Itasca State Park, where the Mississippi River begins, is one of the outstanding tourist spots in Minnesota.

For many years the Northwest Company had its southern headquarters at Prairie Du Chien on the Mississippi River, some 300 miles southeast of present-day St. Paul, Minnesota.

In September 1822 two companies of infantry arrived at the mouth of the St. Peter's River, the head of navigation on the Mississippi, and began construction of Fort St. Anthony which, upon completion, was renamed in honor of its commander, Colonel Josiah Snelling.

Below the fort, high bluffs extended uninterruptedly for six miles along the Mississippi River.

Lincoln learned from his chief of staff General Henry Halleck, a student of the European strategist Jomini, of the critical need to control strategic points, such as the Mississippi River ; he also knew well the importance of Vicksburg and understood the necessity of defeating the enemy's army, rather than simply capturing territory.

In the summer of 1861, Davis appointed several generals to defend Confederate lines from the Mississippi River east to the Allegheny Mountains.

The most sensitive, and in many ways the most crucial areas, along the Mississippi River and in western Tennessee along the Tennessee River and the Cumberland River were placed under the command of Maj. Gen. Leonidas Polk and Brig.

To the west, the Union gained control of the Mississippi River after the Battle of Shiloh ( April 1862 ) and Siege of Vicksburg, splitting the Confederacy in two and destroying much of their western army.

* 1862 – American Civil War: the Confederate ironclad is scuttled on the Mississippi River after suffering damage in a battle with near Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

* 2007 – The I-35W Mississippi River bridge spanning the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota, collapses during the evening rush hour.

A polarizing figure who dominated the Second Party System in the 1820s and 1830s, as president he dismantled the Second Bank of the United States and initiated ethnic cleansing and forced relocation of Native American tribes from the Southeast to west of the Mississippi River.

* 1682 – Robert Cavelier de La Salle discovers the mouth of the Mississippi River, claims it for France and names it Louisiana.

Carnegie, through Keystone, supplied the steel for and owned shares in the landmark Eads Bridge project across the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Missouri ( completed 1874 ).

* 1862 – American Civil War: Battle of Baton Rouge – along the Mississippi River near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Confederate troops attempt to take the city, but are driven back by fire from Union gunboats.

* 1865 – The steamboat, carrying 2, 400 passengers, explodes and sinks in the Mississippi River, killing 1, 700, most of whom are Union survivors of the Andersonville and Cahaba Prisons.

In settling the American west it was generally faster to navigate down River from Brownsville, Pennsylvania, to the Ohio River confluence with the Mississippi and then pole up river against the current to St Louis than to travel overland on the rare primitive dirt roads for many decades after the American revolution.

Boone has the highest elevation of any town of its size ( over 10, 000 population ) east of the Mississippi River.

* Lake Bruin, ox-bow lake of the Mississippi River located in northeastern Louisiana

The Mississippi and Nelson watersheds are separated by the Laurentian Divide, which meets the Continental Divide at Triple Divide Peak near the headwaters of the Columbia's Flathead River tributary.

In addition, the I-75 corridor is home to the busiest north-south rail route east of the Mississippi.

Rail cargo service is limited: the Dakota, Minnesota, and Eastern provides connections to other cities in South Dakota and Minnesota, and connects to major rail service along the Mississippi River corridor, but the DM & E also connects to major transcontinental rail lines to the south, in Nebraska and Wyoming.

The pre-Columbian range was thought to include U. S. states east of the Mississippi and south of the Canadian Shield-St. Lawrence corridor.

The eighty-five-mile stretch of the Mississippi River from Baton Rouge to New Orleans was formerly referred to as the " petrochemical corridor " but after media coverage of cancer victims in the small rural communities on both sides of the river, the entire area became known as cancer alley.

Together, they controlled the main north-south trade corridor of the Mississippi River headwaters.

Following the entry of Spain into the American Revolutionary War in 1779, British military planners in London wanted to secure the corridor of the Mississippi River against both Spanish and Patriot activity.

* 1855 – The first bridge over the Mississippi River opens in what is now Minneapolis, Minnesota, a crossing made today by the Father Louis Hennepin Bridge.

Anticipating a call for his services since Mississippi had seceded, Davis had sent a telegraph message to Governor Pettus saying, " Judge what Mississippi requires of me and place me accordingly.

** The first bridge over the Mississippi River opens in what is now Minneapolis, Minnesota ( a crossing made today by the Father Louis Hennepin Bridge ).

Mardi Gras arrived in North America as a French Catholic tradition with the Le Moyne brothers, Pierre Le Moyne d ' Iberville and Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, in the late 17th century, when King Louis XIV sent the pair to defend France's claim on the territory of Louisiane, which included what are now the U. S. states of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

Many ended up west of the Mississippi River in what was then French-colonized Louisiana, including territory as far north as Dakota territory.

The territorial boundaries claimed as sovereign and controlled by the Native American nations living in what was then known as the Indian Territories — the portion of the early United States east of the Mississippi River not yet claimed or allotted to become Oklahoma -- were fixed and determined by national treaties with the United States Federal government under terms recognizing these entities as dependent but internally sovereign, or autonomous nations under the sole jurisdiction of the Federal government.

The Choctaw nation was in what are now the U. S. states of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

In 1805, by the Treaty of Mount Dexter, the Choctaw conveyed large amounts of land in what is now southeastern Mississippi and southwestern Alabama, including much of the western portion of Clarke County, to the United States for settlement by European Americans.

In the 18th century, the Sauk and Meskwaki ( or Fox ) Native American tribes lived along the Mississippi River in what is now the U. S. states of Illinois and Iowa.

Due to topographic changes caused by the New Madrid earthquakes in 1811 and 1812, part of what is now Tipton County was cut off the state of Tennessee by a change in the course of the Mississippi River.

In 1805 Sarah Murphy organized and taught what is believed to have been the first Sunday school west of the Mississippi River.

Mississippi County is located in what was formerly known as " Tywappity Bottom ," a vast area bordered by the Scott County Hills on the north, St. James Bayou on the south, the Mississippi River on the east and Little River on the west.

In 1833, the Mississippi Legislature authorized the formation of 17 counties, including Yalobusha, on what until recently had been Indian land.

Most of the settlers entered the county over what was called Charley's Trace, an Indian trail that came across from the Mississippi river and entered the hills about where Leverett is now located.

He lived on the Green River ( Kentucky ) among the Cherokees in what is now Kentucky and made trips down the Cumberland River to Spanish Natchez ( Natchez, Mississippi ) to sell their furs.

The company had an eastern terminus on the west bank of the Mississippi River across from Baton Rouge in what later became the City of Port Allen.

The original seat of government was the community of St. James, on the west bank of the Mississippi, but this was moved in 1869 to what is now Convent, on the east bank.

For the next 12 years, he was in charge of what the Engineer Department called " the Mississippi and Lake defenses in Louisiana.

It is home to what was once the country's tallest flagpole west of the Mississippi.

In this tumultuous era, the Yazoo Land Scandal forced the Federal Government the take direct control from Georgia of what is now Alabama and Mississippi.

The opening of the rail line through Bethalto enabled the coal milled here to be transported to a dock on the Mississippi River near what is now the town of Hartford.

In 1837, David B. Sears and a group of associates built a stone-and-brush dam across Sylvan Slough, thereby connecting the southern bank of the Mississippi River to what is today called Arsenal Island.

During this time, the Mississippi River cut a valley between what is now Lafayette and Baton Rouge.