You wouldn't have to dredge the river but then if you don't it is
subject to changing course. I have read that long back, the Mississippi
followed a course through the Cedar/Ilse/Calhoun, Harriet lakes area.
The Missouri is like that, it silts up and in the spring, big ice
jams on the silt are the occasion for change, sending the river around the
jam and then finding its own way. The Missouri valley is usually about
three miles wide and the river snakes it's way within that and has course
changes every year.
Also, about historical use of the river, I think the river is the
reason the metro is here. It was steam boat stops that occasioned the first
settlements on rivers edge. And steam boats were freighters. There
probably never was a time in the metro's history without 'freighters' on the
river.
Also, the 'freighters', or freight industry was occasion for the
cities to develop, -to boom in the homestead days as all the new farm
population needed all the lumber -from up north- and hardware from Chicago
factories, though which was freighted through Minneapolis St Paul and
wholesaled out to the small towns.
Then grain and cattle were freighted back to and through the cities.
James Jacobsen // Whittier
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