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The old maps I found showed the river had moved 2 miles since the 1950s.
I was digging through some archived USGS topo maps at the library last week while planning a canoe trip, and I couldn't believe how much the Mississippi River channel had shifted just in my dad's lifetime. Has anyone else seen old maps of places they know and been blown away by the changes?
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caseyc303d ago
Dude, no joke, I totally used to think maps were just these static things that never changed. I remember looking at old charts of the Missouri River near where I grew up and thinking "pfft, it's the same river." Then I actually compared a 1950s topo with a current satellite image and holy crap, the whole channel had basically picked up and moved like a quarter mile south, leaving these oxbow lakes and old dry beds. It genuinely blew my mind how much the landscape can just shift around without you even noticing. Like, that old river path is now someone's corn field and I never would have guessed it was ever water.
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butler.shane3d ago
Same river" yeah right, I thought the same thing until I realized I've been driving over what used to be a riverbed every day and just assumed it was a weird-shaped hill. Guess I'm not as observant as I thought I was.
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