August 9, 2025

August 9, 2025

We were up early this morning to catch our flight to St Louis. As is so common today, it was delayed two hours. When we arrived, we had to wait for the rental car shuttle. Budget seemed very disorganized and we had to wait in line again for an available car. With this delay we are behind schedule. It would have been faster to drive.

We drove east over the Mississippi River and then north to visit the Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument. Biden proclaimed it last year. It seems to be a stretch. At this point there is only a sign in a hospital parking lot adjacent to some train tracks. In 1908 the locals rioted. The catalyst was two blacks accused of rape and murder. The event spurred the formation of the NAACP the following year.

This was not the first or last violence. Labor strife in the US was rampant and unusually violent. This was an era of social change and industrialization. Local workers resented the wage pressure and job loss caused by the sudden influx of immigrants from Europe and southern blacks moving north. We have also visited the Illinois monuments to the Battle of Virden and the Haymarket Riot. We park near the Lincoln Presidential Museum. Across the street is a new sculpture dedicated to this 1908 riot in the shape of charred chimneys.

Since it has been nineteen years, we decided to run through the Lincoln Museum again. Like last time, we have to hurry through it. Fortunately it is designed to be speed-visited. We are still impressed with it nonetheless.

In mid-afternoon, we leave Springfield heading west on I-72. An hour later in the middle of nowhere we find our 400th National Park unit, New Philadelphia National Historic Site. There is only a set of National Park storyboards next to a farm. This field was once the site of a tiny town established by a former black slave from Kentucky. He bought his freedom by working extra hours in a mine and moved here.

We finished the day crossing the Mississippi River checking into our hotel in Hannibal, MO, childhood home of Mark Twain and "Unsinkable" Molly Brown. It has been more than thirty years since our last visit. Aimee and I found a diner serving Fried Catfish. Yummy.