[Alan Bates]

Boy, were cut-offs ever swift! On my first paid river trip in July 1941 we passed up through Glasscock Cut-off. It had been there eight years by that time. I went off watch at noon and there was almost no perceptible movement upstream to reach a big cottonwood tree. When I came back on at six that tree was still in sight, maybe a little more than a half mile behind us. By midnight we were out of there and making our customary three mph.
In Life on the Mississippi Mark Twain predicted that if the Corps kept on making cut-offs to shorten the river Saint Louis and New Orleans would eventually merge. I think he exaggerated some.