Abstract
The Lower Mississippi River flows from the confluence of the Ohio River and Mississippi River at Cairo, Illinois into the Gulf of Mexico. Mississippi River and Ohio River pathway shifts have shaped and re-shaped the landscapes through which they flow and where their sediment-laden tributary waters co-mingle at the confluence on the voyage to the Gulf of Mexico. For much of their history, the lands adjacent to the Lower Mississippi River were bottomlands that flooded with the seasons unconstrained by human river training structures. Since 1717 European nations have fought over strategic navigational control of the Mississippi River. After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the United States took controlled the Lower Mississippi River. During the Civil War, from 1861-1865, the Union and Confederate forces battled for navigational control of the Lower Mississippi River. The primary objective of this paper was to highlight how the strategic navigational and flooding control of the Lower Mississippi River and geological and landscape resources were responsible for the successful economic development of this rich historical region of North America.
Highlights
European Settlement and Management of the Lower Mississippi River LandscapesThe French established a claim to Louisiana and New Orleans in 1717
The Lower Mississippi River flows from the confluence of the Ohio River and Mississippi River at Cairo, Illinois into the Gulf of Mexico
Union gunboats (Figure 16 and Figure 17) built at Mound City, Illinois in the early 1860s, just north of Cairo, enabled Union troops to use the rivers to launch surprise attacks on forts located on the Ohio, Lower Mississippi, Cumberland and Tennessee rivers
Summary
The Mississippi and Ohio rivers and their adjacent landscapes have a long and dramatic geological history stretching back billions of years. Shifts in the earth’s crust, tectonic activity, and rising and falling sea levels altered landforms and river flows. More recently in the geological time scale of the earth (2.6 million years ago to present) was the glaciation of the North America Hemisphere and a period of rapid climate fluctuations with advances of ice sheets alternating with warmer interglacial periods [3]. Fluctuations in meltwater flowing southward into the Gulf of Mexico repeatedly rerouted the ancient Mississippi and Ohio River channels [4] as glaciers advanced during colder climatic periods and retreated in warmer intervals
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