Minnesota River Interviews - Bob Smith

"From the homeplace ... the trees weren’t grown up like they are now so we could look out our kitchen window and watch the boats go up and down and hear the whistles."

Video Text: "I remember when the steamboats used to go up and down the river. I was just a kid, just big enough to remember stuff like that. From the homeplace [just down the road], the trees weren’t grown up like they are now so we could look out our kitchen window and watch the boats go up and down and hear the whistles. Excursion boats they called it and people would be standing on the top deck and on the railing and people on the lower deck. It was excursion boats. I never did go on one. I was too small.

There is a steamboat that was wrecked out there and whatever is still left of it all went under a big sandbar. The bend in the river is a big sandbar. It used to be a big bend and now it is starting to be cut off."
 

This page was last updated 8/08