Casey Jones

We stopped at a little tourist trap, "Casey Jones Village," commemorating the famed steam locomotive engineer, "Casey" Jones. For the uninitiated, Jonathan Luther "Casey" Jones was a very talented locomotive engineer for the Illinois Central Railroad in the 1890s. He and his wife and their three children lived in a house in Jackson, TN until his death on April 30, 1900.

Photo from International Brotherhood of Teamsters website.

Photo from the Tennessee History for Kids website

The site consists of a museum dedicated to Casey Jones, the modest home his family owned and lived in, locomotive 382 and a number of stores forming three sides of a rectangular parking lot. The photos below show his home.

As I did not get any good pictures of his home, I borrowed these two. The one above is from Trip Advisor. The one below is from Atlas Obscura.

Behind the museumis locoomotive 382. Casey Jones used this locomotive to pull a high-speed passenger train, the Cannonball Express.

The photos below show the inside of the cab of the locomotive. First is the engineer's side. Second is the fireman's side.

As you can see, ther is plenty of parking. Definitely worth a stop.

Lousiana Purchase

As we crossed Arkansas, we saw the Louisiana Purchase State Park on a map. We decided it might be work a stop for a hike.

In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson bought the Louisiana Purchase from Emperor Napoleon of France. Napoleon was fighting a war for the control of Europe and, since wars are notoriously expensive, Napoleon needed money. He sold 828,000 square miles of land in the American west to the United States for a mere $15 million.

Right after the treaty was signed, giving us title to the land, President Jefferson organized three expeditions to explore this new land. Most famous of these was the expedition led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. The two other expeditions were the Red River Expedition and the Pike Expedition.

President Jefferson also ordered a survey of the newly purchased lands. This survey did not get started until 1815, during the term of President Madison.

The first step in any survey is to establish a base point. Since the purchased land was from the 31^st parallel north, the base point had to be on the 31^st parallel. This meant hiding into the roadless swamps of Arkansas.

This stone, placed years later, commemorates this base point.

The trail to the base point stone is actually a raised boardwalk. This protects the visitors from the worst of the swamp (although the mosquitoes are a real nuisance) and the swamp from damage of endless feet. Along the boardwalk, the parks service has placed metal signs, such as shown below, explaining the swamp and other key facts about the base point and the Louisiana Purchase.

Road Show Time Again

It is time for a little traveling, again. This year, the agenda includes the Columbus Zoo, Mount Rushmore, Worldcon and more!!

Grand Opening - Equestrian Center at Bell County Expo!

This afternoon was the Grand Opening of the Bell County Exposition Center's new equestrian center. This will be used for hunter-jumper events, rodeos, and many other livestock events.

After a few speeches by local dignitaries, the First Cavalry horse detachment took the floor of the arena for a demonstration of Army horsemanship.

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