Bayou Segnette State Park
7777 Westbank Expressway
Westwego, LA 70094
GPS: 29.88990o, -090.16239o
Where Does the Mississippi River End?
My casual first response has always been "New Orleans." Not quite. A closer look at Google Maps or a paper road map shows the river continuing for some distance past New Orleans to a place called Venice, LA. So, Venice, LA was our destination for today's road trip.
Day trip to find the end of the Mississippi River
VENICE (GPS: 29.271952, -89.353220)
Venice is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, United States. As of the 2010 census, its population was 202. It is 77 miles south of New Orleans on the west bank of the Mississippi River at 29°16'37"N 89°21'17"W. It is the last community down the Mississippi accessible by automobile, and it is the southern terminus of the Great River Road. This has earned the town the nickname "The end of the world." Venice lies at the end of the longest continuous levee line in the world, stretching 650 miles north to the Arkansas River. In 1969, Hurricane Camille's 200 mph wind destroyed much of Venice.
Have we found the end of the river?
Commercial fishing, sport fishing, and oil refining appear to be the main activity in Venice.
My river information tells me that Venice is at mile marker 10.2, not 0.0. So there must be more.
PILOTTOWN (GPS: 29.178855, -89.256167)
Further south, on the east bank of the river, is a place called Pilottown. Google Maps marks it with a dot and a marker for a post office.
Pilottown is the interchange point for bar pilots on the ocean-going vessels that navigate the Mississippi River. Bar pilots meet ships at sea and guide them through the passes up to Pilottown. River pilots take over the journey to ports on the Mississippi. The process is reversed on outgoing trips.
Originally known as Balize, Louisiana, Pilottown is the southern border of the Crescent Pilots Route and the exchange point for the Crescent and Bar Pilots. Vessels headed upriver are piloted by the Crescent Pilots and those headed down river are piloted by the Bar Pilots. Pilottown was settled about 100 years ago when traffic on the Mississippi River shifted from one channel to another. This forced river pilots to abandon their station about five miles downriver. Other people followed, attracted by the nearby National Delta Wildlife Refuge. In the 19th and early 20th century, many pilots and their families lived here. The peak population was likely reached in the 1860's when Balize had a population of over 800 people. The repeated devastation caused by violent storms and hurricanes caused most residents to relocate. Today the permanent population of Pilottown is less than 20 people.
The town now consists of a few buildings built on piers and connected by raised sidewalks. Only the Crescent River Port Pilots’ Association has housing in Pilottown for their members on call. Accessible only by boat or by helicopter, Pilottown is located on the swampy ground of the lower Mississippi River Delta, about 85 miles downriver from New Orleans (65 miles by air) and about 10 miles south of Venice, Louisiana. It is just upriver from the point where the river splits into multiple branches. Despite the remote location, the Crescent Pilots’ Station has the latest technology and communication equipment to ensure the safe and efficient flow of maritime commerce.
River pilot entering pilot's clubhouse, Pilottown, Louisiana, September 1938In Pilottown, the pilots are on call day and night so some sleep during the day.
Pilottown intrigues me. Here are links to more information and stories:
History of River Piloting
About Pilottown
Interviews with Pilottown residents
My river information tells me that Pilottown is at mile marker 2.0, not 0.0. So there is yet more.
HEAD OF PASSES (GPS: 29.151346, -89.251231)
On the map, in the water, is the term "Head of Passes". This is mile marker 0.0.
The official end of the Mississippi River
The Mississippi River officially ends here, 953.8 river miles from Cairo, Illinois. At this point, the stream divides into three channels, 1) Pass a Louture, 2) South Pass, 3) Southwest Pass. They each branch into smaller passes and all eventually empty into the Gulf of Mexico.
Early French navigators favored the Southeast Pass off Pass a Louture and France fortified an outpost named Balize on its banks. The first Civil War river Battle was fought at the Head of Passes in 1861. It was one of the few Confederate naval victories of the war.
The Passes were a constant problem for the port of New Orleans in the 1800's. At high water passage was easy, but at low water heavy ships often could not find an open channel between river and sea.
In 1875, the U.S. Congress contracted with the pioneering river engineer Captain James B. Eads to open a reliable channel to the sea. (Eads had completed building the giant bridge over the Mississippi at St Louis the previous year.) Congress drove a hard bargain with Eads: If he failed they paid him nothing; if he succeeded they would pay him eight million dollars. Eads built a system of jetties on the South Pass, and within four years the river had dug itself a 30-foot deep channel to the sea.
Early in the 1900's a similar jetty system created a 40-foot channel in the Southwest Pass, and it became the major route for ocean-going vessels.
This is what the end of the Mississippi River looks like:
This is the end of the Mississippi River
We didn't get to Pilottown or Head of Passes. Although, if I had taken the time, and coughed up the money, I know I could have gotten a boat to take me to both.
So this is the end of the Mississippi River:Venice -- The official end of the Great River Road and the last place accessible by auto.
Pilottown -- The last inhabited location on the river; accessible only by boat or helicopter.
Head of Passes -- A geographical mark in the water signifying the official end of the river.
We did get to Venice; explored, took pictures, and of course found a restaurant -- CrawGators Bar & Grill at GPS: 29.240208, -89.364915. Their Seafood Gumbo is delicious. Be sure to drop in the next time you're in the neighborhood.
Crawgator Bar and Grill
OUR GREAT RIVER ROAD TRIP BEGINS
The trip begins here and now
The camera data on this picture says 2:22 PM (CDT), May 15, 2017, so let's declare that as the start of our Great River Road trip.
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Bayou Segnette State Park
7777 Westbank Expressway
Westwego, LA 70094
GPS: 29.88990o, -090.16239o
The Great River
The Mississippi River is truly our Great River. It bisects the nation from north to south. The headwaters are nestled deep in the woods of northern Minnesota and it empties into the Gulf of Mexico among the oil rigs and shrimp boats of extreme southern Louisiana. Each end is contained within a single state, but throughout its length, it serves as the border between states – eight in all; three on the western shore, five on the eastern shore. The Mississippi River looms large in the affairs of ten states.
Every drop of rain that falls between the Appalachians and the Rockies eventually flows in this river. Along its length, it is fed by five major tributaries: the Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri, Ohio and Red rivers. Given their flow volumes, major Ohio River tributaries like the Allegheny, Tennessee, and Wabash rivers are considered important tributaries to the Mississippi system. While the depth and width of the river varies along its course, a steady flow of 600,000 cubic feet per second (16 billion gallons per hour) of water passes by New Orleans at a speed of three miles per hour.
The Great River Road
Much more than I know and way too much to tell in a single blog post. So here is an introductory quote from Wikipedia and a link to more.
The Great River Road is a collection of state and local roads that follow the course of the Mississippi River through ten states of the United States. They are Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana.
The term "Great River Road" refers both to a series of roadways and to a larger region inside the US and in each state, used for tourism and historic purposes. Some states have designated or identified regions of state interest along the road and use the roads to encompass those regions.
It is divided into two main sections: the Great River Road and the National Scenic Byway Route. The eponymous segment runs on both sides of the river from Louisiana through the state borders of Kentucky/Illinois and Missouri/Iowa, excepting the full length of the road in Arkansas. A five-state section of the road has been designated a National Scenic Byway, running through Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Read more at Wikipedia
When I first learned of the Great River Road, it screamed "ROAD TRIP!". The Great River Road is for the RVer what the Appalachian Trail and John Muir Trail are for the hiker. How could I not do this trip?
"North to south" or "south to north"? A question quickly answered by another question. "Where do I want to be in the heat of late August/early September?" I chose the cool forest of Minnesota over the steamy swamps of Louisiana. So "south to north" it is.
Now we are here in New Orleans to begin our trip at the end of the river.
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Bayou Segnette State Park
7777 Westbank Expressway
Westwego, LA 70094
GPS: 29.88990o, -090.16239o
New Orleans, LA (NOLA) has a number of illustrative nicknames:
The Big Easy
is possibly a reference by musicians in the early 20th century to the relative ease of finding work there. It also may have originated in the Prohibition era, when the city was considered one big speak-easy due to the inability of the federal government to control alcohol sales in open violation of the 18th Amendment. But locals attribute the widespread use of the nickname The Big Easy to the late Betty Guillaud, a gossip columnist from the Times-Picayune. They say that Guillaud used the term first in the early 1970s to compare life in New York City—the Big Apple—to life in New Orleans—The Big Easy.
Crescent City
alludes to the course of the Lower Mississippi River around and through the city.
The City that Care Forgot
has been used since at least 1938, and refers to the outwardly easy-going, carefree nature of many of the residents.
Regardless of its nicknames or where they came from, New Orleans was our destination today, our fourth travel day.
Travel Day 4 -- Pensacola, FL to New Orleans, LA
Near the Mississippi / Louisiana border, we stopped at a Louisiana Welcome Center. Most of the brochures advertised sights (predominantly restaurants) in New Orleans, but we were able to gather some state-wide information. Sitting at a table, apart from the information counter, was a young man offering himself as a walking tour guide for the French Quarter. I admired his out of the ordinary marketing technique (we were still about fifty miles from NOLA) so I took his business card and resolved to give him our business while we are in the city.
These 215 miles would be our last westward travel. At New Orleans, we will turn north and begin our Great River Road adventure. A little less than seven hours had passed when we reached our campground – Bayou Segnette State Park in Westwego, LA – a suburb of New Orleans on the south side of the Mississippi River.
This is a nice park, situated so that it is hard to see or hear that you are in a big city. The last few miles of the drive were through the heart of New Orleans and there was no doubt that we were in the big city. For us, pulling the rig through downtown New Orleans was a white knuckle experience.
Setup was uneventful, hot, and humid. Uneventful I like. Hot and humid ... well, I better get used to it.
No grand dining adventure tonight. Hot dogs and hamburgers at the campsite did the job. Then a shower and call it a day.
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Big Lagoon State Park
12301 Gulf Beach Hwy
Pensacola, FL 32507
GPS: 30.31380o, -087.41318o
Elevation: 223 feet
"Wake Up To Wonderful" is the tagline for The Egg and I Restaurant where we began our second full day in Pensacola. This chain restaurant is a new one in our book of eating experiences. The food and service were good. So have a meal there if you encounter one. The name "Egg and I" recalled a book that was popular many years ago, so I looked it up. Here is what Wikipedia told me:
The Egg and I, first published in 1945, is a humorous memoir by American author Betty MacDonald about her adventures and travels as a young wife on a chicken farm on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. The book is based on the author's experiences as a newlywed in trying to acclimate and operate a small chicken farm with her first husband Robert Heskett from 1927 to 1931 near Chimacum, Washington. On visits with her family in Seattle, she told stories of their tribulations, which greatly amused them. In the 1940s, MacDonald's sisters strongly encouraged her to write a book about these experiences. The Egg and I was MacDonald's first attempt at writing a book.
So much for useless trivia.
Today we took a guided tour of the Historic Pensacola Project by University of West Florida Historic Trust Museum – a small section of downtown Pensacola set aside to capture the early history of the city and thereby west Florida. Groups of noisy school children, loud buses, and intermittent rain with lightning and thunder made the job of our poor tour guide almost impossible and our experience less than three stars.
Like most others, this tour walked us through the preserved homes of a few of the wealthy, as the guide gave us the story of their lives in the face of hardship in this wild and hostile land. Reflect though that hardship is a relative thing. Those who faced real hardship never had a house to be preserved and placed on a historic tour. They went nameless to the grave as will most of us.
Amidst the thunder and lightning, a bolt of lightning hit me that makes the story for this post.
I grew up in Philadelphia, PA, what is known as 'the mid-Atlantic'. Our history is simple. We were a British colony, then a commonwealth in the USA. Never anything else. Period, end of story.
Not so with this part of the country, and many parts of the world for that matter. What happens to normal life if every few years you belong to a different country? A new government, new laws, new language, new currency, new history taught in schools. How about new definitions of legal and illegal? How does an attorney practice law? What about contract law? And inheritance law?
I put this together to illustrate what I believe could have, should have, and probably was chaos.
Time Capsule of Western Florida
1513 -- First European contact made by Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León
1539 -- Spanish Conquistador Hernando de Soto skirted the coast of Florida and entered the Mississippi River.
1565 -- Saint Augustine founded by Spanish admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés (that is east Florida)
| YEARS | RULER | DURATION (yrs) |
| 1559–1719 | Spain | 180 |
| 1719–1722 | France | 3 |
| 1722–1763 | Spain | 41 |
| 1763–1781 | Britain | 18 |
| 1781–1821 | Spain | 40 |
| 1821–1861 | USA | 40 |
| 1861–1865 | CSA | 3 |
| 1865 to present | USA | 152 so far |
What happened to the average settlers who ventured to this new land, encouraged by their home government with the promise of great fortune? Did they give it all up and head home when the administration changed? Life went on somehow. So maybe none of this mattered. After all, most of this political monopoly game was being played thousands of miles away across an ocean. When I thought about it, my head spun.
This query was not part of our guide's script, so he continued to talk about the difficulty of having pianos and wallpaper shipped from Europe to the settlements in the new world. Maybe I should stop speculating and do some research myself?
After the tour fell apart due to the rain, we took refuge in the Pensacola Bay Brewery, where I tried a local brew whose name I didn't write down.
A welcome respite on a rainy day
I bought one of these glasses to add to my collection.
The rain stopped but everything was still drippy, so we spent some time in the museum. I recognized some of this from my youth, proving that I belong in a museum.
I commuted to high school on trollies like this one. They were green though.
We finished off our day with dinner at Hub Stacey's At The Point
Hub Stacey's At The Point --
an interesting restaurant near our campground
Michelle and I each had a cup of Lobster Bisque and half a Tuna Salad sandwich. Delicious.
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