The Grand Excursion was a promotional voyage by train and steamboat into the Upper Mississippi River valley that first took place in June 1854. It marked the first railroad connection between the East Coast and the Mississippi River, and it included dignitaries such as former president Millard Fillmore. In 2004, 150 years later, the Grand Excursion route was retraced by both riverboats and a steam locomotive.

This shot is of the Celebration Belle coming in to land at Prescott, WI

The first leg of the journey from Chicago to Rock Island, IL was on the Rock Island Railroad. There the passengers were transferred to several steam paddle wheeler boats to travel upriver. The steamboats stopped several times daily to load up on firewood, and made good time arriving a day early in St. Paul. Many passengers then hiked overland to see the Falls of St. Anthony in what is now Minneapolis. During a brief ceremony at the falls, a jar of water taken from the Atlantic Ocean was poured into the falls in a symbolic "mingling of the waters."

The Celebration Belle, a 750 passenger paddlewheel boat, based in Moline, IL

Taken in the in Summer 2024