Poverty Point State Historic Site, Louisiana

 Another freezing night and more freezing rain.  The trees were all covered in ice this morning but the roads were clean and dry.  We told the park office we would stay one more night as we wanted to see a few more things before we left the area.  While looking thru the visitor information we have we noticed a place called Poverty Point State Historic Site. It was across the river in Louisiana, so we got in the car and headed in that direction.

I-20 and a railroad bridge across the Mississippi River
at Vicksburg

Vicksburg is on the bank of the Mississippi River.  This river is a lot bigger here in the south than it is back in Minnesota where it begins.  It takes some really big bridges to cross it now.  The river is the border between Mississippi and Louisiana.

This is a 1938 aerial photograph of the earthworks.
It's about 3/4 of a mile wide

The Poverty Point Site commemorates the earliest North American culture known to exist on this continent.  Artifacts found at this site date to between 1700 and 700 B.C.  It is considered one of the most significant archaeological finds in the country and contains some of the largest prehistoric earthworks in North America. It sounds a lot more interesting than it really was.  I should have known, since I've near heard of it before, that it would not be a "wow!" visit.  There is a museum there that contains artifacts found and loads of information about the prehistoric community there... that was very well done.  It gets it's name from a Plantation that used to be there.  For many years the land was farmd and plowed until around 1975 when it was turned into an historic preservation site.

Cooking Demonstration

Also included was a demonstration of how the food was cooked in a fire pit using hot rocks and leaves and bury it in the dirt.  He cooked fish and a steak.  We got to sample it and it was excellent, tender, moist and smoky.  Poor fella, the ice on the trees was melting and dripping like rain and dropping chunks of ice on him and all of us watching.

When we left the park we took the scenic route back.  We noticed a really nice house/mansion and went to look closer... it must have been a private residence... there was no signs or anything giving it a name.  Nice.



Ameristar Casino



Vicksburg's population is only about 25,000 people.  Its waterfront is home to five world-class casinos.  The RV park we have been staying at is across the street from this one.