December 2015

December 31, 2015March 20, 2021

Dutchtown: Flood of 1993

Some of you have been wondering where I’ve been. I was busy in Cape getting a boat ready to pull down to Florida for Kid Adam, then it was a long slog south because of weather. When you’ve been gone from home for months, there are a number of things you have to catch up on. If you don’t accept all those excuses, I’ll have to fall back on “the dog ate my homework” and hope you don’t know that I don’t own a dog. (I’m owned by a cat, but they rarely eat homework.)

OK, to bring us back to the headline, I was in Chicago for phone switch training when the Flood of 1993 was going on. I told the boss that I’d pay any difference in ticket price to do a stopover in Missouri for a couple of days, so I could see the high water.

Dad’s construction company owned a piece of ground at the southeast corner of Highways 25 and 74 in Dutchtown. It had gone under in 1973, and was revisited by water backing up from the Mississippi River in 1993. Brother Mark and I rented a canoe to explore the property at the height of the flood. The building we’re headed toward was what we called the mechanics shed.

Big enough to hold heavy equipment

The building had a super-thick slab strong enough to hold bulldozers and draglines when they needed repair and maintenance. Half of it was set aside for mechanical and welding work, and the other side had storage cabinets and a carpentry setup.

The first challenge was how to open the door. The Master lock was located just beyond where you could reach it comfortably without tipping the canoe over. My key ring, 22 years later, is still bent from trying to twist the lock open.

Not a pretty sight

Mark’s first peek showed stuff bobbing around all over the place. We lost some good table and band saws because we never thought the water would come up so high and so fast.

How do we get through the door?

The next challenge was how to get a wide canoe through a narrow door. It was part of family lore that Dad once built a boat in a basement on Themis street, then figured out it was too big to get out. I never knew for sure if that was true, and he’s not around to either confirm or deny the story.

I REALLY didn’t want to go swimming, and I REALLY, REALLY didn’t want to spill all my camera gear in the drink, but how can you pass up an opportunity like this?

I went first

I managed get the bow of the canoe far enough into the building to rig a 2×8 or 2×10 board between the top of a cabinet and some shelving, and clambered out. Mark handed up everything that was in the boat and followed my lead.

Once the boat was empty, he was able to twist it enough to get it through the door.

Mark doesn’t look comfortable

He’s giving me the look that says, “I bet you’ve rigged that board to dump me. I can’t figure out HOW you did it, but I’m pretty sure something nasty is going to happen.”

Snakes?

He looked even more uncomfortable when I started sharing snake stories from other floods and hurricanes I had covered. “Don’t forget,” I warned him, “snakes are looking for high ground, and they might mistake you for high ground.”

Compressor was flood casualty

There was a huge, industrial-size air compressor on the mechanic side of the shed that wasn’t bolted to the floor. When the water came up, the air tank on the bottom started to float, but the heavy motor and compressor on the top caused the unit to flip over. Had it been bolted down, the water wouldn’t have gotten up high enough to do any damage. Mark’s using the big ceiling hoist to get it out of the water.

We asked someone if they thought the compressor was salvageable, but we were told that the motor was probably shot. We gave it no thought for about ten years until Brother-in-Law John came down to help us with something. He said he’d take the thing off our hands.

Sure enough, when I went over to his shop a couple of weeks ago, the compressor was puttering away as good as new. I’m glad it found a good home.

On the same side as the compressor was our ski boat, The Mary Lou, floating, still attached to its trailer. (You’ll hear more about The Mary Lou later.)

Water marks

When I got back to Cape several months later, the armpit-high water marks on the buildings were still evident. Mark may be my “little brother,” but he’s not that little.

I saw drone aerial photos of the property shot a couple of days ago. The water is already into the buildings, and I suspect that Mark and I could take a canoe through the big shed pretty much the same at 1993 if the water crests as high as predicted.

December 16, 2015

MV Donna Griffin

Road Warriorette Shari came down from St. Louis the other week with a list of places she wanted to go: Old Appleton (where we saw the old Silver Dollar Tavern just hours before it was torn down), the Mississippi Mud Tavern for Liver and Onions Night, the Lutheran Heritage Center’s Christmas tree exhibit, and Trail of Tears State Park.

From the Mississippi River overlook, we were lucky enough to catch the MV Donna Griffin coming upstream. We could hear her talking to another boat to arrange a passing, but I think it was well north of us, so we didn’t get to see that. We could hear a train whistle in the distance, but it must have been on the Illinois side, so we missed seeing two major transportation systems at the same time.

Rigging amazes me

It always amazes me how the pilots and captains can maneuver long strings of barges around sharp bends and between bridge piers. I know those straps have to be bigger than they look in this photo, but still, I can’t imagine how much strain is placed on them when the captain needs to move something that’s a thousand-plus feet in front of him.

Here’s a website with some interesting factoids. It says that a standard barge is 195 feet long and 35 feet wide, although some of the newer ones are 290 by 50 feet.

Let’s assume that the ones in the photo are standard length. The string appears to be two wide and six long. That would mean that you have to figure out where to make your turn from nearly 1,200 feet back. Think about THAT the next time you complain about a parallel parking space being a little tight.

You can click on the photo to make it larger, but I didn’t spot anyone on deck checking us out.

Bald Knob Cross

That little white dot on the top of the hill in the distance is the Bald Knob Cross.

Has had three names

The Donna Griffin was built by Nashville Bridge Shipbuilding in 1965. A website, reports that she was named the Julia Woods until May 2006, when she became the Michelle O’Neil. In May 2009, she was renamed the Donna Griffin. I didn’t find anything that explained who the boat was named for nor the significance of changing the names in May.

A shipbuilding site said Nashville Bridge Company was originally a bridge builder, founded in the 1890s. It was converted to shipbuilding in 1915 and, by the 1960s, it was said to be the world’s largest builder of inland barges. George Steinbrenner bought it in 1969 and added a second yard in Ashland City in 1977; he sold the company to Trinity Marine Group in 1995. Trinity closed the Nashville yard in 1996, when the City of Nashville decided that the downtown shipyard property would be more valuable to the community as a stadium.

She is 180.1 feet long, 50.5 feet wide, and the hull depth is 11.5 feet.

The towboat is owned by Ingram Barge of Nashville, the largest carrier on the inland waterway system.

December 14, 2015December 14, 2015

Morley Mystery Marker

I was photographing the Morley Community Building – a structure that may have been a bank in an earlier life – and looked down at my feet to see a strange disk that looked like a survey marker. The only thing is that I had never seen one that looked exactly like this one.

Who or what was Norman Lambert?

The round marker bore “Norman Lambert” across the top, some indecipherable marks in the middle, an arrow which pointed approximately north and “LS 1492” or “LS 1402” on the bottom. Click on the photo to make it larger.

A Google search for that name turned up two references: a 2008 Missourian story said the Scott county commissioners met with Norman Lambert of Lambert Engineering and Surveying, engineer for the Scott County Consolidated Drainage District No. 2, during their regular meeting Tuesday. He’s a logical candidate, but I still don’t know what the marker marks.

The other Norman Lambert to pop up was the Lambert who first started tossing rolls in Lambert’s Cafe, which eventually became known as the Home of Throwed Rolls.

Center has seen better days

A peek through the glass front door shows that the roof must be leaking. It’s a shame that such a beautiful building from the outside is being allowed to deteriorate inside.

City dates back to 1868 or 1869

Depending on which source you believe, the city was laid out in 1868 or 1869 by John Morley, a railroad engineer (the civil kind, not the kind that blows a whistle), and it was named for him.

Railroads intersected here

The Iron Mountain Railroad and Louis Houck’s M&A Railroad intersected here. Later, the Missouri Pacific would pass through the town.

Cotton gins are gone

Melons and cotton were important crops in the latter part of the 19th Century and into the 20th. Several cotton gins were built in the town, but none remain today.

These silos are still dominate the skyline, though.

December 13, 2015December 15, 2015

Holland, Missouri

The two most prominent feature in many Bootheel communities include the city limits sign and the water tower. Holland, in Pemiscot county, is not exception. Click on the photos to make them larger.

Population 229

The 2010 population of Holland was 229 people in 98 households and 62 families. In the 2000 census, the numbers were 246, 96 and 71.

May have been named for J.W. Holland

Place Names of Six Southeast Counties of Missouri identifies Holland as a town in the eastern part of Holland Township on the Frisco Railroad. The first known settlement, which was made in 1871, was known as Middleburg because it was midway between Upper Cowskin (later known as Covington), and Cooter.

The town was laid out in 1902 by J.C. Winters and J.W. Holland and named for the latter. A post office was established in the same year. No proof exists for Eaton’s statement that the town was so named because, like much of the country of Holland, it was built on reclaimed land formerly submerged; however, the selection of Mr. Holland’s name rather than Mr. Winter’s was doubtless influenced by the name of the country.

Unusual house

The first thing I saw when I drove into Holland was a pair of strange-shaped houses, apparently abandoned. My guide, David Kelley, said the builder was trying to provide housing with a bare minimum of materials. Instead of a single building, this one is a series of rooms joined together by hallways.