Caledonia Argus

Governor issues challenge

Posted: 9/30/03

by T.W. Budig
ECM capitol reporter

Gov. Pawlenty took the wheel of a Padelford packet boat at Harriet Island in St. Paul Tuesday, Sept. 23, an exercise made easier by the fact the boat was docked.

Next time things may be different.

Pawlenty has challenged the governors of Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa to a steamboat race next summer, part of a Grand Excursion planned for June 25 to July 5, 2004.

The event commemorates the Grand Excursion on the Upper Mississippi River of 1854.

President Millard Fillmore, the 13th president of the United States (1850-53) and one of the lesser known American chief executives, travelled with the original excursion as it made its way up the Mississippi.

Promoters are calling the 2004 Grand Excursion the largest flotilla of steam and paddleboats to be seen on the river in more than a century.

An estimated 60,000 passengers will be onboard the flotilla as it makes its 400-mile passage upriver.

Pawlenty visited a number of river towns in Minnesota on Tuesday promoting the event.

As for the steamboat race, the governors will be vying for the rights to a broom. Historically, the trophy for the winner of a steamboat race was a broom, symbolizing a sweep, said Pawlenty.

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