Columbus KY Kentucky
Frequently Asked Questions
Simply on the bank, at the foot of the bluffs holding Columbus-Belmont State Park. There is no terminal: the river lines arrange a shuttle up the hill, and the fittest walk it.
Columbus-Belmont State Park, perched on the bluffs: fortification earthworks, cannon pointed at the water, a small Civil War museum, and the famous giant chain with its anchor, displayed in the open air.
Because in 1861 Confederate general Leonidas Polk turned it into a fortress bristling with guns aimed at the Mississippi and linked to the Mobile and Ohio Railroad. It was briefly one of the most heavily fortified points in America.
A chain roughly a mile long, with links as thick as a forearm, stretched across the Mississippi in 1861 to stop Union gunboats. Current and floods defeated the scheme, but the chain and its anchor now rest on the bluff.
The climb to the state park, the circuit of earthworks and cannon, the small museum in a period house that served as a field hospital, then a long spell on the bluff edge watching the barges pass.
Barely. The hamlet has a few houses, a post office and fields to the horizon. That modesty is part of the experience: the historic site on the heights is the destination.
Across the water on the Missouri side, the hamlet of Belmont saw the first significant battle of a then little-known general, Ulysses S. Grant, in November 1861.
One of the widest Mississippi panoramas: barges pushed by towboats, shifting sandbars, the Missouri shore shimmering in the heat. Sunsets here are well known among crews.
US dollars and English. Bring cash: the park counter and museum volunteers don't always have a card terminal.
Spring through fall, the lower Mississippi cruise season. The trails are grassy and the earthworks are walked on foot: good shoes help, and the tree shade is welcome in summer.
