Jumping Off from St. Joseph MO: Then & Now

St. Joseph Landing, the main jumping off point for 1849 emigrants, is squeezed between a blighted area of abandoned warehouses and evangelical rescue missions and the edge of the wide and muddy Missouri river.  Overhead is the whine of trucks on the elevated Interstate freeway.  The Burlington railroad tracks run parallel to the parking lot.  

The city has made some effort to develop the riverfront with a shady walking path and signage in honor of the Great Western Migration.  From a battered metal gazebo surrounded by broken pieces of concrete and bits of litter, I squint in an attempt to see what the emigrants must have seen on the far shore of the Missouri: an expanse of unfurling green with scattered cockscombs of trees indicating where rivers run.   

St. Joseph Landing, looking west across the wide Missouri...

THEN, 1849:

"As far as the eye can reach, so great is the emigration, you can see nothing but wagons.  This town presents a striking appearance  -- a vast army of wheels -- crowds of men, women and lots of children and last but not least the cattle and horses upon which our lived depend."  Sally Hester, April 27, 1849

“The California fever is rageing [sic] to such a fearful extent that it was carrying off its thousands per day. Being all ready now to bid adieu from home, friends, and happy country, as it were – we were about separating ourselves from the abodes of civilization, its peace, comfort, and safety, for a period we knew not how long, and to some forever, to launch a way upon the broad and extensive plaines [sic] which straches [sic] away and away, until it fades from the sight in the dim distance, and bounded only by the blue wall of the Sky. While thus laying round in suspense the reflections of home were forcibly crowding upon our minds the happy influences that we had torn ourselves from to enter upon a wild and in all probability a chimerical enterprise."  Captain J.A. Pritchard, April 22, 1849

NOW, 2017:

“You might think you're important and loved, but just remember, at the end of the day you're nothing more than a germ to the universe, your purpose being to eat and ____ and make more of you,  to eat and _____ in a nonstop cycle, and that while you may think you're different and special, just know that there are hundreds of people exactly like you, all more talented and capable than you could ever hope to be. You are are not important. You are not special.  You are a sack of meat destined to die cold and alone.”  Anonymous, graffiti on the St. Joseph landing gazebo bench, May 14, 2017