine, IA).

All of that added up to another fun and very informative day on The Great River Road.

The George M. Verity Riverboat Museum in Keokuk, IA

The George M. Verity Riverboat Museum in Keokuk, Iowa was our first stop.  I was expecting a history museum, but this was the real deal, a 1927 towboat.  A very knowledgeable young docent took us through the boat all the way from stem to the stern.

Before we left, Tim climbed into the pilot's chair to try his luck at navigating the Mississippi.

Upper right, clockwise: The Homestead of Joseph Smith, Jr.; Nauvoo House; The Mansion; The Nauvoo Temple
Center: The gravestone of Joseph Smith, Jr.

Next stop, Nauvoo!  This was a sanctuary city for Mormons who were forced to leave Missouri by order of the governor in 1838-1839.  It was also the departure point for those who followed Brigham Young west to Utah's Great Salt Lake Valley.  This small Illinois town where prophet Joseph Smith, Jr. is buried near the banks of the Mississippi has over 30 historic buildings.  We only took time to look at a few.

Fort Madison was the first established trading post cum frontier fort in the Upper Mississippi River Basin.  Built in 1808, the fort was burned with the encouragement of British agents during the War of 1812 by a band of Indians led by Fox warrior Black Hawk.  What we saw was a replica of the original fort at our stop in Fort Madison, Iowa.

If you've ever been stopped by a passing train at a railroad crossing, chances are you've seen a locomotive of the BNSF Railway, one of the largest freight train networks in America.  BNSF stands for Burlington Northern and Santa Fe, but it's roots lie in Burlington, Iowa where the first all-metal railroad bridge across the Mississippi was built in 1868.  My dad who loves all things trains would have been so disappointed if I didn't stop here to learn more about the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, the beginnings of the BNSF.

The Des Moines County Heritage Center
Notice the exceptionally beautiful "Hypatia" stained glass window in the lower left.  

The best place to do that was the Des Moines County Heritage Center housed in the beautiful former Burlington Public Library.

Historian Richard Overton wrote, "From the time that Charles Elliott Perkins became vice president of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy [in 1876]...until he resigned as president in 1901, he was the Burlington.  This was the railroad that carried immigrants to settle the western territories listed in the poster above.  Because Tim and I met while living in Colorado Springs, I found it interesting to learn that Perkins purchased 240 acres for a summer home in an area called Garden of the Gods.  His summer home he never built and after his death in 1907, his children deeded the land to the city in 1909, stipulating that it should be used as a public park and called "Garden of the Gods."

Before leaving Burlington, the lady in charge of the museum recommended we drive down Snake Alley once recognized by Ripley's Believe It or Not as the "Crookedest Street in the World."  The alley pre-dates San Francisco's Lombard Street and tops its slant of 1000 degrees.  Never one to turn down a challenge, Tim pointed our Jeep 1100 degrees downward as he turned from end to end while I grabbed the door handle and gritted my teeth.  And somehow we made it to the bottom all in one piece.

Our final stop before we reached our hotel in Moline, Illinois was the Pearl Button Museum in Muscatine, Iowa.  I never knew that nearly 37% of the world's buttons were once manufactured here in the "Pearl Button Capitol of the World" using mussel shells from the Mississippi River.  However, by the 1950s and 1960s with the depletion of mussels and the advent of Bakelite and plastic buttons, the halcyon days of Muscatine's button factories were over.

By that time, our day was over, too.  We found our hotel and luckily, it had a coin-op washer and dryer.  Time to wash clothes before hitting the hay!