I indulged in a bit of trivia moment today. The question occurred to me: How much vertical drop is there in the Mississippi River per mile between my city of St. Louis and New Orleans? It only took a few minutes and some basic math. The answer surprised me.

The elevation of St. Louis is 614 feet. The elevation of New Orleans is 21 feet. That means there’s only 593 feet of drop between the two cities over 1278 miles of river. That amounts to only about 5.5 inches per mile of drop in the Mississippi River from St. Louis to New Orleans. That’s pretty amazing. Only 5.5 inches of drop per mile is enough to keep the Mighty Mississippi flowing.