This region, like Cairo, was the site of several Civil War skirmishes, as control of the river was contested. There are interesting plaques and monuments for the history buff throughout the area. New Madrid, MO, is also the center of the most severe earthquake ever recorded in North America, occurring in 1811-12, and felt as far away as Boston. The town of New Madrid (pronounced MAD-rid) was destroyed, but population was sparse so the death toll was limited. This area is still seismically active, and buildings in Memphis are earthquake-proofed similar to those in San Francisco and Tokyo. Who knew?
I visited two of the thee tri-points here (there wasn't a whole lot to see). At the one-church-one-farm "town" of Phillipy, TN (likely never more than a whistlestop on the Illinois Central), a right turn took me through a couple of miles of fertile dark-soil farmland. The easternmost of the three tri-points is accessed via a road that runs along a levee. On the other side of the levee, a muddy track leads into another soybean field with only a stand of tall trees separating it from the riverbank...
Egrets near Hickman, KY
The ferry brought me back across to the east side of the river because it provided the best access to the big bend in the Mississippi that creates a unique triple tri-point. The S-curve in the river at New Madrid gives Kentucky an exclave (the only one in the US, I believe) of about 15 square miles separated from its "mainland" by Tennessee and Missouri. These bends constantly change as the river erodes away shore, and, left to its own, the river would likely have cut off this oxbow at Bessie, TN. In that case, this piece of land would probably have belonged to Missouri rather than Kentucky.
The levee road, west of Phillipy, TN