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The Atlas Obscura Podcast

Mississippi River Basin Model (Classic)

The Atlas Obscura Podcast

SiriusXM Podcasts & Atlas Obscura

Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.61.6K Ratings

🗓️ 5 May 2023

⏱️ 13 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A walk through this scale model has you feeling like a giant, and striding from Baton Rouge to Omaha in an hour. LEARN MORE about the model and the group trying to revive it, here: https://friendsofmrbm.org/

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

If you happen to be driving on McRaven Road in Jackson, Mississippi, you might come across

0:09.6

Buddy Butts Park.

0:11.8

Yes, it is actually called Buddy Butts Park.

0:17.6

But that's not exactly what we're here to talk about.

0:20.2

We're here to talk about the fact that part of this park has this sort of strange post-apocalyptic

0:26.6

vibe.

0:27.6

There's a field of concrete that stretches nearly as far as the eye can see and undulates

0:34.8

in odd organic shapes beneath your feet.

0:38.6

What you might not realize is that as you walk across this concrete field, you are in

0:44.4

a way striding from Louisiana to Minnesota, each step covering miles.

0:52.0

I'm Dylan Therese and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible

0:57.6

and wondrous places.

0:59.3

Today, we're visiting the Mississippi River Basin model, the greatest scale model ever

1:05.1

built.

1:06.1

One, that only got a few years to truly shine.

1:10.0

Why it was built?

1:11.1

Who built it?

1:12.2

And the group trying to rescue it from oblivion.

1:15.2

To this.

1:32.3

If you took a walk, a really long walk from Baton Rouge to Omaha, it's safe to say would

1:39.2

definitely take more than 60 minutes.

1:42.0

In the real world, you'd have to be an enormous giant to do that.

...

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