President Abraham Lincoln called it "the Father of Waters"; 18th century English novelist Frederick Marryat deemed it a "vile sewer" -- long before our industrial revolution turned it into one; and the American Indians imagined it as "a giant sleeping snake that would wake up every seven years and attack whoever was alongside it," according to author Lee Sandlin.
Flowing naturally or overflowing menacingly, it is impossible to overestimate the Mississippi River's importance to the American economy and psyche. And right now, engorged beyond the limits of our control, the river is awake and on the attack.
Says Clyde Dufour, a fish wholesaler in Simmesport, La.: "The river been making our lives." But, he adds, "It ain't our friend right now."
Winding through 10 states on a 2,350-mile course, it carries nearly half of all U.S. inland waterborne commerce, generates megawatts of power and produces a bounty of protein.
No one has put a figure on all the jobs dependent on the river, but when a barge collision and fuel spill closed a 100-mile stretch in 2008, the Port of New Orleans estimated the cost to the U.S. economy at $275 million a day.
On an average day, the river carries about 20 tows with 30 barges each, and each of those barges represent about 60 tractor-trailers, says Bob Anderson, a spokesman for the Corps of Engineers in Vicksburg, Miss.
Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto, believed to be the first European to explore the river, dubbed it "Rio Grande" after entering its stream in 1541.
Unfettered access to it has been crucial since the nation's infancy. When the Spanish revoked Americans' access to the port of New Orleans in 1802, Thomas Jefferson dispatched special envoy James Monroe to Napoleon's France for negotiations that would eventually result in the Louisiana Purchase.
Later, it was during two flatboat trips that a young Abraham Lincoln got his first full understanding of the evils of slavery. Years later, on July 4, 1863, it was Ulysses S. Grant's capture of Vicksburg and reopening of the river that restored President Lincoln's flagging hopes of saving the union. "The Father of Waters," Lincoln wrote to a confidant, "again goes unvexed to the sea."
While many canoe on the river, it is traffic of a much larger variety that dominates -- and makes it so vital to the nation's economy. Sandlin says that role is a relatively new one.
"Mississippi shipping had almost entirely died out by the end of the 19th century," says Sandlin, author of last year's "Wicked River: The Mississippi When It Last Ran Wild." "And then the Army Corps of Engineers' work on it over the course of the 20th century began bringing the shipping back up again."
In his book, "Life on the Mississippi," Mark Twain observed: "The Military Engineers have taken upon their shoulders the job of making the Mississippi over again -- a job transcended in size by only the original job of creating it."
The recent floods have proved another Twain observation: "The Mississippi River will always have its own way; no engineering skill can persuade it to do otherwise."
As sad as it is for some, Sandlin says, the nation has chosen its course -- and the Mississippi's.
"If we took out all of the controls ... I think the river, we'd find it almost impossible to live with," he says. "So we have this sort of enormous artificial construction now that we're kind of stuck with."
In Vicksburg: 'The crest is by no means the end of it'
The Corps of Engineers and local officials are warning Vicksburg residents that they should not think that Thursday's expected crest of the Mississippi River means the end of the flood.
Col. Jeffrey R. Eckstein, commander of the corps' Vicksburg District, said Thursday that water could remain at the record 57.1-foot level for a week and could even remain at about flood stage -- which in Vicksburg is 43 feet -- until the middle of June. "The crest is by no means the end of it," Eckstein said.
Also, a man died Thursday after being pulled from the floodwaters overflowing from the Mississippi River, becoming what is believed to be the first Mississippi flood casualty since the river started spilling into Mississippi and Louisiana. Walter Cook, 69, had been pulled from the water a day earlier by two firefighters on boat patrol in downtown Vicksburg. Cook had been clinging to a fence in chest-deep water, but he was floating in the water by the time the firefighters got to him, said Fire Chief Charles Atkins.