Mississippi Riverboat Tour

We boarded the Tom Sawyer for our tour on the 'mighty' Mississippi. This is the longest river in the US (2,320 miles) & is part of the Jefferson-Missuori-Mississippi river system, which is the largest river system in North America & one of the largest in the world. The source of the river is in Minnesota & the river discharges into to the Gulf of Mexico.

As we headed north up the river & passed under Eads Bridge (which was the first cantilever bridge to be built & when completed, in 1874, was the longest arch bridge in the world (6,442 feet) & also the first to use steel in a major bridge) we got a really good view of the new President Casino & the existing casino, The SS Admiral. This is a silver, streamlined, Art Deco style vessel which when first built was the largest passenger vessel on US inland waterways. It is 374 feet long, 92 feet wide & was the flagship of Streckfuss Steamers. It was built between 1930 & 1940 at a cost of more than $1,000,000. It had five decks, two of which were air-conditioned (extremely rare in the 1940s) & side paddles for propulsion (in 1974 it was converted to diesel engine powered propellers) & had a capacity of 4400 passengers. It departed on its first excursion cruise along the Mississippi from St Louis in June 1940 & continued to do so until 1979 when it became The President Casino.

We also go to see some rock structures (a bit like groynes, but parallel to the river channel) that have been constructed by the Corps of Engineers (who are responsible for maintaining a 9 foot navigable channel on the Upper Mississippi River from river mile 0.0 (confluence of the Ohio) to river mile 300.0 (below Lock and Dam 22)). These are used to guide river traffic & also alter the flow in the river so that it helps to naturally maintain the navigable channel.
We also passed a number of industrial buildings on the St Louis side of the river as we headed north. These included the Ashley Street Power Station (which was constructed in 1904 & was originally coal-fired. In 1972 it was converted to oil, & still produces electricity & steam for St Louis), & the Laclede Power Center, (a former power station constructed before the Ashley Street building, which is being renovated by Trailnet to abecome a downtown visitor center).

As we headed back south along the river towards the Cahokia Power Station & Port St Louis, we got a really good view of The Arch, St Louis City & the Illinois side of the river.