North American Database of Archaeological Geophysics
North American Database of Archaeological Geophysics
Abstract/Summary:
Project Name: Island 86, AR and MS;
Reference: Pearson, C.E., and A.R. Saltus, Jr. (1990). Cultural Resources Investigations at Island 86, Mississippi River, Arkansas-Mississippi. Coastal Environments, Inc., Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Submitted to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Vicksburg District, Vicksburg, Mississippi.
A remote sensing (magnetometer) survey of two rock dike locations was conducted in the Mississippi River near Islands 86 and 87 about 18 mi below Greenville, Mississippi. The project area is located at what is known as Kentucky Bend, 18 mi south of Greenville, Mississippi, an area where several nineteenth-century steamboats are reported to have been lost. The objective of the study was to locate any boat remains that may exist in the area to be impacted by the proposed construction. No magnetic anomalies that could be related to shipwrecks were found within the two dike alignments. However, historical evidence indicates that two, or possibly three, steamboat wrecks may exist in the vicinity of the two dike locations.