Cap'n Andy Hawks, a former riverboar pilot, buys the Cotton Blossom, a floating steamboat theatre that travels between small towns along the banks of the Mississippi River, in spite of the objections from his shrewish wife Parthenia. His daughter Magnolia is delighted. His cast of troupers and crew are Julie Dozier and her husband Steve Baker; Ellie Chipley and her husband, "Schultzy"; Pete, the engineer of the towboat Mollie Able, which propels the show boat; Frank the utility man and Windy McClain, the pilot. For several years, events flow smoothly, but when jealousy erupts and deprives the troupe of their leading man and leading lady, Cap'n Andy takes on Gaylord Ravenal, a riverboat gambler and install Magnolia, now 18, as the leading lady - and it's not too long before love begins finding a way. An epic chronicle of the lives of three generations of Cotton Blossom performers from the 1880s to the 1920s, with story moving against the background of Reconstruction to 1890s Chicago to Roaring Twenties New York before finally returning to the Mississippi River.