This website is my attempt to represent my years of experience thinking about the Mississippi River, historical travel and public history. For 25 years I worked in archaeology, history, and historic preservation for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in an office on the levee of the Mississippi River in the Uptown area of New Orleans.
Every day I looked at the famous Carrollton gauge that measures the stage of the Mississippi River at New Orleans.
During these years I managed many projects in cultural resources management and historic preservation. They included historical archaeological projects along the Mississippi River and in coastal Louisiana. For example I managed African American cemeteries projects along the Mississippi River, a number of studies for a new lock in New Orleans and a study of the drainage system in New Orleans. I also directed historic preservation studies for engineering structures such as locks, bridges, pumping stations, and a dredge.
In my spare time I taught courses on the Mississippi River and public history at Tulane University in New Orleans.
I traveled the Mississippi River from the headwaters of the River in Minnesota to Southwest Pass where the Mississippi River flows into the Gulf of Mexico.
I have always been interested in travel. My first real job after I got my M.A. in 1970 was working for a small New York publisher as a college traveler. I traveled a territory from the Mississippi River to the Rockies and Minnesota to Louisiana visiting college faculty to attempt to persuade them to adopt the textbooks published by the company.
In 2008 I offered a course on Travel and History at Tulane University. This allowed me to begin to think more deeply about the experience of travel.
For years I was able to travel in the United States but not internationally. My retirement in 2008 allowed me to began to travel more widely.
Contact me at edwinlyon@earthlink.net
About Edwin Lyon
Edwin A. Lyon was an archeologist and historian with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District for 25 years until he retired in 2008. He served as an Adjunct Professor in the Department of History at Tulane University and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University.
Lyon received his Ph.D. in History from Louisiana State University in 1982 where he also earned his B.A. and M.A. in anthropology. He has taught public history in the Department of History at LSU and The Mississippi River in History, Applied History, Public History and a course in Travel and History in the Department of History at Tulane University
He has managed many projects in cultural resources management and historic preservation. His major projects included historical archaeological projects along the Mississippi River and in coastal Louisiana. He also has managed African American cemeteries projects along the Mississippi River, a number of studies for a new lock in New Orleans and a study of the drainage system in New Orleans. He has managed National Register of Historic Places eligibility studies for engineering structures such as locks, bridges, pumping stations, and a dredge.
His major publication is A New Deal for Southeastern Archaeology (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1996). This book received the Anne B. and James B. McMillan Prize from the University of Alabama Press for the best manuscript signed by the Press in 1994 in Southern history, literature, and culture.