Caches are along the Fred Meijer Flat River Valley Rail Trail between Belding and Lowell. Parking is in Lowell and Belding. Waypoints for those are in listed in 01 Lowell Showboat. Other than those two locations, you may be able to get away with parking on the side of the gravel roads, but no guarantees. The Fred Meijer Flat River Valley Rail Trail is 22 miles and connects Lowell to Greenville. The trail surface is coarse railroad ballast with paved segments in Belding and Smyrna. In Greenville it connects to the Fred Meijer Heartland Trail and in Lowell it connects to the Fred Meijer Grand River Valley Trail.
Lowell Showboat: A Typical Show
Not only famous people got a chance to come down the Flat River aboard the Showboat. Many local citizens were included in the choir. “Here Comes the Showboat” is a song many remember. The Showboat has been an example of civic enterprise and a demonstration of what people can do when they all work together. There was not a person in Lowell that was too big or too small to have a part. Men and women and even children from all walks of life have had a way in which they could participate.
The show itself was always in keeping with the Mississippi Riverboat shows of long ago. A chorus, interlocutor, end men, amateur, and semi-professional acts all worked together to present an old fashioned minstrel type show. Due to the growing civil rights movement and Louis Armstrong coming to perform the organizers decided to end the use of blackface in the show in 1967. Before that, it had been a widespread tradition to emulate the riverboat shows on the Mississippi through the mid 20th century.
Ivan Blough has been known in town as “Mr. Showboat”. He was a local contractor who donated much time and effort to keep showboat #5 up and running. He changed signs on it to reflect each different holiday. He contributed much to a display on the history of the boat at the Lowell Historical Museum. C.H. Runciman was Captain/Interlocutor for several decades. Others things that local geocacher team, TJPost, remembers are Forrest Buck as interlocutor and end man and George Dey as head usher for 20 years.
Did children help as part of a typical show? (yes or no)
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