Harold Fisk’s Meander Maps of the Mississippi River

[UCanoe_2]

In 1944, Army Corps of Engineers geologist and cartographer Harold Fisk drew a series of maps depicting the wanderings of the Mississippi's meander channels. He relied on historic sources and geological evidence to determine the river's shifting location. The white areas of the maps depict the 1944 course of the river, while various colors show its earlier locations.

https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/maps-of-the-lower-mississippi-harold-fisk/

Modern research has compared Fisk's maps with LIDAR images of the same areas.

https://dancoecarto.com/mississippi-river-comparison

 

[Crazy Trout Craft (CTC)]

Unbelievable! Thx for sharing

 

[ScottS]

In Mark Twain's "Life on the Mississippi" there is a detailed chapter on meanders and how farmers who lived inside the bends and miles away from the river would reroute the river by digging ditches across oxbow bends such that their farms would have close access to the steamboats. Only a narrow ditch was required as once the current started moving, the Mississippi would open the channel in a matter of a days. The farmers out on the bends would soon find their section of the river unnavigable.