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Been Thinking About, Episode #27: History of Now, Mississippi IV, Shepherd of the Hills Country
Join Editor-in-Chief Joshua Heston and Ethan Grubaugh along with Josh Ong to talk about rivers, history, riverboats, the Shepherd of the Hills country, Civil War history, Hulston Mill, and more.
Podcast Partners: Vintage Paris Coffee Shop: Hand-crafted coffees and community; Josh Huxtable, SOTO Patron, Christine Riutzel, Beauty from Light; Shepherd the Musical: Rediscovering America’s Story, Stafford’s Barber Shop & Shave Company: The Place for Men in Downtown Branson, Taney County Health Department: Creating Opportunities for Healthy Lives in Our Community, and Blue Rock Print Company: Upgrade Your Look!
Stories Discussed:
Shepherd of the Hills Country (1913-1960) by J. Thomas
Civil Wars Days at Hulston Mill
Been thinking about…
The history of now.
Last fall I got to go aboard the permanently docked Mississippi IV, a part of the Jesse Brent Lower Mississippi River Museum in Vicksburg. The museum is free and it took several hours to wander through the whole thing, particularly the boat — a magnificently giant paean to post-WWII American industrialism.
The boat was launched in 1961 and retired in 1993. My short time aboard was unsettling, satisfying, warm and eerie, but not necessarily in that order. Here I was, looking at a museum ship. History. All in the modern-day of 2018.
And yet it wasn’t history I was looking at. It was a chunk of my own past.
My own past I hadn’t quite realized had… well… passed.
The overstuffed and shiny beige vinyl couches in the ship’s “lobby” where countless river commission meetings had been held? The furniture I grew up sitting on (and occasionally dismantling to play airplane) was likely made of the same stuff and possibly in the same year!
The shape and feel of the room? Something akin to Star Trek: The Next Generation sets except the windows looked out over historic Vicksburg instead of fictional Vulcan.
Downstairs in the cavernous engine room rested the “two 8-cylinder Nordberg engines, each capable of developing 1,860 horsepower.” The Mississippi IV was called “Big Shaky” for its engine vibrations that could never quite be resolved. The place smelled like oil and looked like Scotty should walk out from behind a bulkhead, muttering, “I’m givin’ her all ah’ got, Captain.”
Can you tell Star Trek featured prominently in my late childhood?
The expansive mess hall featured a bountiful array of tasty-looking display food. Here it was canned corn and fried chicken and apple pie and icebox rolls. This felt like home. Weirdly. Strangely. Again.
Had they checked with my mom on the recipes?
This was a boat built in the Midwest by Midwesterners. For river travel. These were my rivers. My people. I grew up in a small Illinois river town, watching towboats ply the river, barges loaded with grain and coal bound for Chicago and St. Louis and New Orleans.
And, though I never became an engineer like
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By Joshua Heston and Ethan GrubaughJoin Editor-in-Chief Joshua Heston and Ethan Grubaugh along with Josh Ong to talk about rivers, history, riverboats, the Shepherd of the Hills country, Civil War history, Hulston Mill, and more.
Podcast Partners: Vintage Paris Coffee Shop: Hand-crafted coffees and community; Josh Huxtable, SOTO Patron, Christine Riutzel, Beauty from Light; Shepherd the Musical: Rediscovering America’s Story, Stafford’s Barber Shop & Shave Company: The Place for Men in Downtown Branson, Taney County Health Department: Creating Opportunities for Healthy Lives in Our Community, and Blue Rock Print Company: Upgrade Your Look!
Stories Discussed:
Shepherd of the Hills Country (1913-1960) by J. Thomas
Civil Wars Days at Hulston Mill
Been thinking about…
The history of now.
Last fall I got to go aboard the permanently docked Mississippi IV, a part of the Jesse Brent Lower Mississippi River Museum in Vicksburg. The museum is free and it took several hours to wander through the whole thing, particularly the boat — a magnificently giant paean to post-WWII American industrialism.
The boat was launched in 1961 and retired in 1993. My short time aboard was unsettling, satisfying, warm and eerie, but not necessarily in that order. Here I was, looking at a museum ship. History. All in the modern-day of 2018.
And yet it wasn’t history I was looking at. It was a chunk of my own past.
My own past I hadn’t quite realized had… well… passed.
The overstuffed and shiny beige vinyl couches in the ship’s “lobby” where countless river commission meetings had been held? The furniture I grew up sitting on (and occasionally dismantling to play airplane) was likely made of the same stuff and possibly in the same year!
The shape and feel of the room? Something akin to Star Trek: The Next Generation sets except the windows looked out over historic Vicksburg instead of fictional Vulcan.
Downstairs in the cavernous engine room rested the “two 8-cylinder Nordberg engines, each capable of developing 1,860 horsepower.” The Mississippi IV was called “Big Shaky” for its engine vibrations that could never quite be resolved. The place smelled like oil and looked like Scotty should walk out from behind a bulkhead, muttering, “I’m givin’ her all ah’ got, Captain.”
Can you tell Star Trek featured prominently in my late childhood?
The expansive mess hall featured a bountiful array of tasty-looking display food. Here it was canned corn and fried chicken and apple pie and icebox rolls. This felt like home. Weirdly. Strangely. Again.
Had they checked with my mom on the recipes?
This was a boat built in the Midwest by Midwesterners. For river travel. These were my rivers. My people. I grew up in a small Illinois river town, watching towboats ply the river, barges loaded with grain and coal bound for Chicago and St. Louis and New Orleans.
And, though I never became an engineer like