Saying Good-bye to Alton, IL

Four more looper boats came in today! Some of these folks we have not seen since Norfolk so it was fun catching up with them. Here we are at lunch in the wonderful deli at our marina... Patty our hostess here in Alton is holding up the delicious chicken salad on a croissant which most of us enjoyed for our meal. At the end of the table are Bob & Janet from M/V (motor vessel) “Harmony” and then Patty & Walter....across from them is a new friend, Dottie from “DownTime”.  Yep, there are some guys missing because.....you guessed it, three of them went to West Marine!

After lunch I decided to take a walk into town and up a steep hill about 12 blocks.  Right before most of these homes were built there was an epidemic of yellow fever.  No one knew back then that it was caused by mosquitos and thought it came from being near swamp gases. Therefore the people wanted their homes built high on the hill.

In the 88 degree heat I took the foot/bike bridge over the highway into town.

The first thing one notices walking up on Henry St. is the huge mural painted on the end of a building.  It shows a lot of the local history.

Most of these houses were built in the 1800s.   The trees are covering up the fact that there are 3 or 4 chimneys/fireplaces in each house.

This is a town full of churches... It looks like two of them even share a parking lot. The first one here was built in 1902 and the others in the 1800s.

Remember the darling Queen Anne style playhouse in the blog earlier this week? This is the rest of the estate that was given to the city in honor of little Lucy Haskell... a very large mansion and beautiful grounds made into a park.

In the yard for children to also play on is this miniature set of garden furniture.

Much of the sidewalk is this decorative brick.

There is so much rich history in Alton it would be hard to see & understand it all in just these few days of being here. There was an infamous prison here during the Civil War where thousands of Confederate prisoners died of Yellow fever before the war was over.  Later the limestone bricks from the prison were disassembled and used in the town for retaining walls. These walls are all over the town like this one.

And this is why this town has the reputation of being the most haunted town in America because some say the ghosts of those soldiers are everywhere!   And it is also said that that is why there are so many churches...  Those ghosts just scared the folks back to church!

How fitting that our last night here we should have a musical solo by Captain Patty.... after the nightly gathering for updates on anchorages, locks and down river info.  and as the sun was setting, Patty played taps on her bugle.

Good night all.