On the Banks of the Mississippi

Great River Road, Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico


The Route With its storied history and extensive route, the Mississippi River makes an ideal guide for a road trip — follow the river, see America. That’s exactly what the Great River Road offers. It’s a network of state and local highways running along the full length of the Mississippi. And as the burger stands and cornfields of the North give way to the barbecue shacks and cotton plantations of the South, which makes the Great River Road a classic American drive.

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White signs with a green steamboat pilot’s wheel painted on them mark the 2,000-mile Great River Road route, running from the Mississippi’s source in northern Minnesota to its terminus at the Gulf of Mexico. Driving the whole route takes 10 to 14 days. For shorter trips, it helps to envision the route in three major sections: Minnesota to the Quad Cities (that’s the Davenport, Iowa, and Moline, Ill., area), the Quad Cities to Memphis, and Memphis to New Orleans. Food and lodging are plentiful along the entire route.

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So are great stops. Effigy Mounds National Monument in Harpers Ferry, Iowa, is an ancient Indian burial ground where the burial mounds are shaped like bears and eagles. The John Deere headquarters in Moline features a huge showroom filled with tractors, combines and backhoes — a life-sized collection of your favorite old Tonka toys (and you can even climb into their cabs). Room after room of classic soft-drink memorabilia is on display at the Biedenharn Coca-Cola Museum in Vicksburg, Miss. And Oak Alley in Vacherie, La., is considered by many to be the quintessential Southern plantation, complete with gorgeous furniture inside the big house and the site’s namesake corridor of majestic 300-year-old trees standing sentry outside. Doe's is a renowned steakhouse at 502 Nelson Street in Greenville, MS worth visiting if your tastes run to fine beef. In the days of segregation, the restaurant was only for African-Americans, but whites were allowed to enter at the back.


Worth a Detour
Half an hour east of St. Louis is the irresistibly silly World’s Largest Catsup Bottle, which is actually a water tower erected in 1949 above a now-shuttered catsup factory. The tower was slated for demolition in the mid-’90s, then saved by local activists. A perfect backdrop for what will probably become your favorite snapshots, it’s now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

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Worth a Day
The picture-perfect baseball-diamond-in-a-cornfield from the movie “Field of Dreams” is still intact 25 miles west of Dubuque, Iowa. It’s open (and free) to anyone who wants to play catch, hit a few balls or even try a full nine innings.

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