A Rafting on the Mississip' (Fesler-Lampert Minnesota Heritage)

During the nineteenth century, pine logs were lashed together to form easily floatable rafts that traveled from Minnesota and Wisconsin down the Mississippi River to build the farms and towns of the virtually treeless lower Midwest. These huge log rafts were steered down the river by steamboat pilots whose skill and intimate knowledge of the river's many hazards were legendary. Charles Edward Russell, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, chronicles the history and river lore of seventy years of lumber rafting.

"Russell deals with those decades during which the lumber business and the rafting of lumber grew and reached enormous proportions. But his story covers also the splendid phase of the river steamboat. Russell writes with a lively pen, and he has made a colorful and entertaining account." New York Times Book Review

"Not a dull page in the book. Russell writes frontier history as it should be written." New York Herald Tribune

Charles Edward Russell (1860-1941) grew up on the shores of the Mississippi River during the days of lumber rafting. Best known as a journalist during the muckraking era for his exposés on the beef and tobacco trusts, Russell was also a cofounder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.

Fesler-Lampert Minnesota Heritage Series