Merrick, Old Times, p. 100; Havighurst, A Wilderness Saga, p. 158, says that early steamboating was a triumph of men more than machines, and, p. 159, that piloting was not so much a trade as a miracle.. From St. Anthony Falls to downtown St. Paul, some 15 river miles, the river falls more than 100 feet. From Minneapolis' perspective, the channel improvement works on the upper Mississippi River only benefitted its principal rivalSt. Forward thinking entrepreneurs and politicians pushed for the development of such a railroad and in May 1869 the final spike of the Transcontinental Railroad was driven in Promontory Point in Utah. Although New Orleans had fallen to Union troops in April 1862, the Mississippi remained closed as long as the cannons at Vicksburg, Miss., swept its waters. 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. crossing the mississippi river in 1850 middlebury college blanket Mary Meachum Celebration The United States grew up on the water and remains a maritime nation to this day. Maybe, at a few places, especially between St. Paul and Hastings, settlers could have waded across on some persistent bar during extremely low water. Kane jumps to the construction of Lock and Dam 2, without discussing who made the final push for the project. 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. 229-42), Barns addresses three issues concerning Kelley. No general plan had been developed or implemented. 247, 40th Cong., 2d sess., p. 9. Warren decided to deepen the upper Mississippi by dredging. Cassville's first ferry, a 40-foot rowboat, crossed the Mississippi River in 1833. While still in his twenties, Donnelly had become Minnesota's lieutenant governor. And in a speech before the Senate, he asserted that it was an admitted fact that present transportation facilities between the interior and the seaboard were totally inadequate. These transportation networks, he charged, were controlled by powerful monopolies who dictate their own terms to the people. Wing dams especially caused bank erosion by forcing the river away from one shore and against the other. Contents 1Crossings 1.1Kentucky - Missouri 1.2Tennessee - Missouri 1.3Tennessee - Arkansas 1.4Mississippi - Arkansas 1.5Mississippi - Louisiana Whatever products the Midwest came to manufacture, like woolen and cotton fabrics, would find their chief market in the South and Southwest. Missouri, during the "Golden Age of Steamboats" (1830-1850). 15 A few miles below St. Paul, the river sometimes became so shallow that boats would have to stop within sight of the city. . His figures for arrivals differ slightly from those of Dixon in Table 2.1. Windom had already served in the House for a decade. In its petition, the state stressed that boats had frequently landed within two and one-half miles of downtown Minneapolis, up until 1857. Sitting on a bluff on the rivers eastern bank and shielded to the north by a maze of swamps, bayous and bluffs, Vicksburg posed a multitude of problems to Union planners. . Born in Niles, Michigan, on the St. Joseph River, Merrick watched steamboats go back and forth between South Bend, Indiana, and the town of St. Joseph on Lake Michigan.17 When Merrick was 12 years old, his family left Michigan and traveled to Rock Island, Illinois. In 1964 an Ohio woman took up the challenge that had led to Amelia Earharts disappearance. Note, the other route was down the Tennessee to the Ohio then down the Mississippi to the Natchez area. and also create a 30 second speech as if you were that person. 65-66; Roald Tweet, A History of Navigation Improvements on the Rock Island Rapids, (Rock Island District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, April 1980):2; John O. Jensen, Gently Down the Stream: An Inquiry into the History of Transportation on the Northern Mississippi River and the Potential for Submerged Cultural Resources, Wisconsin Archeologist 73:1-2 (March-June, 1992):71, says that only about 20 boats were operating above Galena before 1847. I expect to get through it successfully however.. In his next report, Warren had suggested a system of 41 reservoirs for the St. Croix, Chippewa, Wisconsin and Mississippi River basins. Where steamboat pilots followed the deepest channel, as it hugged one shore or the other, leaning trees might sweep poorly placed cargo or an unwary passenger from a steamboat's deck. Tweet, History of Transportation on the Upper Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, p. 22. On the night of May 21, 1855, in the area that is now part of the Mississippi Greenway: Riverfront Trail north of the Merchant's Bridge, Mary Meachum attempted to help a small group of enslaved people cross the Mississippi River to Illinois where slavery was outlawed. Deep was anything over three feet. The endeavor would be difficult and risky, requiring Rear Adm. David Dixon Porters fleet to pass by Vicksburgs heavy guns. The bridge was included in the Phase II survey as it is a large of exceptional span or overall length, which according . They had closed nearly all the side channels. Subsequently he turned to newspaper editing and publishing.20 Port Gibson has a nice little downtown area and town square which features the Claiborne County courthouse. The first European to cross the Mississippi River was Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto by boat in 1541, and then railroads crossed it in 1856. Between 1866 and 1869, three more railroads crossed the river to Iowa, and by 1877, thirteen railroad bridges spanned the upper river (Figure 5).40 Railroads greatly increased the countrys ability to move commodities, and, yet, railroads would provoke and inflame a shipping crisis. 152-53. On June 7, 1868, the Minneapolis Daily Tribune claimed that the Meeker Island lock and dam would transfer the commercial prestige of this upper country from St. Paul to the Magnet.80 St. Paul industrial boosters also claimed victory. Simple Add/Edit Procedure . . Quincy and Cairo, Illinois, became railheads in 1856, and East St. Louis, Illinois, and Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, in 1857. . The first bridge to cross the river here, the Eads Bridge, was completed in 1874 and is still used today. 84-85, 91. . 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. This is the general phone line at the Mississippi River Visitor Center. 530, 1649-50; Annual Report, 1907, pp. Alberta Kirchner Hill spent 19 summers (1898-1917) with her father's fleet as they built the dams for the government. In 1880, however, it finally authorized an experimental dam for Lake Winnibigoshish and authorized the remaining dams shortly afterwards. Between 1866 and 1869, Warren completed 30 survey maps of the upper Mississippi River, at the scale of 2 inches to the mile. Before the Civil War, Congress authorized minor improvements for the upper Mississippi River but no work for the river above Hastings. Annual Report, 1891, p. 2154; Mackenzie, Annual Report, 1890, p. 2034, reported that the Corps had completed several examinations of the area over the last year, in company with the Minneapolis representatives of the river interests.. Image: This cotton . . 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. At Dibbles Point, the shoreline had eroded 15 to 20 feet in one year due to a wing dam built at Prescott Island, near Prescott.67 To protect shores from naturally eroding or from being undercut by the constricted channel, the Corps protected hundreds of miles of shoreline with brush mats and rock. .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. . 206-09, 209, 246; William J. Petersen, Captains and Cargoes of Early Upper Mississippi Steamboats, Wisconsin Magazine of History 13 (1929_30):227-32; Mildred Hartsough, From Canoe to Steel Barge, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1934), pp. The Mississippi River touches 31 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces and is one of the largest rivers in the world. 1682-83; U.S. Congress, Senate, Construction of Locks and Dams in the Mississippi River, 53d Cong., 2d sess., Exec. Railroads have got enough for the present. In doing so, they would contribute to the drive for navigation improvement at the same time they were throttling shipping on the river. Todd Shallat, Structures in the Stream, Water, Science, and the Rise of the U.S. Army Corps of Egineers, (Austin: University of Texas, 1994), p. 141. Annual Report, 1881, p. 2746. The charming shops of downtown Bemidji / Lisa Meyers McClintick Other Sites Along the Great River. Another in September 1862 mentions 720 cattle crossed at Natchez and . Military supplies and furs would dominate the much smaller steamboat trade above Galena. Originally published in the July 2006 issue of Civil War Times. Minnesota Historical Society. Annual Report, 1890, p. 2034; Annual Report, 1892, pp. . He describes the immense river as a "solid, shifting lake," a rather perfect description. This image pair shows the area around St. Louis, Missouri, in August 1991 and 1993. Download the official NPS app before your next visit. To steamboats, even half a foot was important. St. Paul District, Corps of Engineers. In St. Louis, the Mississippi remained above flood stage for 144 days between April 1 and September 30, 1993. and finally crossing near St Cloud. With each new rail connection, steamboats made shorter trips between ports. Doc. It required the company to spend $25,000 on the project before February 1, 1871. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. When a series of bars came in close succession, the river could become seriously obstructed. Not even a severe t-storm watch was issued. 312-15, quote from p. 315; Kane, St. Anthony, p. 94. One dam would be blown up within 5 years of its completion and another would have to be redesigned and the completed part rebuilt. The Rock Island Bridge Company had been formed in 1853, but it wasn't until April 9, 1856, when the long-awaited Mississippi River Bridge - spanning from Rock Island to Davenport opened. It is a story with local and national significance. At Guttenberg, Iowa, an island split the river into two channels, one passing in front of the city and the other running along the Wisconsin side. Congress, however, would soon authorize new projects for the upper Mississippi River that would make this impossible. The inland and intercoastal waterways, with the Upper Mississippi highlighted in red. At Lock and Dam 1, the Engineers had begun constructing the lock.92 Few, if any, spectators watching the Itura paddle through Lock 2 imagined that the new facility would be destroyed within 5 years. The Upper Mississippi, that is the Mississippi from its source to the mouth of the Missouri, drains 173,000 sq. Warren brought new hope for the project, when, in his 1867 annual report, he requested $235,665 to construct a lock and dam at Meeker Island.78 Warren engaged Franklin Cook, a former employee of the Minneapolis Mill Company, to undertake the survey. Over the next year, he began developing plans, determining that the Engineers could build one lock and dam with a 17-foot lift. By Staff Writer Last Updated April 06, 2020. The 4-foot project did not greatly alter the river's physical or ecological character and did not improve the river much for navigation, but it initiated a series of navigation projects that would do both. Why Congress authorized two low dams, instead of one high dam that could have generated hydropower, is unknown. Ibid., p. 243; The Select Committee recommended a depth of 5 feet at low water for St. Paul to St. Louis. By narrowing the river and thereby increasing the main channel's velocity, the Corps hoped to scour one uninterrupted navigation channel the length of the upper river.63 Wing dams, closing dams and shore protection required two simple components: willow saplings and rock. Thomas A. Midwesterners, however, needed to transform the river, if they hoped to make it a commercial thoroughfare. They would have to alter the pattern by which sand and silt moved along the river bottom. Frederick J. Dobney, River Engineers of the Middle Mississippi: A History of the St. Louis District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978), p. 33. But City West soon declined and passed out of existence. Millers at St. Anthony were profiting from the release of water from the Headwaters Reservoirs, but Minneapolis civic and commercial boosters wanted more than milling. In 1872, Captain J. Throckmorton argued that while wing dams would probably not work for the upper river, closing dams would. Esther (1823-1917): m1. 1; see U.S. Congress, House, Survey of the Upper Mississippi River, Exec. 92-93; Kane, Rivalry, p. 312. According to most estimates, the Yellowstone River measures approximately 692 miles (1,114 kilometers) long. George Byron Merrick captures well the perils of sailing the natural river. Photo by Brady. 7-8. Meeker, Kane says, retained some shares of the company for himself, as did his friends. Xcel Energy and CapX2020 partners navigate the permitting and construction of a significant river crossing. Five dams at the Headwaters stored the winters snow, holding it for the summer and fall, when the millers at St. Anthony and the steamboats below would need it. Below Red Wing, water from the reservoirs had little effect.68. Early railheads on the upper river's east bank fostered steamboat traffic, but they initiated its end as well. Planters were those that became lodged in the river's bottom, and sleepers hid beneath the water's surface. Ahead of him lay the capital at Jackson, and then Vicksburg. . Westward expansion in the 1850s punctuated the need for a transcontinental railroad. 106-7. Railroads moved their freight quicker, giving their users greater flexibility in responding to market changes. 1578-79. The 2,340 miles of the Mississippi River are entirely within the . . Merritt, Creativity, 140; Lucile M. Kane, The Falls of St. Anthony: The Waterfall that Built Minneapolis, (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1987), pp. U.S. Congress, House, Survey of Upper Mississippi River, 39th Congress, 2d sess., House Ex. This is a list of all current and notable former bridges or other crossings of the Upper Mississippi River which begins at the Mississippi River's source and extends to its confluence with the Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois . . Anfinson, Secret History, Minnesota History 54:6 (Summer 1995):254-67. The Mississippi River Route was first explored by canoes, quickly followed by paddle boats, in a seemingly endless . Or a series of deeper pools separated by shallow sandbars could be scattered across the main channel. Traveling down the Mississippi to Illinois, Daly's family camped for a night a few miles below St. Paul. Extending navigation above St. Anthony Falls with the other two locks and dams would total $1,538,702.90. Just past the crest, the channel quickly became deeper.30 Normally, the river would begin cutting through the steep slope on the back side of the bar and another bar would eventually begin forming downstream of it. 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. In 1805-06 the pioneer expedition of U.S. Army officer Zebulon Montgomery Pike struggled to within 80 miles (130 km) of the river's source, and in 1832 Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, an Indian agent for the U.S. government, identified and named Lake Itasca (from the Latin veritas caput, "true head") as the Mississippi's starting point. Wildlife Although the river is very different than it was when the city was founded in 1764, a wide diversity of wildlife can still be found in and around it. This act signaled a new era of internal improvements and the beginning of dramatic changes to the upper Mississippi River. 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. must break bulk and be carried in wagons to their destination. A lock and dam, the state contended, would extend navigation to its natural and proper terminus.76. This is the general phone line at the Mississippi River Visitor Center. Annual Report, 1895, pp. In less than 100 years, these projects would radically transform the river that nature had created over millions of years and that Native Americans had hunted along, canoed on, and fished in for thousands of years. The Mississippi River lies entirely within the United States. As with the drive for railroad legislation, the push for waterway improvement was not just a farmers' movement. This steep slope, combined with a narrow gorge and limestone boulders left by the retreat of the falls, made the river through this reach too treacherous for steamboat navigation.25 Thus, St. Paul had become the head of navigation. Demonstrating the Grange's early concern for improving the Mississippi River, the state Grange convention of 1869 featured the river. . A favorable landing site on the east bank would have to be located, while other operations would be necessary to distract the Confederates. I am very well but much perplexed, he admitted to his wife. For physical reasons, a single lock and dam must lie entirely within the limits of Minneapolis, or entirely within the limits of St. Paul. Farmers created third parties in states throughout the country during the mid-1870s, winning significant elections and threatening the established order. Flood waters had started to recede, but remained . Second, was the idea of the Grange really his? The river passed over the closing dams when high, but for most of the year, the dams directed water into the main channel, denying flow to the river's side channels and backwaters (Figure 10). Hundreds of wing dams and closing dams studded the rivers banks from St. Paul to St. Louis. Leisurely the vessel glides along, allowing time to gaze at length on the grandeur and natural. Playing on the desire of Minneapolis navigation boosters, they proposed building a lock and dam between the two cities to aid navigation and to secure the hydropower for themselves.71, Meeker, a territorial judge and local entrepreneur, and Morrison, a St. Anthony Falls sawmill operator, lobbied for and obtained permission from the Minnesota Territorial Legislature to build their lock and dam near Meeker Island. it is destined to become the most popular region of the world, and its waters should forever be kept free and untrammelled and open to the use of every citizen within the entire navigable length, and all obstructions, whether natural or of human device, are like impediments to the prosperity of the people who till the soil of the great valley.". 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. On the early part of the journey, before they reached the Mississippi river, they bought four oxen trying to find a pair that was matched and would work together on the long haul to Oregon. To get off, pilots sometimes used spars, long wood poles on which the front and back of the boats would be alternately jacked up and pushed forward. In his memoirs Grant wrote of that signal achievement: When this was effected, I felt a degree of relief scarcely ever equaled since.I was on dry ground on the same side of the river with the enemy. 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. 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. One measure of this was the number of times steamboats docked at the upper river's port cities. Bridges Over a dozen bridges cross the Mississippi River in the St. Louis metro area. 17 Oct 1872 BUTLER, Thomas *15: BRAKEMAN, Harriet (1835-1866): m'd 05 Jul 1852 WADSWORTH, Elisha . Low water was based on the rivers elevation in 1864, when a severe drought occurred. St. Paul recorded 41 steamboat arrivals in 1844, and 95 in 1849. No. A. Humphreys, the Chief of Engineers, ordered Brevet Major General and Major of Engineers Gouverneur K. Warren to St. Paul to begin the Corps' work on the upper Mississippi River (Figure 4). They did so by driving two tiers of piles nine feet apart and then filling between them with willow brush and placing sacks of sand on top to weigh the brush down. In response, farmers in the Midwest and throughout the nation joined the first national farm movement, called the Grange or Patrons of Husbandry. Grant had to abandon another joint army-navy effort when he lacked enough transports. As early as 1850, Minneapolis business and civic leaders had tried to convince shippers that steamboats could reach the falls. 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