Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

This is slightly out of order. The roadgeek part of the day will follow later.

Memphis, Tennessee, December 30 — We knew there would be a LOT of Iowa State fans on Beale Street Sunday, so getting there early was important. Plus, we wanted to take in the famous Memphis barbecue. A restaurant can’t be on Beale without good BBQ, right?

It was a recommendation from someone seen there that led us to Superior Restaurant. At least, that’s what it said outside. Inside, the menu said Flynn’s. As of Jan. 18, the restaurant website is inactive.

The place was packed with ISU fans and there was live music. It was pretty busy. It was so busy, in fact, it took 40 minutes to be seated, and we were told the restaurant had run out of brisket.

It was another 40 minutes before our food arrived. At this point we started to be concerned we wouldn’t be done before the parade.

While eating, we all came to fast agreement: Hickory Park was better. Then Mom dropped a bombshell:

“I’ve had better pulled pork at graduation receptions.”

Maybe the restaurant simply wasn’t prepared for the influx of people. Perhaps it was understaffed. But we waited 80 minutes for universal disappointment.

Shiloh, Tennessee, Dec. 29 — It was the bloodiest day of the Civil War until surpassed by Antietam, and a bunch of farm boys from Iowa were caught right in the middle of it.

The Iowa monument at Shiloh is the largest at the site. It is right by the visitors center.

This battle map shows the individual divisions on the first day. The 2nd, 7th, 12th, 14th, and 8th Iowa were all positioned along the Sunken Road. As some Union forces retreated to build a defensive perimeter, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant sent out a message: Hold the line at all costs.

The “Wolf Creek Rangers” of Tama County were in the 14th Iowa, Company G. They were among those captured by the Confederates the evening of the first day. (More images after the jump.) (To read the text, you may have to open the image in a new tab.) Continue reading →

Kaskaskia, Illinois, Dec. 29 — There’s not much left in the first capital of Illinois. In the 2000s, it was the smallest city in the state. Although now in second place, it remains the only city in Illinois west of the Mississippi River. You see it in that little bulge of Randolph County on the state outline, south of St. Louis. A easy way to clinch the county is to do precisely what we did, get there from I-55. (This was the only positive of stopping early the previous night.)

The Chicago Tribune has more background on the former city. The capital’s move from Kaskaskia to Vandalia is one of the few times a center of government moved east as territories and states grew. Kaskaskia’s geographical oddness also got it featured on “How the States Got Their Shapes.”

There are three brick buildings left in town: the church, a building that looks like it used to be a school, and the Kaskaskia Bell State Memorial. It’s not much but the bell has an important connection to the Revolutionary War.

If you press a couple buttons, the door opens (but a gate still bars entry) and an audio recording about the bell plays. Here’s a video of someone’s summertime visit (but you can’t really hear the audio).

More trip posts next week.