Trempealeau, 1874

I have a few pages from a book called Picturesque America; or, The land we live in. A delineation by pen and pencil of the mountains, rivers, lakes, forests, water-falls, shores, cañons, valleys, cities, and other picturesque features of our country. With illustrations on steel and wood which was published in 1874. What a title! The entire text is found here. One of the pages has a nice color illustration:

The text accompanying this illustration reads: "It is sometimes called Mountain Island, for its rocky height attains in one part an altitude of five hundred and sixty feet. But the name which the French voyageurs gave it is so poetical that it would be a sin to change it. It rises sheer out of the water in the centre of the channel, and the French called it "Mont qui trempe a I'eau" (Mountain which dips in the Water). Nothing can be conceived more beautiful than the approach to this most romantic and picturesque spot, which, in the writer's opinion, exceeds in positive beauty the far-famed scenery of Lake Pepin, twenty-five miles up the river."

This earlier post of mine shows what the mountain looks like in modern days, in the winter. I've posted about the place in other posts, including this most recent one about a shipwreck (riverboat wreck). As I may have mentioned before, Trempealeau Island (located on the Mississippi River between Winona, Mn and La Crosse, Wi) is now a sort of forbidden zone: visitors to the area are not encouraged to actually go onto the island. I've not heard of anyone in the modern era who has, and when I enquired of a local about going there, I was told not to, because it was covered in rattlesnakes. But it is possible: there is a Mountain Zone page about it.