The Mississippi Valley Traveler Podcast · Dean Klinkenberg

What Can the Mississippi’s Past Tell Us About Its Future? A Conversation with Historian John Anfinson

·1 hr 11 min·2 clips

Behind it was another photograph—it was worth far more than $66,000.

Historian John Anfinson joins host Dean Klinkenberg to discuss his decades of work with the Mississippi River, first for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and later for the National Park Service. Anfinson's career provides a unique lens on how human visions have physically shaped the river. He began as an archaeologist reviewing Corps projects for impacts on cultural sites, like a levee in Portage, Wisconsin, that threatened historic canal remains. A major project involved assessing the historic significance of Locks and Dams 3 through 26 for the National Register, where he successfully argued for their national importance. His research uncovered invaluable archives, including ornate 19th-century maps by General Gouverneur K. Warren. Anfinson played a central role in discovering and preserving the photographic work of Henry Bosse, a Corps draftsman whose 1880s images of the river are now considered artistic masterpieces. One album, found on a dredge boat, was later valued at millions of dollars after being sold at Sotheby's. Bosse’s photographs, which capture the pre-lock-and-dam river, its commerce, and landscapes, are held in institutions like the Smithsonian and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Anfinson’s book, *The River We Have Wrought*, argues that river changes were driven by public movements, not just federal agencies, using historical advocacy as a blueprint for future action. He highlights the successful 1920s campaign by Will Dilg and the Izaak Walton League to create the Upper Mississippi National Wildlife and Fish Refuge as a key example of a competing vision for the river. A surprising insight is that by 1917, through-commerce on the upper river had ceased, making the refuge campaign seem initially unopposed. Anfinson explains that early wing dam systems failed because falling water levels in autumn made channel depths unreliable for farmers. The push for the nine-foot channel and lock-and-dam system was partly a response to failed attempts to regulate monopolistic railroads through "Granger Laws." The conversation reveals that the massive lock-and-dam projects, while accelerated by New Deal employment programs, were already politically "baked" before the Great Depression. The tone is conversational and educational, flowing from personal career anecdotes into deeper historical analysis. Listeners interested in environmental history, infrastructure, and how landscapes are politically shaped will find this episode compelling. Those seeking a fast-paced narrative or contemporary debate might find the detailed historical focus less engaging.

As heard by us

River history framed as an ongoing argument over what the Mississippi should be for.

Dean Klinkenberg treats the Mississippi as a river that has been repeatedly argued over, reshaped, and used for different ends, and John Anfinson makes that tension easier to see by moving from navigation into fish, wildlife, and recreation. The history never feels abstract.

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