PRINTMissouri visits its Titanic past
Missourians memorialize their links to the Titanic 100 years after it sank
April 12, 2012 | 12:00 a.m. CST
Playing passenger
The U.S.’s largest Titanic museum, in Branson, offers visitors a chance to climb a replica of the famous Grand Staircase, steer the captain’s wheel and feel an iceberg’s chill from a frigid replica in the museum. Brrrrrrrrr.
Related ArticlesThe last supper
On April 14, 1912, Titanic passengers ate their last meal, unaware of the fate that awaited them. On April 14, 2012, St. Louis’ The Fabulous Fox Theatre will re-create the last first-class dinner. The 11-course meal includes roasted lamb, squab—which, as every affluent passenger knows, is a newly hatched or unfledged pigeon—duck, beef, soup, salad and dessert. Guests will receive a boarding pass and an envelope with the name and biography of a real Titanic passenger. The night certainly has a first-class price at $500 per attendee.
Toilet paper telegram
Without a scrap of paper, Carlos Hurd, a reporter at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, resorted to his second option when the ship sank. Headed to Europe on the Carpathia, he wrote the first account of the disaster on toilet paper. The ship’s captain had confiscated all stationery to stop news leaks. But Hurd hoarded a stash of toilet paper on which he wrote most of a 5,000-word story. His piece shocked the world; the lack of toilet paper might’ve angered fellow passengers.
The Unsinkable Molly Brown
Everyone remembers the Unsinkable Kathy Bates, er, Molly Brown, from the 1997 movie Titanic. She helps Jack Dawson fit into high society. This political and philanthropic activist was born in Hannibal, where the Molly Brown Birthplace and Museum now tells her story. Brown helped form the suffragist organization called the Conference of Great Women in 1914. Before women could even vote, she ran for Colorado state senator in 1901 and U.S. senator in 1909 and 1914, against her husband’s wishes.
King of the shipwrecks
Although it sank in 1912, the luxury liner was not discovered until Sept. 1985, when oceanographer Robert Ballard’s crew found the shipwreck. In addition to Titanic, he and his crews have found the Lusitania, Bismarck and 11 World War II ships. He will visit Joplin on May 27 to give the commencement speech at Thomas Jefferson Independent Day School in Joplin.
