The Gasconade County Courthouse sits on a regal perch overlooking the Missouri River at Hermann, Missouri.

Just a bike ride across the bridge from the Katy Trail, Hermann holds a unique spot in American history and culture. Fearless riverboat captains like August and Gustav Wohlt. Lovingly preserved architecture. And, oh by the way, Hermann saved the French wine industry from a devastating vine disease.

I holed up for the night in the Captain Wohlt Inn, a bed and breakfast named for the intrepid riverboat pilot August Wohlt, Hermann’s first mayor. It was the second time I’d spent an overnight in the Wohlt house, always an experience because I’m intimidated by the delicacy of bed and breakfast bedrooms, decorated with antiques and heirlooms and fine things ripe for my destructive ham hands. I’d probably be more suited to sleep on the cargo deck of one of Captain Wohlt’s ancient steamers, if any had survived.

My room was within walking distance of the local pleasures—bars, wineries, festhalles, restaurants—but I spent the afternoon paging through giant photographs of shipwrecks in the River Room of the old German School Museum. It’s a stark contrast: on one hand, the museum represents the well-preserved brick masonry of these Hermann buildings, the well-preserved lifestyle of a culture that proudly resists assimilation into modern McLife; conversely, the photographs show wrecks dashed against the rocks and drowned in the river, proud old riverboats that knew their lives were counted in weeks and months when they entered the treacherous currents and snags of the Missouri River.

These old shipwreck photos kept me captive, evoking the same human curiosity that causes traffic to slow to a crawl as gapers pass a car wreck. Each shipwreck photo represents hundreds of stories, families whose westward progress ended, often tragically. The soft cushion of time makes it easier to view the wrecks, knowing that those tragedies have long since subsided, and the scars have turned to dust.

–from Souls Along The Road