A forgotten river of History

I grew up on the river, it was a calm river majority of the time. Now you may wonder what do I mean majority of the time. Well it was prone to flooding like any body of water. The Gasconade river is quiet famous in the United States. However, where I lived it met the Missouri river less than a mile from the boat ramp. Occasionally the river would flow backwards, quiet a phenomenon but an explainable one. You see when the river that the Gasconade flowed into rose faster than it could adjust. It would push the calm water backwards. Other times the Gasconade river would be more powerful than usual. Again if the Missouri river it was connected to dropped faster than the Gasconade could adjust to it would turn into a rapid river rather then its calm motionless water.

During the winter, the water would become crystal clear. So clear you could see all the way to the bottom even in the deepest spots. However the river does tend to ice over in the coldest of months. The water level falls throughout the winter as well revealing the wreck train that plunged into the icy waters on November 1, 1855. The bridge gave out killing 30 passengers and injuring several as all but one car of the 15 car train fell 36 ft. This site marks the first bridge collapse in American history/

The small town above the river missed becoming the capital of Missouri by two votes. I lived in this town and honestly don't regret it at all. I was less than a minute from the river and I could see a huge part of history on it's banks from time to time. Other times I got a glimpse of the famous flood of 1993. In the winter of 2015 the water had broke the top of the hill in our town leading down to the river parking lot, it was rising fast, people on the other side of the tracks weren't in as high as a spot as we were. So me, my father, two brothers and and a couple of other teenage boys in the town headed over to help evacuate them. I remember the water being freezing but not caring while helping them get out. We helped 5 people leave their homes insuring to remove all important belongings they needed.

We watched the waters to continue to rise over the next two weeks. Its a wild thing to see, the waters look like they are receding as they fill areas void of water, before you know it you'd be ankle deep. It was surreal, you'd wake up to the water higher than it was the night before. So while living near a river can be amazing it can be dangerous. All my summers were spent on and in the river. We did a lot of tubing and running the jet ski up and down the river. But we knew the water, where the hazard areas were. There were trees that would be swept away during floods and lurk under water. Some of them had been there for years, and without fail, boaters with fiberglass boats would destroy their boats on the river and have to swim to safety or hope someone on another boat would see them and help them out.

Fishing and trout lining (A long line with a regulated amount of hooks on it, attached to a tree and held down by cider blocks at the end) were ran quiet frequently on the Gasconade. Unlike the Missouri river it's calm waters made it safer to trout line. On the Missouri you had to worry about things snagging it. My family has caught a good amount of catfish in the Gasconade. It's a a very healthy river compared to others in the state.