Paducah Kentucky

trade transportation arts and culture

Paducah is located at the confluence of the Ohio and Tennessee rivers, between St Louis and Nashville. The city is the hub of a micropolitan area comprising Kentucky and Illinois counties. First settled in 1821 and laid out by William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, it was named Padoucas, the word for Comanche from a Spanish transliteration.

Trade and Transportation

A River and Rail Economy was the key to Paducah’s development as a port, a red brick making factory, a foundry for making rail and locomotive components and dry dock facilities for steamboats and towboats comprised the town infrastructure. Thanks to its proximity to coal fields, Paducah was the home port for barge companies and an important railway hub connecting Chicago with the Gulf of Mexico.

The Paducah-McCraken County River Port Authority provides maritime services for the rural regions of Western Kentucky, Southern Illinois, Southeast Missouri, and Northwestern Tennessee. It specializes in bulk, agricultural and containerized cargoes. The agency specializes in bulk, agricultural, general and containerized cargoes, and operates a Foreign Trade Zone in the only Marine Highway Designation on the Ohio River and the only Marine Highway port on the river that is designated for container service.

Arts and Culture

The National Quilt Museum is a cultural destination that attracts quilters and art enthusiasts to the Paducah area. The museum features professional quilt and fiber art exhibits that are rotated throughout the year and is the largest single tourist attraction in the city.

Paducah is part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network

The Paducah Wall to Wall program was begun by mural artists on the downtown flood wall in 1996; over 50 murals address subjects ranging from Native American history, river barges, steamboats and local African-American heritage.

Cape Girardeau Missouri

river trade steamboats trading posts bridges murals and historic sites

Cape Girardeau is named after Jean Baptiste de Girardot, who established a trading post in the area around 1733. As early as 1765, a bend in the Mississippi River, had been referred to as Cape Girardot or Girardeau.  In 1799, American settlers founded the first English school west of the Mississippi at a landmark called Mount Tabor, named by the settlers for the Biblical Mount Tabor.

The River Trade and Steamboats stimulated the Development of Cape Girardeau

City Landmarks in 1928, a bridge was completed between Missouri and Illinois replacing ferries to cross the Mississippi River. In 2003, the Old Bridge was succeeded by a new four-lane cable-stay bridge named the Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge; the two towers of the bridge reach a height of approximately 91 meters The Old Federal Courthouse, located at Broadway and Fountain Streets and built in the late 1940s, The City of Cape Girardeau was recognized in 2008 as a Preserve America Community for its work in surveying and protecting historic buildings.; it is home to 39 historic sites and eight historic districts, including the Downtown Commercial District.

The Mississippi River Tales is a mural containing 24 panels covering nearly 18,000 square feet (1,700 m²) of the 15-foot (4.6 m)-high downtown floodwall; they illustrate the local history beginning with the Native Americans who inhabited the area between 900 and 1200; each panel tells a story. The paintings are reminiscent of the works by Thomas Hart Benton; they were painted by Chicago artist Thomas Melvin in collaboration with several local artists.