Captain Ike Edwards-master of the long-haul towboat Miss Josephine of Blytheville-felt like a prisoner set free when he pushed fifteen super-jumbo hopper barges out of the Chain of Rocks Canal six miles norm of St. Louis. The dams and locks mat made the steeply descending Upper Mississippi River navigable ("Schedule-screwing, pain-in-the-butt water elevators," Ike called them) were behind him at last, good riddance. The Middle Mississippi River and the Lower Mississippi flowed along flat land and didn't need dams. Miss Josephine of Blytheville would stop only once between here and the Gulf of Mexico to pick up fifteen more super jumbos at a staging area a few miles below St. Louis. From there to the Gulf, the unimpeded river could accommodate his entire forty-five-thousand-ton fleet (which happened to be carrying, Ike would tell anyone who would listen, more gravel and grain than a freight train six-miles long, or thirty miles of trucks in a row) without having to break it up into smaller units to descend locks. But first, they had to get past St. Louis.
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