Water has shaped Columbia's history from the very beginning, when the town was moved downhill to the Hinkson and Flat Branch bottomlands. As time went on, natural bodies of water shaped the places that Columbians lived and what they did for fun.
These creeks inspired music and influenced the day-to-day paths that Columbians took to school or work. While so much has changed since Columbia was founded, the Hinkson and Flat Branch creeks continue to connect modern-day Columbians with those of the past.
KBIA's Robin Crouch shares how Columbia was shaped by natural bodies of water as part of Reverberations, a series from KBIA that uncovers the wealth of historical information housed within the State Historical Society of Missouri's archives and its Haskell Monroe oral history collection from the 1990s.
This episode of Reverberations features the voices of:
- Soren Larsen
- Marian Glouser
- Kathleen Shreves
- Joanne Jones
- Anderson Logan
It also features the following additional sounds:
- Audio from the modern-day Hinkson creek in Columbia
- Blind Boone's 1909 song "Strains from the Flat Branch"
Reverberations is a grant-funded, collaborative project from KBIA, the Missouri School of Journalism, and The School of Visual Studies, with support from Missouri Humanities. Special thanks to the State Historical Society of Missouri for partnering with this project to digitize and explore the Haskell Monroe Oral History Collection.
