Below Red River Landing, Raccourci cut-off was made (forty or fifty years ago, I think).

This shortened the river twenty-eight miles.

In our day, if you travel by river from the southernmost of these three cut-offs to the northernmost, you go only seventy miles.

To do the same thing a hundred and seventy-six years ago, one had to go a hundred and fifty-eight miles!--shortening of eighty-eight miles in that trifling distance.
At some forgotten time in the past, cut-offs were made above Vidalia, Louisiana; at island 92; at island 84; and at Hale's Point.

These shortened the river, in the aggregate, seventy-seven miles.
Since my own day on the Mississippi, cut-offs have been made at Hurricane Island; at island 100; at Napoleon, Arkansas; at Walnut Bend; and at Council Bend.