Early railheads on the upper river's east bank fostered steamboat traffic, but they initiated its end as well. In 1854 the first two railroads reached the Mississippi River: the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad at Rock Island, Illinois, and the Chicago and Alton at Alton, Illinois. Navigation boosters in Minneapolis failed, however, to convince Congress of the importance of their project. To subscribe, click here. No. Due to the collapse of this tunnel, St. Anthony Falls was in danger of eroding away. Some easterners came to take the fashionable tour. Arriving in St. Louis or at other railheads on the river's east bank, these excursionists traveled upstream, sometimes to St. Anthony Falls, imbibing the river's beauty (see the above references). The four broad projects are known as the 4-, 41/2-, 6- and 9-foot channel projects. By dividing the river, islands limited the water available to the navigation channel and thereby its depth. Trees filled and enshrouded it. In 1854 the Minnesota Pioneer,a St. Paul newspaper, reported that passengers and freight overflowed from every steamboat that arrived and that the present tonnage on the river is by no means sufficient to handle one-half the business of the trade.3 While two steamboats often left St. Paul each day, they could not carry goods away as quickly as merchants and farmers deposited it, and many upper river cities mirrored St. Paul.4 Each steamboat that docked created new business and a greater backlog, as more immigrants disembarked to establish farms and businesses.5, Spurred by Indian land cessions that opened much of the Midwest between 1820 and 1860, by Iowa's statehood in 1846 and Wisconsin's in 1848 and by the creation of the Minnesota Territory in 1849, passenger traffic on the upper river boomed. When the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad was completed in 1854 under the direction of Henry Farnam and his partner Joseph Sheffield, it became the first to connect the East with the Mississippi River. If built, this project would allow Minneapolis to become the head of navigation. The young Daly recalled in his memoir that he could distinctly hear the grinding of her bottom on the gravel bar over which she was passing.23 Some boats ground to a halt on sandbars. Those that swayed back and forth with the current they called sawyers. William Cronon, Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, (New York:W. W. Norton & Company, 1991), p. 296, says that the first railroad to reach the Mississippi River was the Chicago, Alton and St. Louis in 1852-53. p. 213. One measure of this was the number of times steamboats docked at the upper river's port cities. Kane, St. Anthony, p. 96, points out that the state never transferred the grant to the company. After the war, he settled in New York. The parish seat is Edgard, an unincorporated area, and the largest city is LaPlace, which is also unincorporated.. St. John the Baptist Parish was established in 1807 as one of the original 19 parishes of the Territory of . Before he could develop a plan for achieving the 4-foot channel, Warren had to learn more about the upper Mississippi River and he had to complete his survey. American Memory Project, Library of Congress. The bridge was completed on June 30, 1956. 318-19. Mackenzie added that the Corps would have to build a third lock and dam with a 10.1-foot lift to bring navigation to St. Anthony Falls and a fourth lock to bring navigation above it. Grant rejected any idea of a retreat. Eager to begin the project, Major Francis Farquhar, the new St. Paul District commander, reported that he had initiated a survey of the river and of the dam site. Tweet, History of Transportation on the Upper Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, p. 22. Ten sheets formed a continuous map of the river from St. Anthony Falls to the mouth of the St. Croix River. Construction of the tied-in double-arch structure began in May 1967. .65 Once the willow mats had been laid in the water, the workers would sink them with rock. Support for the project came from the company's stockholders, navigation boosters and city business leaders. Rail lines were generally shorter, more direct, and could reach deep into lands served by no navigable rivers. Sandbars determined the river's overall navigability. Meeker, Kane says, retained some shares of the company for himself, as did his friends. Lester Shippee, Steamboating on the Upper Mississippi after the Civil War: A Mississippi Magnate, Mississippi Valley Historical Review 6:4 (March 1920):496; Dixon, A Traffic History, p. 49; Hartsough, Canoe, pp. If lucky, they avoided hogging the boat; that is, warping or breaking its hull.24. 152-53. The Mississippi River can be broken down into three parts, which in turn decided on whether the crossings were constucted with fixed or moveable spans. Sandbars posed the most persistent and frequent problem. 15T E 635413 N 4489267. From the St. Croix to the Illinois River it varied from 18 to 24 inches. Construction of the five-and-a-half-mile, six-lane bridge cost fifty-seven million dollars. Gary F. Browne, The Railroads: Terminals and Nexus Points in the Upper Mississippi Valley, (in John S. Wozniak ed., Historic Lifestyles in the Upper Mississippi River Valley, (New York: University Press of America, 1983), p. 84, says the first railroad reached the Mississippi River at Rock Island on February 22, 1854. From his experiences, Merrick learned much about the natural river. Demonstrating the Grange's early concern for improving the Mississippi River, the state Grange convention of 1869 featured the river. Many passengers came from the East; others came from Europe, fleeing famine in Ireland and political unrest on the continent. . Traveling down the Mississippi to Illinois, Daly's family camped for a night a few miles below St. Paul. Midwestern farmers sent grain to Chicago, and Chicago merchants and eastern manufacturers sent their goods back on the railroads. During the late summer or early fall, when the Mississippi usually became a shallow, slow-moving stream, the wing dams could not direct enough water down the channel to scour it. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. Vol. His figures for arrivals differ slightly from those of Dixon in Table 2.1. That destiny, they believed, was to become a commercial and industrial power as strong as the East, as well as the nation's breadbasket. The Mississippi River touches 31 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces and is one of the largest rivers in the world. Kane, Rivalry, p. 322, suggests that the federal government recognized its obligation for improving navigation in 1873 by authorizing $25,000 for the project. 92-93; Kane, Rivalry, pp. Doc. This is a list of bridgesand other crossings of the Lower Mississippi Riverfrom the Ohio Riverdownstream to the Gulf of Mexico. The next day, Colonel Benjamin Grierson and 1,700 troopers started on a mounted raid through central Mississippi to destroy railroad tracks and mislead the Southerners. Map of A map of the United States between 1840 and 1850 showing the states and territories, and the principal routes of transportation and westward migration during the period. Railroad expansion following the Civil War accelerated the pace of the Midwest's unprecedented population and agricultural growth. The bridge was included in the Phase II survey as it is a large of exceptional span or overall length, which according . Crossing the Mississippi River, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 20,655 views Nov 24, 2015 77 Dislike Share Save Josh Huffines 578 subscribers Eastbound on I-10 crossing the Mississippi River in. proof Most of the trail crossed Arkansas from northeast to southwest, entering at Hix's Ferry (later Pitman's Ferry) across the The Saints left in companies and on June 14, 1846 Grandfather with 225 others arrived at the Missouri River, where a large . Ahead of him lay the capital at Jackson, and then Vicksburg. The committee recommended that Congress authorize surveys and get cost estimates prepared as early as possible in order to mature a plan for the radical improvement of the river, and of all its navigable tributaries.58 The committee suggested that the Corps establish a channel of 41/2 to 6 feet for the upper Mississippi River.59 To create a channel of these depths, the committee acknowledged, would require constricting the river with wing dams and closing dams.60. . First, the "Stars and Stripes" flag . Midwesterners, however, needed to transform the river, if they hoped to make it a commercial thoroughfare. No. The keynote of the meeting was a determined effort to obtain federal money for the improvement of western waterways so that they might be used as reliable routes for cheap transportation.48 Cheap transportation, delegates argued, would allow the United States to monopolize the markets of the world.49, In May 1873, cheap transportation advocates held another convention in St. Louisthe Western Congressional Convention. Close to Port Gibson is Grand Gulf military park. Major General Ulysses S. Grant stood over maps searching for answers. However, Paxson, whom he cites, shows that the railroad completed tracks from Alton to Springfield, Illinois, in 1852, and then from Springfield to Chicago, via a roundabout route, in 1853, but did not have the line in operation until 1854. The miller's fear, he said, "is another waterpower that might result incidentally from our effort to get Boats to the Falls of St. Anthony.75, Minneapolis navigation boosters clearly saw that Meeker's project would extend navigation above St. Paul, which was their primary reason for supporting it. Grant had come south on a transport and learned from a local black man that Bruinsburg, Miss., a few miles downriver, offered a favorable place for Federal forces to land. In his next report, Warren had suggested a system of 41 reservoirs for the St. Croix, Chippewa, Wisconsin and Mississippi River basins. He learned that Minneapolis and St. Anthony (the community on the rivers east bank that merged with Minneapolis in 1872) had funded the removal of boulders to encourage steamboats to travel above St. Paul. During the frontier era, settlers used old animal and Indian trails, fording most streams or building crude rafts to cross larger rivers. Annual Report 1872, p. 310. The effort to channel the river away from the defenders cannons had been underway for weeks. Raymond Merritt, Creativity, Conflict & Controversy: A History of the St. Paul District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1979); Roald Tweet, A History of Rock Island District, (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1984), pp. Led by Ignatius Donnelly, Grange supporters had organized the People's Anti-Monopoly party, with a platform striking at monopolies, advocating state railroad controls, and denouncing postwar corruption. As with so many projects, the Economic Panic of 1857 and the Civil War stalled the Mississippi River Improvement and Manufacturing Company's plans, postponing the project and the intercity conflict.72, Holding to their dream through the depression and the war, Meeker and Morrison beseeched Congress for a land grant to fund their project in 1865. 55101. And Congress had authorized, that year, a sixth dam for the Headwaters, the one at Gull Lake. m., over which the annual rainfall averages . The Engineers or their contractors placed the rock and brush in layers until a dam rose above the water surface to a level that would guarantee a minimum 41/2-foot channel (Figure 9).64. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. Solon J. Buck, who wrote the classic study of the Grange, observed that, although avowedly nonpolitical, the phenomenal increase in the membership of the order during 1873 and 1874 awakened the liveliest interest, and sometimes apprehension, among politicians throughout the Union.45 As a result, he says, the New York Tribune, referring to the Grange, declared that within a few weeks it has menaced the political equilibrium of the most steadfast states.46 While the Grange refused to form a political party or actively participate in the established parties, its members did not. They would have to eliminate the wide shallows and sandbars and the thou- sands of little pools that Warren had once sought to preserve. I could even smell the delightfully blended odor of the willows and of the creosoted marline twine with which the bundles were held together. The map shows frontier forts, outposts, and settlements, the primary migration routes of the Oregon Trail, Northern California Trail, Santa Fe Trail, Old San Antonio Road, Emory's Route, and Cooke's Wagon Route. 247, 40th Cong., 2d sess., p. 9. Photo by Henry P. Bosse. Between 1823 and 1847, most boats carried lead and worked around Galena, Illinois. He evidently was a cattle herder in Mississippi, with many vouchers for his work. Old Historical Atlas Maps of Arkansas. . 14-15: the rule has been to place them, in straight reaches, five-sevenths of the proposed channel width apart; in curved reaches, one-half on the concave sides and the full width on the convex sides. It did not begin building the project, focusing instead on a provision in the grant that limited the company to selling no more than one section of land within a township. Native American at back of boat (detail), Emanuel Leutze, Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1851, oil on canvas, 378.5 x 647.7 cm (Metropolitan Museum of Art, photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Despite Leutze's interest in history, there is little historical accuracy to be found within the painting. FIRST RAILROADS Of specific note is the intersection where the Three-Chopped Way intersected with the . . Bridges Over a dozen bridges cross the Mississippi River in the St. Louis metro area. As Mackenzie anticipated, Congress, under pressure from Minneapolis to do something, provided $50,000 to the Corps to remove boulders, which the Engineers did during the summer of 1890 and in 1891. When the white explorers finally reached the valley region, they also adopted the customary mode of crossing long followed by their red predecessors. He hoped to restore the dying river connection between St. Paul and St. Louis. Examples: a dried up lake, a destroyed building, a hill leveled by mining. The Corps simply did not have the funding, equipment, personnel or authority to make significant and permanent changes. 58, Survey of Upper Mississippi River, p. 25. To secure their objective, the company needed support from businessmen in Minneapolis, and for that support, Minneapolis interests won back control of the company. 92-93; Kane, Rivalry, p. 312. Woods, Knights of the Plow: Oliver Kelley and the Origins of the Grange in Republican Ideology, (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1991), Chapters 7 and 8, supports and greatly expands on Barns' argument that Kelley actively pushed economic and political solutions and/or tacitly approved while others did so. Nevertheless, Farquhar optimistically asked for $300,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1876.86 Disagreement over the grant and haggling over land for the project, including the purchase of Meeker Island, however, would delay the project for nearly 20 more years.87 St. Paul remained the head of navigation, and the Corps focused its efforts downstream. Desiring to keep traffic flowing past their city, the citizens had attempted to close the Wisconsin channel but had been unsuccessful. The total cost of the bridge was $6.8 million (City of Clinton Bridge Commission 1956:2). As the state failed to return it, the Corps did not begin work. The St. Paul District commander, Major Francis R. Shunk, tried to explain the matter to Minneapolis Mayor J. C. Haynes on February 17, 1909. Pauluntil Congress did something about the rapids below St. Anthony Falls. . There are two locks.93 Minneapolis had somehow won the debate over building one or two dams. While Grant continued planning and waited for the roads to dry out, he kept the troops at work digging a canal. Kane, Rivalry, pp. 15 A few miles below St. Paul, the river sometimes became so shallow that boats would have to stop within sight of the city. Leisurely the vessel glides along, allowing time to gaze at length on the grandeur and natural. .53 Recognizing the Granger movement's growing strength and its discontent with the Republican party's failure to deal with monopolies and the farm crisis, Donnelly joined the movement in 1872. Or a series of deeper pools separated by shallow sandbars could be scattered across the main channel. Minnesota's population jumped from 6,077 to 172,023, Iowa's from 192,000 to 674,913, Wisconsin's from 305,391 to 775,881 and Illinois' from 851,470 to 1,711,951.9 Passenger traffic became so important to the steamboat trade that by 1850 passenger receipts exceeded freight receipts.10, Before 1866, during the heyday of steamboats, the upper Mississippi River still possessed most of its natural character. He also sold boat-stores and groceries to the steamboats that stopped at the levee. This map displays the three land-based migration routes from the Carolinas and eastern Georgia to the newly opened lands of southern Mississippi. 1491, (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1913), p. 704. Merritt, Creativity, 140; Lucile M. Kane, The Falls of St. Anthony: The Waterfall that Built Minneapolis, (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1987), pp. . St. Paul suffered a double setback. Rocks and rapids were a greater problem for steamboats trying to ply the river above St. Paul. The focus of Corps work between 1878 and 1906, the 41/2-foot channel became the first system-wide, intensive navigation improvement project for the upper Mississippi River. But the economic panic of 1857 and the Civil War ended further railroad expansion across the Mississippi. Petersen, Captains, p. 235; Tweet, History of Transportation on the Upper Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, pp. Wings should be pointed upstream at the following angles: 105N to 110N, in straight reaches, 100N to 102N in concave, 90N to 100N in convex, and they should be so located where practicable, that their axes prolonged would meet in the center of the channel. a splashing began. As it had learned more about the upper Mississippi River, the Corps had recognized the futility of keeping the river navigable by dredging.61 In 1874, when the Montana could not dredge due to high water, the Engineers refitted it with a pile driver and went to Pig's Eye Island, five miles below St. Paul (Figure 8). Grant Stevenson. The Harahan Bridge opened in 1916 and was used until 1949. Annual Report, 1875, Part 2, Vol. II The Midwest, (The University of Alabama Press, 1973), pp. Edward L. Pross, A History of Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Bills, 1866-1933, Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University, 1938, p. 44. c. 1810. Later a New City West was built on the Chicago-Detroit road through the dunes area, but this, too, declined after the railroads came through Porter County in the early 1850's. New City West stood in the vicinity of present-day Tremont, on US 12. From this work, Warren contended that in its natural state the Mississippi River's navigation channel frequently changed and that the Corps would have to survey the river each year until they understood how it worked.29 In some reaches, Warren reported, sandbars moved in waves along the channel bottom, looking something like snowdrifts. But City West soon declined and passed out of existence. During its 1872 to 1873 session, Congress temporarily ended debate over the project, when it refused to amend the land grant.84. Ibid., p. 243; The Select Committee recommended a depth of 5 feet at low water for St. Paul to St. Louis. There the Union defeated the confederates which led to the eventual fall of Vicksburg. Of times steamboats docked at the levee rail lines were generally shorter, more direct, and reach! Water, the Corps did not have the funding, equipment, personnel or authority to make it commercial... 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