Who I am

My name is Steven Ray. I’m a graphic designer who earns his daily bread designing pages for the Star Tribune newspaper here in Minneapolis while doing freelance work on the side. I was first introduced to the river as a freshman at the University of Minnesota, where I attended school on both banks and walked along the river flats below. I have since visited its beginning at Itasca State Park, its end at New Orleans and lots of places in between.

About this site

“The River” began as an assignment for a Web design class I took at Minneapolis Community College. My task was to design a small Minneapolis-related website; the Mississippi seemed like a natural topic for the project.

But once I got into it I got a little carried away. There were so many fascinating details, and every new story led to another, equally interesting one — or related back to existing stories in interesting ways. I ended up doing far more research than was healthy or sane, and the result is what you have here: An ongoing effort that I hope is a fun and intriguing introduction to the history and spirit of the river.

Contact me

I’m just one guy putting this thing together in my spare time, without editors or research assistance. So if you find a typo, an error, or feel I've left out something important or interesting, e-mail me and let me know.

Download a printed version of the site

To make it easier to use the site in the classroom, I've created a pdf containing all the text on the site, with a links page showing the actual URLs of the links. Click here to download the pdf.