Panel #60 Mississippi Riverwalk

A) Tiptonville, Tennessee
Mile 872.8 AHP

Its ridge-top location has kept Tiptonville dry through every flood since it was founded in the early 1800s. It was a flourishing little river town by the beginning of the Civil War, and served as a Confederacy supply depot for the garrison at Island No. 10. After the island fell, the town surrendered. Sometime after the war, the Mississippi deposited a large sandbar in front of the town, and today Tiptonville lies more than a mile from the river. It is the center of commerce for the Reelfoot Lake recreational area.

B) Bixby Towhead
Mile 873.9 AHP

This sandbar was likely named for Captain Horace Bixby, a veteran river pilot of the 1800s. Bixby was piloting an old steamer named the Paul Jones, in 1855, when he took on a young apprentice named Sam Clemens. For a year and a half, Clemens was Bixby's "cub pilot," leaning the secrets of the river and the skills needed to navigate it. Years later, when Sam Clemens had become Mark Twain, he immortalized Captain Bixby in his autobiographical book Life on the Mississippi.

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Show me all markers in:  Memphis, TN  |  Shelby County  |  38103  |  Tennessee  |  United States of America

The Mississippi Riverwalk
Grand Lake Cutoff/Worthington Cutoff/Kentucky Bend
Skipwith Crevasse/Sara Cutoff/Island No. 89
Hog Point, Louisiana/Raccourci Cutoff/Caernarvon Crevasse
Port Hudson, Louisiana/Fausse River Cutoff
Donaldsonville, Louisiana/Bayou Lafourche/Geismar, Louisiana
White Hall Plantation/Union, Louisiana/Point Houmas
Cairo, Illinois
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Island No. 20/Cottonwood Point/Booth Point, Tennessee/Linwood Bend

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