Love of Mississippi leads to Big River magazine

3 Jul 2018


Pepin

WINONA — Around 1970, Reggie McLeod stood on an overlook at Wisconsin’s Wyalusing State Park and, for the first time in his life, beheld the Mississippi River.

“I was just amazed,” he said. “It was a cool fall night, and we had just arrived there from Milwaukee. We hiked around in the hills the next couple of days, and I loved it. I hadn’t realized that there was a place like this in the Upper Midwest. I knew I’d be back.”

His friends had introduced him to the big river and McLeod, in turn, would repay that introduction thousands of times over by presenting people many views of the river in his Big River magazine.

The magazine began 25 years ago with a small, six-page offering without color. Today, it’s printed semi-monthly in color with the work being done in an eclectic office across from Winona’s City Hall. Big River covers about 400 miles of the river from the Twin Cities to the Quad Cities.

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