Caledonia Argus

Grand Excursion begins Friday

Posted: 6/22/04

Eyes will turn to the Mississippi River later this month as a water-borne spectacle slowly works its way upriver to the Twin Cities.

The 2004 Grand Excursion commemorates a grand of excursion of 1854 when President Millard Fillmore, 13th president of the United States and under-the-radar national figure, boarded a steamboat at Rock Island, IL, and travelled upstream into the wilds of the Minnesota Territory.

A throng of dignitaries and journalists accompanied Fillmore as anxious business and civic leaders at stops along the river extolled the wonders and promise of the ìWestî to the visiting Eastern elite.

The 2004 steamboat flotilla heading upriver beginning June 25 with planned Independence Day stops at St. Paul and Minneapolis will find the nervous predictions of 150 years ago have largely come true.

The 2004 Grand Excursion is billed as the biggest steamboat flotilla assembled in a century, with the Delta Queen, built in 1925, one of its stars.

The 2004 Grand Excursion will make its first stop in Minnesota at Winona on June 30.

Lake City will be visited on July 1, with Hastings and Red Wing greeting the flotilla on July 2.

Three days will be spent in St. Paul and Minneapolis.
Events are planned for each stop.

Gov. Pawlenty will take on Wisconsin governor Jim Doyle in a steamboat race scheduled for June 30 in La Crosse, WI.

St. Paul will boast the worldís largest balloon arch designed to cross the Mississippi and containing some 1200 balloons.
Many other events are scheduled.

For more information, try the Grand Excursion Web site at www.grandexcursion.com.

Where you can see it:

The Grand Excursion 2004 can be viewed locally on Wednesday, June 30.

Some good spots to view it would be at Wildcat Park in Brownsville, and along Highway 26 from Brownsville to Lawrence Lake Marina two miles to the north.

The five paddlewheel steamboats will pass through Army Corps of Engineers Lock and Dam Number 8 in Genoa early that morning.

The approximate times that the boats will pass by Brownsville, according to the Grand Excursion website, are listed here, along with the name of the boat.

ï Celebration Bell, 8:30 a.m.

ï Anson Northrup, 9:30 a.m.

ï Harriet Bishop, 1:00 p.m.

ï Julia Belle Swain, 4:00 p.m.

ï Spirit of Peoria, 9:30 p.m.,

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