High Times — A Jake Burbank mystery thriller Ch 2

Pine Bluff has an interesting history. It was founded on the shore of the Arkansas River and when a flood threatened to knock down the new courthouse, the leaders of the city at the time decided to alter the course of the waterway.

Permanently.

It moved the River three miles from downtown, thus saving Main Street, but altering the flow of barges and traffic.

The industrial park was built around the port, because even though railroads cut the city in half and became the new norm for shipping, there was no cheaper substitute for high volume shipping than river barges.

Cotton shipped out, and steel shipped in, either for use in the factories that popped up around the port, or ferried onto a rail line that connected with the main line for transport across the Midwest.

The city leaders who changed the river and created the port facilities were separated by five decades, but Stevens owed them a debt of thanks.

“Park here,” he pointed.

I didn’t need it. This was our tenth trip in a month, but the first time I’d driven it.

The smell of whisky on his breath competed with stale cheap cigarette smoke that whispered to the ceiling from the corner of his lip.