Short Trip to the Iowa Border: DeSoto Preserve-080419

Last backtrack (I hope) of 2019 travels.

I don’t remember the circumstances under which I made this trip, but I did try to get to know my adopted state of Iowa, and most parts of it were within a one-day round trip. In this case, I made the less than three hour each way drive in early August to the western border with Nebraska.

The DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge is part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and is located along the Missouri River in both Iowa and Nebraska.

In addition to the refuge, the site houses a museum with artifacts that survived the sinking of the steamship, Bertrand, in 1865. I will simply quote from the website:

On April 1, 1865, the sternwheeler hit a submerged log, twenty-five miles north of Omaha, Nebraska. Bound for the newly discovered goldfields of Montana from St. Louis, Missouri, the Bertrand began to sink into the Missouri River. After initial salvage efforts, she was quickly submerged beneath the water and silt. Her cargo was written off as complete loss. Using historical documents and a flux gate magnetometer, modern treasure hunters, Sam Corbino and Jesse Pursell located the wreck on DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge in February 1968. Because the boat was on federal property, the salvors agreed under the requirements of the American Antiquities Preservation Act of 1906, to turn over all recovered artifacts to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for permanent exhibition and preservation in a public museum. By late 1969, the vessel’s cargo was completely excavated from its nearly thirty-foot deep, mud tomb. Unfortunately for the salvors, the treasure they sought had eluded them. Insurance company divers had apparently removed most of the mercury and other valuables soon after the ship sank. However, what had been left was a diversity of tools, clothing, and food items.

I was the only one visiting at the time, and so I was able to set my own pace. Below are some of the pictures I captured: