Excerpt from Satirical History of MISSOURI
NEW “ALL-TOO-TRUE-BLUE” (ALTERNATIVE) STATE HISTORIES
1673 -- Romeo and Joliet
Jacques “Romeo” Marquette and Louis Joliet floated down the Mississippi on a raft in 1673, smoking pipes and spinning yarns. They got lost near Cairo and started a feud between the Shepherdsons and the Grangerfords.
One day, they baited their hook with applejack and caught a catfish. This particular catfish was so big that it towed them (while they were still on their raft) under the water, where they saw mermaids and sunken steamboats.
Finally, the ginormous catfish pulled them up onto the bank. Jacques got unceremoniously “bucked” off by the catfish, but Louis jumped on his back and rode him all around, saddled him up and went into town. People came running, looking, and dogs were a-barking. It was something to see. A shrink hooked some electrodes to Joliet’s brain and recorded this dreamscape of the catfish:
1803 – France Sells Missouri to the Ewe-Knighted States
Napoleon Dynamite sold Missouri to Thomas Jefferson in 1803. He had his hands full with wars elsewhere, and was afraid if he didn’t sell it, it would be taken away from him when he was otherwise occupied.
Here’s a picture of Napoleon at the “fire sale.” You can see by the painting that Michelangelo made on the ceiling (for reference for the parties of the first part and second part during the negotiations) that they sold Tommy Boy (Jefferson) a bunch of other junk, too, not just Missouri. In fact, you don’t see Missouri on the painting, because Michelangelo was allergic to mules. Missouri was part of the land office deal, though, I can assure you of that.
1804 -- Lewis & Clark
As soon as he had his new toy, Tom Jefferson sent his indentured servants Jerry Lewis and Roy Clark to survey his new property. They left St. Louis on May 14th, 1804, heading west.
Lewis & Clark were away so long that many people assumed they had died, either of old age or from being trampled by rhinoceroses or something. They weren’t, though; they made it there (to the Pacific Ocean). And back.
This map shows the route they took. The red line is the trip out, and the blue line is the route back. Or the other way around. I don’t know. Ask them, if’n you really want to find out.
1811 & 1812 -- New Madrid Earthquakes
The New Madrid earthquakes were unexpected. Southeastern Missouri is not a place known for a lot of tremblors. But when one hit the region, it turned out to be “the mother of all earthquakes.”
The first quake hit December 16th, 1811; there were many more for several months. The last major one, and the biggest and deadliest one of them all, occurred on February 7th, 1812. These quakes were centered in New Madrid, in the “bootheel” section of the State.
Note: Although Missouri did previously belong to Spain, New Madrid is pronounced New MAD-rid, not New Ma-DRID, like the city in Spain.
The February 7th quake shook cabins to pieces not only in St. Louis, but even four hundred miles away in Cincinnati, Ohio. It uprooted trees in Kentucky, rang church bells a thousand miles away in Boston, and rattled plates and saucers (which may have gone flying) way up in Montreal, Canada.
All in all, an area encompassing what would become twenty-seven States was affected (as well as parts of Canada). Five thousand square miles of land were permanently changed. Among these alterations was the disappearance of some Mississippi River islands.
This February 7th New Madrid quake was the strongest in Ewe-Knighted States history. Although seismographs were not available at the time, it has been estimated that at least three of the quakes (the two dates already mentioned plus January 23rd, 1812) exceeded 8.0 on the Richter scale. It is worth noting that each full number on the scale represents a force tenfold greater than the preceding full number—in other words, an 8.0 earthquake is ten times as strong as a 7.0 earthquake (such as the one that struck San Francisco, California, in 1906).
The power unleashed during that most severe quake was so massive that the 2,300-mile long mighty Mississippi changed course, diverted water (one consequence of which was the forming of Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee), created temporary waterfalls that claimed several boats—which capsized when they plunged over the falls--, opened up fissures below the River which generated large whirlpools that sucked boats into its depths, killed dozens or possibly hundreds of people (even though the region was sparsely settled), and even caused the Mississippi to flow backwards for a time.
In this satellite photo graciously provided by Brazil’s Brazil Nut Cooperative, you can see Daniel Boone’s wife Rebecca fleeing their cabin with their son Bret (who later became a professional baseball player):
1820 – Missouri Compromise
In a battle that had been brewing for eons, Missouri compromised with Maine in 1820 by saying they would stop trying to plant cranberry bogs if Maine would stop trying to cultivate mules.
Irrational exuberance reigned as the deal was struck, and mule-headed politicians in Congress had an epiphany about the possibility of the farmer and the cowman being friends:
Congress was so impressed with Missouri’s mule/cranberry deal of the year before that they forced Missouri to become a State the next year. Missouri became the first state entirely west of the Mississippi, and the first one from that vast tract of land sold by Napoleon to Tommy Boy Jefferson.
1857 – Dred Scott Case
A dude named Dred Scott moved from Illinois to Missouri and grew some dreadlocks. That sartorial follicle splendor is named for him, in fact.
Oddly enough, his family sued him for this breech of fashion etiquette, wanting him to go back to his tired old crew cut. They went to court over the matter. The jury was deadlocked, though, and threw out the case by reason of insanity in the 3rd degree.
So Dred’s wife, Delilah, took matters into her own hands and cut off his locks one night as he lay sleeping. Here he is on finding out his “dreds” had been severed (you can tell he misses them terribly):
1870 – Great Steamboat Race
Before NASCAR, Big-time wrestling, informercials, and reality shows, people sought their entertainment playing with yo-yos, kicking cans down the street, and watching steamboats race.
Steamboat racing was dangerous. Accidents were common on steamboats, even when racing was not taking place. When steamboats exploded or otherwise came to grief, people often died by the score. Mark Twain’s little brother Henry Clemens died in one of these catastrophes in 1858, when the steamboat he was working on exploded.
In 1870, Robert E. Lee finally won. Not the guy who looks like Martin Sheen, the steamboat named for him. Two steamboats, the one just mentioned and Natchez raced from New Orleans to St. Louis.
The race generated so much enthusiasm that huge crowds lined the banks of the Mississippi along that stretch of the river. In fact, spectators came from all over the world to view the spectacle. Reporters from big cities far away covered the race; not only from New York, but also from London and Paris.
A new record was set as the underdog boat, the Robert E. Lee, completed the trip in three days, eighteen hours, and fourteen minutes.
As the steamboats arrived at St. Louis, those aboard could see the pilings for a railroad bridge being constructed there. The writing was on the wall, so to speak: As a day can go out with the “blaze of glory” of a magnificent sunset, so the steamboat era was waning at the very height of its excitement.
Steamboats had in fact contributed to their own demise by transporting materials up the Missouri River to Omaha to begin the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad.
A century later, Canadian Robbie Robertson wrote a song called The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down which namechecks the Robert E. Lee; Joan Baez sang a beautiful and very popular version of it.
RR’s own band, The Band, also recorded it:
Note: That winning time of 3.77 days? Today you could travel from New Orleans to St. Louis by car in about 10 hours – nine times faster than the Robert E. Lee did in 1870.
1882 -- Jesse James Killed
In 1882, the outlaw Jesse James was killed in St. Joseph by Bob Ford, a man who Jesse knew well and sometimes hated. Actually, Jesse trusted Bob -- until he heard the cocking of the pistol behind him as he stood on a chair to straighten a picture hanging crookedly on the wall in his home (homicidal maniacs can be finicky about home decor).
In a quirk and twist of history, Bob Ford happened to have been the owner of the theater in Washington, D.C. where Abraham Lincoln just about laughed his head off when John Wilkes Booth streaked across the stage.
Here’s Jesse making a fairly decent start on a neckbeard:
1904 -- World’s Fair in St. Louis
The World’s Fair took place in St. Louis in 1904. While looking at the following stereopticon image (assuming you don’t have one of those old contraptions), you can mimic the effect by looking at the image on your left with your right eye, and the image on the right with your left eye.
“They” filmed a documentary about the lead-up to this fair, too. It was named Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis. Some chick named Trudy Garner or something like that was in it, I guess:
1907 – Shepherd of the Hills
Harold Whistle Wright’s Shepherd of the Hills was published in 1907. The novel is set in the Ozarks of northern Arkansas and southern Missouri.
Just like Meet Me in St. Louis, Wright’s book was immortalized in celluloid. Here you can see two of the supporting actors in Shepherd of the Hills, Hari-kari and Duke Snider. Hari went on to find fame as a sportscaster, while Duke played for the Brooklyn Dodgers once his acting career fizzled out.
. . .
Each Saturday and Tuesday an excerpt of one State’s (satirized) history will be posted here, in alphabetical order (from Alabama to Wyoming).
For “the rest of the story,” the (32-page) complete book “The New All-too-True-Blue History of Missouri” is available here.
The regions of the U.S. have been combined into volumes, too; [State] is included in the volume The New All-too-True-Blue History of the American Midwest
You can listen to this excerpt here.
Blackbird Crow Raven is also the author of the book “the Zany Time Travels of Warble McGorkle”