Illinois to Tennessee Great American Railroad Journeys

I have crossed the Atlantic

to ride the railroads of North America

with my reliable Appleton's guide.

Published in the late 19th century,

Appleton's General Guide to North America

will direct me to all that's novel,

beautiful, memorable

and striking in the United States.

THEY SHOUT

As I journey across this vast continent,

I'll discover how pioneers and cowboys conquered the West...

..and how the railroads tied this nation together,

helping to create the global super-state of today.

The so-called Mainline of Mid-America

takes me deeper into the fertile heartland of Illinois -

Abraham Lincoln country.

At the time of my guidebook, this was a land of plenty,

above and below ground.

I'm continuing towards the south.

During my time in Illinois,

my journey has taken me away from the Mississippi

but I've been running parallel with it,

and the river will feature again in my travels

before I arrive in Memphis, Tennessee.

During the years immediately after my guidebook,

the United States overtook Great Britain

as the world's largest economy -

an extraordinary achievement

in the century since its war of independence.

I want to discover what fuelled the people and the machines that carried

America from its political through to its industrial revolutions.

My rail journey has charted the birth of the industrial Midwest.

I started in Minneapolis, a 19th-century powerhouse,

before heading south along the trade route of the Mississippi

to La Crosse in rural Wisconsin.

Striking out east, I called at Lake Michigan's Milwaukee,

then headed south to recall rail's golden age in Chicago.

I'm now travelling south again through Illinois' rich prairies,

whose produce fed the urban masses,

before I end my journey

at the musical utopia of Memphis.

Today I begin in Mattoon, Illinois,

then visit the fruit bowl of Centralia,

the coalfields at Carbondale,

from there I'll cross into Kentucky,

stopping at Columbus before heading into Tennessee,

finishing my journey in the home of the blues.

Along the way I'll be testing my frontier resolve...

Abraham Lincoln split rails and then the United States.

..unearthing Illinois' elixir of life...

I'm making apple butter.

See, all this fruit makes you young and good-looking, Michael.

MICHAEL LAUGHS

..get my ducks in a row...

Don't let 'em get away.

I think this is the bizarrest thing I've ever been involved in.

..and get a dose of the blues.

HE PLAYS BLUES RIFFS

I'll be visiting Mattoon, Illinois.

The guidebook tells me that the Chicago branch

of the Illinois Central crosses here

and here are the machine shops,

roundhouse and car works of the railroad.

But I'll be heading into the countryside

to investigate the humble origins of the most divisive,

most decisive figure in United States history.

The junction town of Mattoon was born in the 1850s

and soon flourished as the United States railroad network grew.

Close by, it's possible to glimpse rural Illinois

as it was before the trains arrived.

The Lincoln Log Cabin Historical Site recreates a lost way of life

that shaped the character of one of America's greatest presidents.

This log cabin is moving.

It gives a very good idea of the meagre conditions

of Abraham Lincoln's childhood.

And you can imagine, no doubt, that he would learn here

the necessity of hard work and the virtues of self-reliance

and I understand how that would create a man of principle.

But few people have written or spoken more beautiful English prose

than Lincoln and I wonder how he learnt that craft.

This is the reconstructed home

of Abraham Lincoln's father and stepmother,

Thomas and Sarah Lincoln,

in its original location.

Matthew Mittelstaedt looks after this historic site.

Matthew.

-Good morning.

-Hi. Michael. Good to see you.

Well, basic living, eh?

It is. But, really, it's a simple home

but it was a home that was familiar to a number of Americans

in addition to Abraham Lincoln.

Born in Kentucky and raised in Indiana,

Abraham Lincoln had left home

by the time that Thomas and Sarah finally settled here,

but they continued to live the frontier lifestyle

that he had known as a boy.

Children had to work in those days.

They did. Children worked very hard.

They were part of the economy of the farm and of the home.

Children were taught to work very young.

Girls were learning to sew and to stitch and to cook just beside

their mother. Boys were learning to take care of the livestock,

filling up the firebox, bringing the water in from the well.

Splitting rails, of course.

Abraham Lincoln is known as the Rail-Splitter in his later years

as a politician, but that was a very common chore on the farm.

Made out of felled trees with pioneers' sweat,

split-rail fencing marked boundaries and penned in livestock.

My image of Lincoln is tall and gangly and,

of course, rather cerebral.

Was he good at splitting rails?

He was. Everyone understood splitting rails

and so being the Rail-Splitter candidate in 1860,

they understood that to be a hard worker, an honest man.

And so they utilised that imagery...

to further his campaign.

The man who writes the Gettysburg Address -

where do you think he got that power with the English language from?

Abraham Lincoln loved to read.

You know, he started as a young boy reading from the Bible

but then he went on to read poetry,

and Lincoln liked to think of himself as a poet anyway.

The Gettysburg Address actually begins in a very biblical way, doesn't it?

-"Four score and seven years ago..."

-It does indeed.

Lincoln left his father's farm aged 22

and found work as a boatman and a shop clerk.

Self-taught, he became a successful attorney

before moving into politics.

To find out how life on the frontier shaped the great man,

I'm attempting to get to grips with his rustic daily slog.

-So this is what all the good fences around here were made of?

-Yes, sir.

Abraham Lincoln split rails and then the United States.

I'm teased that a seasoned rail-splitter

could get through about 700 of these logs a day.

Ah! Tough work.

Yes, it is.

I can see why he'd want to sit in the Oval Office after this.

Doing well.

Thank you, Mark.

-Yay!

-Well, you did pretty well.

About 699 to go.

About another 2,000 to finish up fixing the fence over there.

I'm your man, Mark. Don't worry. Have faith.

When Lincoln's nephew visited him in Washington

at the height of the Civil War in 1864,

he commented that if his uncle hadn't been

brought up to maul rails, he would never have withstood

the rigours of the White House.

I believe him.

After all that heated exertion,

it's a relief to hear some cool sounds drifting my way.

THEY PLAY OLD-TIME MUSIC

-Hello.

-Hello.

Thank you for your music.

Well, you're welcome.

Sounds like the Southern music to me, is that right?

-It is, yes.

-Where are you all from?

-Alabama.

-Alabama.

Here you are at one of the great shrines to Abe Lincoln.

How do you feel about Abe Lincoln, being Alabamans?

We like him, his favourite song was Dixie.

THEY LAUGH

That's a very clever political answer.

Wow, that's good.

'Although written in New York and popular in the North before the American Civil War,

'Dixie became the anthem of the South.

'At the end of the war, Lincoln tried to reclaim it is an American rather than a Confederate song.'

You don't happen to know, do you,

how to play Abe's favourite, Dixie, do you?

-We sure do.

-Sure, we can do that.

Would you give me a little rendition of Dixie, please?

THEY PLAY DIXIE

I'm picking up my rail journey to delve deeper into the countryside

for a sweeter taste of Illinois' agricultural heritage.

HORN BLARES

My next stop will be Centralia, Illinois.

The guidebook tells me we've entered the great fruit-growing region

of central Illinois.

"For many miles, the railroad traverses a country of prolific orchards.

"Vast quantities of peaches are shipped annually to Chicago."

Fruit brought zest to an otherwise unhealthy city.

I owe that insight to my APPLE-ton.

Centralia lies at the midpoint of the Illinois Central's rail route.

BELL RINGS

I'm struck by an unexpected landmark.

This is a carillon,

an instrument that sounds through bells in a tower.

It had its European heyday over 300 years ago

but became popular in America in the 20th century.

Sorry to interrupt you.

I was frankly surprised to find a carillon in the United States.

Are there many in the USA?

Oh, yes. There are around 180 in the States.

Where does the carillon originate?

The carillon comes originally from the Netherlands and Belgium.

-And where are you from?

-I am from the Netherlands.

And how long have you been working here?

I've been working here... This is my very first day.

-Your very first day?

-My very first day.

HORN BLARES I hear a locomotive.

-Yes.

-And that gives me an idea.

Do you have a train piece you can play for me?

Absolutely. I was thinking about Chattanooga Choo Choo.

Take it away, Roy.

BELLS PLAY CHATTANOOGA CHOO CHOO

I've made my way east, out into Centralia's green belt.

My guide claims that this region enjoyed great prosperity from its fruit.

I'm joining the apple harvest with historian John Shaw.

John, when did they start planting fruit around Centralia?

The first settler came here in 1817,

and one of the first acts was to plant an apple or two.

That would have been just for his own consumption, I suppose?

-Yes.

-My guidebook mentions vast quantities of peaches

going to Chicago.

So what made the difference? What enabled them to go commercial?

The railroad was the thing that made it all possible.

They could take their fruit to Centralia, put it on a train

and have it in Chicago the next day or sometimes in two days.

Later, as the markets developed more,

they started growing strawberries and peaches and raspberries -

all sorts of fruit in this area.

Now, I would have thought that strawberries, raspberries and so on...

..need to be kept very fresh, don't they, on the journey?

That was the big problem when they first started -

they would try to ship strawberries directly from the fields

and that did not work for strawberries.

And then in 1866, at Cobden, about 70 miles south of here,

a man by the name of Parker Earle developed a system.

He built boxes that would hold 100lb of ice

and 200 quarts of strawberries.

Just a year after Parker Earle's pioneering ice chests,

the first refrigerated rail car was patented.

Known as reefers, by the 1880s,

these cars were supplying much-needed variety

to the monotonous diet of pioneers and industrial workers.

This orchard belongs to the Schwartz family,

who have been cultivating a variety of fruits here since the 1950s.

-I'm Michael.

-Michael. Tom.

-And what are you doing in that pot?

I'm making apple butter.

And you call it apple butter because you would spread it on bread?

You'd spread it on bread. It's apples that's been cooked down.

You can cook as long as eight or nine hours.

Is it very traditional, Tom?

Yes. Very.

But do you think it goes back to the days of Abraham Lincoln,

-all the way back there, do you think?

-I'm sure that's why he looked so good.

See, all this fruit makes you young and good-looking, Michael.

MICHAEL CHUCKLES Mm, wow!

-Look at that!

-Nice and thick.

-Cooked down just right.

-Mm!

Oh, it's fabulous. And it's really nice when it's still warm, isn't it?

-Oh, it's still warm. Oh, yeah.

-Mm!

This farm is a family affair.

On the production line, Tom's brother takes charge of packing.

But he welcomes an extra pair of hands,

and it's a pleasure to help out.

How long have you been pouring apple butter?

-50 years.

-And so this is typical, is it?

-You get the family together like this?

-Oh, yeah.

Nobody else'll put up with us.

There we go, sir.

You're getting better. I tell you what -

he's on probation but I guess he'll work out.

You're hired!

Along with this region's fine fruit,

Appleton's suggests a visit downtown

for something more substantial

at the Centralia House restaurant,

which opened in 1854.

We have your table right here.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

That's great!

I'm going to have the shrimp cocktail, please.

-Sounds great, we'll be right back with that.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

Before the days of rail dining cars,

this was apparently a popular stopping-off point for passengers.

Waiters would meet each train as it arrived

and announce a list of the day's meals.

-Ah!

-Here we are, sir.

-Oh! Beautifully presented. Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

There's something a little retro about train travel

in the United States, and about this restaurant,

and about prawn cocktail.

As night draws in, I'm returning to the railroad station

to board the last train of the day.

My next stop will be the appropriately named Carbondale.

Appleton's says that the principal business of the area is coal mining,

about a dozen companies being in active operation.

Coal was needed by the steel mills,

by the factories of Chicago and by the railroads.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, the next and final station stop

will be Carbondale.

Early morning. I'm making my way to explore the commodity that was

essential to America's railroads.

-Hello, Rosemary.

-Hello, how are you?

-Good to see you.

-Good to see you.

-Where are we headed?

-We are headed to the mine.

Rosemary Feurer is a professor of history

at Northern Illinois University.

Rosemary, here we are in this tremendous opencast mine

here in southern Illinois. When did they first mine coal in this state?

The first coal mines were in the 1830s but, really,

it starts getting its traction with the railroads.

The railroads needed coal for steam

and they needed to use it for transportation,

but then industrialisation was highly dependent on coal.

The 19th-century American coal industry

relied heavily on immigrant labour.

British miners were highly prized for their experience

of dangerous deep-shaft mining.

This skilled workforce that was needed - was it well paid?

At first, yes. But, over time,

employers kept bringing in more and more immigrants

and they kept mechanising.

By the 1880s, coal had overtaken wood

to become the country's largest source of energy.

But by then, coal miners' wages had fallen.

Miners battled against their employers

for better pay and conditions.

The British workers brought traditions of unionism

to the state of Illinois.

They formed the first miners' union in the country in the 1860s.

The conflicts came because this was a very anti-union culture,

as far as the mine owners were concerned.

So where did that all lead?

There were a series of very bloody struggles,

in which dozens of workers were killed in the state of Illinois,

and it's because that's what it took to form a union in this state.

From the 1890s to the 1920s,

all of Illinois became unionised

and that meant that they could govern what the wages were.

They could say eight hours or nothing.

So it was a real power for the unions.

Today, mechanisation has transformed the industry.

But coal is in the veins of the people of Illinois.

-Hello, Sue.

-Hi, Michael.

-How are you?

-Lovely to see you.

What a pleasure, what a privilege.

I've arranged to meet Sue in her family's cafe,

where they commemorate the community's mining heritage.

Sue, what is your connection with mining?

Both sides of my family - the Elwoods,

who came from Newcastle-on-Tyne, and the Littles,

who came from the Border area of Scotland and England -

came here, ended up working in the coal mine.

Who is this in this photograph?

This is my husband's father.

He's 14 years old.

They didn't go to school.

They worked.

Is your dad on this wall?

Back there.

That's Bud Little.

How did your dad feel about working underground, given the dangers?

My dad loved it.

And if you ever talk to a soldier who'd been in combat,

you'd get the same feeling.

It was, everybody was a group.

They helped each other.

They protected each other's back, they worked together.

My dad loved it.

Don't ask me why.

Have you ever been in a mine?

Yeah, there you go.

I have. I agree with you.

-I don't understand it.

-I don't understand it but he loved it.

It's time to leave Illinois,

but the rails don't take me where I'm going,

so I've arranged a lift in a fine Corvette.

Hey, Jimmy. I'm Michael. Good to see you.

I'm heading over the Mississippi to the state of Kentucky,

which my Appleton's tells me had a crucial role

in the American Civil War.

So, what are the qualities of Kentucky, do you think?

Well, we have a lot of farming.

-Real small communities.

-And what are the people like?

Oh, very nice.

All watch after one another.

A lot of respect.

The men still open the doors for the women.

-And the women don't object?

-No.

-Safe journey.

-You too.

Bye-bye.

It was starting in 1860 that Lincoln, the Rail-Splitter,

split the Union.

He opposed any territorial expansion of slavery.

And on his election as president,

a majority of slave-owning states broke from the Union

to form the Confederate States of America.

This quiet spot played a pivotal role

in the bloody conflict that followed.

"Columbus, Kentucky," says the book,

"is situated on the slope of a high bluff,

"commanding the Mississippi for about five miles.

"At the outbreak of the Civil War,

"it was strongly fortified by the Confederates,

"who regarded it as the northern key to the mouth of the Mississippi."

The river was the artery, the aorta of the South,

and the Union intended to convert it into a meandering rift that would

tear the Confederacy apart.

History professor Berry Craig has joined me

at this former Confederate fort

to chart the course of the Mississippi campaign.

Well, it's obvious from where we are, and the guidebook emphasises it,

that we're at a strategic point from the point of view of the river.

Did it have other strategic elements?

Oh, yes. A railroad came in here.

The Mobile and Ohio Railroad which, of course, would supply an army.

It's a very, very strategic place, that when the Confederates come in,

they heavily fortify this place with artillery.

Now, if you look down the river,

they first had long-range guns that could reach way down the river.

If you happened to come through those guns,

they had mid-range guns next.

If you didn't get this close to Columbus as we are here,

the short-range guns come in. It's a murderous field of fire.

General Ulysses S Grant on the Union side

knew that control of the Mississippi was critical.

A bold assault on impregnable Columbus

was his first test on the Civil War battlefield.

What is the Union strategy?

Grant comes on 7th November, 1861 to probe the Columbus outer defences

at Belmont, Missouri, which is just over there.

Well, at this point, the Confederates send reinforcements

across the river, Grant finds himself surrounded.

Now, Grant's troops think, "What's the logical thing to do?

"Surrender." Grant said, "Oh, no.

"We fought our way in, we'll fight our way out."

And he did.

Having battled back to safety,

Grant revised the Union strategy.

He encircled Columbus by conquering nearby forts,

until Confederate commanders were left so vulnerable

that they relinquished their prize stronghold.

The Union river campaign drove south and pushed northwards

from the Gulf of Mexico to seize New Orleans.

In the summer of 1863, the fall of Vicksburg, Mississippi

brought the mighty river under Union control

and split the Confederacy east and west in two.

What role does this play in the career of General Ulysses S Grant?

I think it very much illustrates the kind of commander he is.

Grant is a military commander who never made the same mistake twice.

He understood that war is total war.

You fight it to win or you don't get in.

Grant was made commander of all Union armies in 1864.

Five years later, he became the 18th President of the United States.

What do historians say of the significance of the battle here?

Some historians think that the North won the Civil War

right here in this part of the country.

It took four years and cost 600,000 lives,

but the eventual triumph of Union forces

ended the Confederate secession, and abolished slavery.

I'm nearing the end of a thousand-mile railroad journey.

It began on the mighty Mississippi

and that is where I will also make my final stop.

Great rivers bring fertility and prosperity all along their banks,

so it was with the Nile, in Ancient Egypt,

and its shimmering city of Memphis,

so with the Mississippi and its cotton fields.

In 1826,

a group of Tennessee entrepreneurs decided to name their river city

Memphis, too.

Appleton's tells me,

"It's the largest city on the river between St Louis and New Orleans."

Roughly translated, "Memphis" means "place of good abode",

or more roughly still, "Graceland".

HORN BLARES

Ladies and gentlemen, now arriving in Memphis.

Memphis, Tennessee. Memphis - now arriving.

Thank you very much. Bye-bye.

Memphis was a transport hub even before the arrival of the railroads

because of its strategic position on the Mississippi.

BOAT HORN BLARES

Then travellers would have caught their first glimpse of the city

from one of the hundreds of paddle steamers that plied the waters.

Appleton's remarks that,

"The prevailing character of the lower Mississippi is of solemn gloom.

"The dreary solitude, the trees with melancholy drapery of pendant moss,

"the vast volume of dark and turbid waters through the wilderness form

"the most dismal yet impressive landscape."

And indeed, Memphis has inherited a kind of shabby soulfulness,

which has been its making in modern times.

I've come here mainly to think about a man who looked back wistfully on

childhood days on the Mississippi.

19th-century writer Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain,

cemented Mississippi life in American culture.

Historian Dr Charles Crawford

can tell me how the river shaped his life and work.

-Hello, Charles.

-I'm glad to meet you, Michael.

Tell me about Mark Twain. Who was he?

Mark Twain was, in the opinion of many people,

the greatest American author who ever lived

because his novel, Huckleberry Finn,

about three boys on the river

is one of the great travel adventures

cos it is done with such simplicity.

It can be read by children.

But with more maturity,

you see he's commenting on the social aspects

and economic aspects of society at the time,

and he's doing it through the view of two young boys and one slave.

The Mississippi first captured Twain's imagination

during his childhood in Hannibal, Missouri, some 400 miles upriver.

Then as a young man he experienced the thrills and spills of life

as a Mississippi riverboat pilot.

How safe was it to travel on the steamboats?

It was extremely hazardous.

There was great danger of sinking from boiler explosions, from fire,

of boats running aground to simply sinking.

Steamboats had a short life expectancy.

Tell me what was the worst disaster

that befell a steamboat on the river?

The worst one occurred in 1865.

The captain of that boat was being paid per person,

so he admitted approximately perhaps 2,400 people to a boat

that should have been limited to 600.

During the night, several miles north of Memphis, it exploded

and the loss of life was between 1,500 and 2,000.

Mark Twain knew the risks all too well.

His brother also travelled on the Mississippi River

and, in 1858,

a steamboat explosion occurred near the city and his brother Henry

was seriously wounded, was brought to Memphis for treatment.

They were cared for by the people so much so that Mark Twain said after

his brother had died said, "God bless Memphis,

"there is no more noble city on the face of the Earth."

Late-19th-century United States citizens had to endure danger,

violence and disease.

The Civil War claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and fast-growing

crowded cities were the perfect breeding ground for epidemics.

In 1878,

Memphis was gripped by a pestilence that threatened its very existence.

This lovely spacious place is, according to Appleton's,

"The principal of the six cemeteries and is known as Elmwood."

It's the final resting place for 14 Confederate generals

and for many dead from steamboat disasters,

but lots of people buried here were not the victims of great events,

but of something extraordinarily tiny.

Executive director at Elmwood Kim McCollum

works to raise awareness of the cemetery's history.

So, Kim, why are the years just before my guide book was published

so memorable for Memphis?

Well, the 1870s brought a lot of turmoil to the city of Memphis

in the form of a mosquito, the Aedes aegypti mosquito.

She caused a lot of damage in the form of yellow fever.

Did people know that the mosquito was to blame?

No, no-one knew the mosquito was to blame.

In fact, many believed that it was what Americans called a miasma,

that was sort of a fog that floated over cities,

that carried a foul air and infected people.

17th-century slave ships first brought yellow fever

to the east coast of America.

The disease spread,

aided by the advent of steamboats and railroads.

In the 1800s, it reached Memphis' crowded streets.

Why was Memphis particularly badly hit, do you think?

Memphis was a very unclean city during the yellow fever epidemics.

There were no sewer systems and the Gayoso Bayou was located downtown,

which was a large body of water that was stagnant and so the mosquito

had a wonderful breeding ground in Memphis.

The city was struck by a series of yellow fever outbreaks,

each worse than the last.

So when a case was reported in 1878, panic set in.

In the year 1878,

the population of the city of Memphis was approximately 50,000,

so about 25,000 people chose to leave the city of Memphis

and they headed up the Mississippi River towards St Louis.

Most of those were Caucasian people who had the means to leave the city,

those who remained in the city were largely African-American.

We liken it to a modern-day Hurricane Katrina in its devastation.

So what was the impact on the 25,000 who remained?

Out of the 25,000 who remained in Memphis,

about 5,000 of those died from the yellow fever.

In the month of September of 1878,

about 200 people were dying per day in the city of Memphis

and about 50 of those people were brought to Elmwood for burial

and they were buried in trench-style graves in this piece of land

that we're standing on now, which is called No Man's Land.

The epidemic upended the social order in Memphis.

White flight made way for African-Americans to serve for

the first time as police officers,

while businessman Robert Reed Church,

whose mother was a slave, made a fortune snapping up property,

becoming reputedly the South's first black millionaire.

Nowadays the people of Memphis remember those who stayed behind

to serve the victims.

One unlikely hero was a brothel owner

who apparently still haunts the cemetery today,

keeping her story alive.

Well, Annie Cook, I presume!

-Good afternoon.

-I'm Michael.

Annie, what sort of business have you been running here in Memphis?

I've been very successful in Memphis.

I started out as a housemaid, but there's not a lot of money in that,

so I knew what the sailors in a rough river town like Memphis needed

was something a little more exciting than a clean house.

How did 1878 begin?

Well, that terrible disease hit Memphis that was nicknamed "yellow fever"

because you turned as yellow as a banana.

It was burning you up from the inside out.

You bled from everywhere -

your ears, your eyes, your nose, your mouth.

Luckily, I mean, mercifully, you died within three or four days.

What did that do to your business?

Well, I turned my palatial mansion into a hospital.

-How did you do that?

-Well, we just pushed back the furniture,

rolled up the carpets

and filled every room with cots

and they were full with the sick and the dying.

Well, Annie, thank you very much for all of your services to Memphis.

-Sure, thank y'all.

-Bye-bye.

-Bye.

Appleton's recommends the Peabody Hotel,

which first opened its doors in 1869.

It moved to this site in 1925

and, soon after, a remarkable tradition was born.

Mr Duck Master, I assume?

Mr Portillo, great to have you with us.

Thank you, it's lovely to be here. What's going to happen?

Well, have you ever seen a duck march before?

-A duck march? No.

-Well, that's all right.

Have you ridden on an elevator with ducks before?

-With ducks? No.

-That's fine.

Have you ever seen a Royal Duck Palace?

-No.

-That's all right.

The Peabody ducks, these guys right here,

they are a legend here in the city of Memphis and you, sir,

have been nominated to act as our honorary Duck Master.

Oh, that is a great honour. I'm humbled.

Ducks have been a feature here since 1933,

when an inebriated general manager

positioned some of them in the fountain of the hotel,

to the guests' delight.

Nowadays the daily duck march draws a crowd.

Here we go. All righty, ducks,

wait for it, wait for it.

Very good. I like what you're doing.

Excellent. Very good, very nice.

Very good, I think he's got it.

Duckies, hup, hup.

Very nice. Double back for you.

Very good waddle, duckies.

Look at you guys! Oh, excellent posing, ducks.

Very nice. Very good!

Great job!

The ducks are going to go running right past you

as soon as that door opens, just so you know,

if just stay still. There they go.

-Don't let them get away.

-Oh, right!

-We got work to do.

Beautiful day for a duck march.

I think this is the bizarrest thing I've ever been involved in!

You're doing great. Pardon me, ducks.

Pardon me. Thank you, good job.

-Hooray!

-Great job, Duck Master! Thank you very much.

Wow! Duck Master, what an honour to serve with you.

It was a pleasure having you with us. Thank you so much.

Look at this palace that they're in, as well.

Not bad for ducks, right?

Well, I'm staying here slightly less time than they are

and I think my room is not quite as big.

Well, there's five of them!

Before I turn in,

I'm taking a stroll down the famous Beale Street

to soak up a little Memphis nightlife.

Around the time of my guidebook,

this was where African-Americans gathered.

I suppose Beale Street is what it is today because, about 150 years ago,

penniless black musicians came here

who would have faced immense prejudice, I dare say.

And now, look at this.

All the neon signs, all the tourism, and it's all down to those guys.

How the wheel of fortune, how the wheel of fashion, turns.

A new day and I've been invited to play with a big toy...

Hi! May I come aboard?

-Yes, sir.

-Thank you very much.

..to get a feel of Memphis' modern rail story.

Appleton's tells me that Memphis has an immense railroad

and steamboat traffic. Of course, it was a hub,

having both the railroad and the Mississippi River,

but perhaps more surprising is that even today,

the big five railroads of North America all converge on Memphis.

Rail freight today is a 60 billion industry

and Memphis is America's third largest rail hub.

And where there are trains...

there are train spotters.

-Hello, gentlemen.

-Hello!

-My name is Michael

and you look like railway enthusiasts, is that right?

-Yeah.

-Absolutely.

-Very, very pleased to meet you.

Is Memphis a good place to see trains?

-ALL: Yes.

-Yes, it is.

-Why so?

Mainly because we're a crossroads.

Memphis has always been a crossroads for all the major railroads

going to the South, going east, going west, going back north.

We get a tremendous amount of rail activity here.

We've got two bridges across the Mississippi River

that gives a gateway to the West.

What do you like to see or what do you like to photograph?

Just freight trains coming through.

That's a Burlington Northern Santa Fe train going through now

and that's referred to as a double stack,

those are intermodal containers,

they can ride on either truck-trailer,

railroad car or ship.

Do you go and look at trains abroad?

I do. We were just there.

We started out in Prague and went down to Budapest,

and then we were over in France...

-When you say "we"...?

-Me and my wife.

You mean your wife puts up with this?

Yes. Because she gets to go to Europe,

so I have to have train rides when I'm in Europe,

so it's a compromise.

Are there any lady railway enthusiasts?

-Very few.

-Very few.

I wish there were.

Along with the railroads,

the city itself has a history as a cultural crossroads.

Since travelling black musicians first congregated on Beale Street,

Memphis has been a musical melting pot.

In the home of the blues,

I'm meeting Grammy-nominated musician Cedric Burnside.

Cedric, how did music begin in your life?

My big daddy was a big part of my music history.

RL Burnside. I grew up with him

because he grew up playing in the juke joints -

I kind of grew up, too.

That was the life we had, you know.

What are you saying with your music?

What is it you're communicating, do you think?

Slaves, you know, really started the blues.

They couldn't talk a whole lot, so they had to do code

and I kind of think blues is sort of that way still today.

People go through things, you know,

they talk about it through their blues.

It's the roots.

After the Civil War,

African-Americans made use of their new-found freedom and the growing

railroad network to travel, taking their music with them.

In 1912, the first commercially successful blues song

was published by WC Handy,

a Beale Street band leader,

inspired by a lone musician

whom he heard playing at a Mississippi rail station.

During the Great Depression,

blues men migrated north on the Illinois Central

and the electrified Chicago blues was born.

Cedric, there are different sorts of blues.

How would I distinguish between, I don't know, between Delta blues...

Chicago blues, hill country blues?

-Tell me about that.

-Well, Delta blues, it's all bars, you know.

I like to think of hill country blues as film music.

It don't have any bars.

It's just a straight beat that goes on through.

You can't put hill country blues in front of somebody and say, "Play this,"

because you can't write it, really.

This is a hill country song I'm about to play you

that my big daddy used to play all the time.

And it don't really have too many changes,

it just has a lot of finger picking and just a strong, hypnotic beat.

This is called Skinny Woman.

# Well, I don't want skinny woman

# Well, I don't want skinny woman

# Meat don't shake

# Meat don't shake... #

-Thank you, Cedric.

-You're very welcome, man. Thank y'all.

In the mid-20th century,

the blues helped to give birth to a new style of music here in Memphis

and a local boy was its king.

I'm joining the 20 million people

who've made the rock and roll pilgrimage

to his home since it opened to the public in 1982.

My guide is Libby Perry.

-Hello, Libby, I'm Michael.

-Hey, Michael, welcome to Graceland.

Thank you so much. It's really very exciting to be here.

In what sort of circumstances was Elvis born?

Elvis was born in Tupelo, Mississippi.

It's about an hour and a half south of Memphis.

He was born to a poor family,

they had a very small shack on the edge of a very poor historically

African-American neighbourhood.

Elvis moved to Memphis at the age of 13

and absorbed its musical influences.

-Where was he going to hear his music?

-Beale Street.

Everyone goes to Beale Street in Memphis to hear all sorts of music.

It was the same for Elvis when he was growing up.

And he really made a lot of connections at Stax and Sun Studio

with so many up-and-coming Memphis musicians

that would really help put Memphis on the map in terms of blues

and gospel and eventually rock and roll.

And does Elvis himself pick up the blues?

Yes, absolutely.

Big influences of Elvis in terms of blues are Big Mama Thornton,

who actually came out with Hound Dog and that famous song of Elvis'

is a cover of hers.

Otis Blackwell was an amazing blues writer

that Elvis loved to work with.

He wrote Don't Be Cruel and All Shook Up.

So, Graceland, I've never been here before, big moment,

but when does he acquire it?

Elvis bought Graceland when he was 22,

it's June 1957,

came with about 13 acres of land and he paid about 100,000 for it.

The poor boy from Mississippi had become

the first global rock and roll superstar,

thanks to his fusion of rhythm and blues, country and gospel.

He died aged just 42,

but it's as though he lives on at Graceland.

Well, it's a...

-a time capsule, isn't it?

-That's right.

When Elvis passed away in 1977,

he was kind of in a very masculine '70s phase,

so most of what you see here that's white or blue

was actually red and black, lots of leather and fur.

So we kind of like to hedge the balance between

what it was like when he passed away

and what it was like the majority of the time that he lived here.

What was the difference that he made to music?

He is credited with a lot.

At Sun Studio, downtown, he and Sam Phillips, Johnny Cash,

Jerry Lee Lewis really blended together blues, gospel, country, R&B,

soul and created what we now know as the infancy of rock and roll.

And so many current pop culture and musical artists today

kind of attribute some of their success,

some of their musical stylings to the King of Rock 'n' Roll.

Despite his renown as a rebellious youth whose music and sensuality

divided generations and families, Elvis was devoted to his parents.

They lived with him off and on at Graceland and are buried beside him.

I've been thinking,

which figures most help you to understand American history?

Thomas Jefferson, "All men are created equal".

Abraham Lincoln, the abolition of slavery,

and Elvis Presley.

That's not far-fetched because,

from the second half of the 20th century onwards,

America, through its entertainment, has global, cultural domination

and Elvis is absolutely at the heart of that,

and the interesting thing is

that he draws his inspiration largely from black Americans.

Guided by my Appleton's,

my train journey from Minneapolis to Memphis has left two strong impressions,

that the Mississippi tells the story of America up to

the late-19th century.

Native Americans, fur traders, settlers, steamboats,

industry and the Civil War.

And that Chicago carries on the history of the United States,

sitting at the centre of a vast iron web,

spinning out new rail lines in every direction,

growing fat and tall on the profits, because by then access to a railroad

was more important than proximity to a river...

Even to this one, the father of the waters.