Historical September 1983 report or notice. Original dates, prices and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
Transportation has always been a key factor in economic development, especially in St. Louis, a city whose very existence depends on transportation.
When Lewis and Clark left to find the Pacific Ocean in 1804, they went in keelboats with sails.
These boats they pulled (cordelled) up the Missouri River. Keelboats and flatboats were the mainstay of river transportation until well after 1820. Flatboats were essentially rafts with cabins built on them to haul cargo down river only.
At their destination around New Orleans, the cargo and the boat were sold and the crew bought horses and rode back north. Keelboats hauled upriver as well as down. Shallow draft boats with a short keel underneath, these could navigate and carry rather large loads.
The problem was the river. William Clark in 1813 advertized for “thirteen careful boatmen” to take boats south to New Orleans for good reason—the river and its snags sank many of the haulers.
Now and again these sunken boats are discovered and their cargo are mute testimony to the commerce and dangers of the time.
The first steamboat to come to St. Louis was the Pike in 1817.
Two years later the first steamboat to head up the Missouri River for the Yellowstone River left St. Louis as part of the Long Expedition. Steamboats made commerce on the rivers grow rapidly but not without dangers.
The average life of a steamboat was five years or less.
Most sank due to snags.
A snag is a tree stuck in the bottom of the river with its large branches just below the waterline. Boats would hit these, tear out their bottoms, and sink in minutes. Travel in the spring of the year when the water was high was considered the safest.
In 1865 before the end of the Civil War, the steamboat Bertrand headed up the Missouri River to Fort Benton in Chouteau County, Montana territory. Gold had been discovered at Bannock. Stores and settlements were beginning at Hell Gate (now called Missoula) and Virginia City.
The war had slowed development of the area, but in 1865 the first boats designed for the upriver trade were on their way.
The Bertrand hit a snag and went down about 25 miles north of Omaha with virtually all her cargo.
No one drowned, but the load was encased in clay silt and not discovered until 1968. That cargo is like a time capsule on trade and transportation through St. Louis west. Going to the mining camps of Chouteau County were brandied peaches, brandied cherries, mercury, picks, shovels, shoes, dresses, goblets, table settings and dishes, ammunition, etc.
These things had come from as far as France and as close as Illinois farms to be shipped to the miners. Catsup, ginger root, whiskey, and linament were headed to the northern mountains.
In all, about $300,000 worth of cargo at that time remained in the shifting river bottom of the Missouri. Few boats were built at St. Louis.
However, nearly all boats were repaired at St. Louis at one time or another. Below Mound Street a great harbor for repair work was built and the first dry dock invented.
The river was controlled and snag boats pulled the trees out of the bottoms. River travel became safe and more congenial. Safe transportation became everyday because the river was made safe even for not-so-careful boatmen.
Originally published in The Paper, September 1983.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Archival transcription note: Historical dates, boat statistics, cargo valuation and the first-dry-dock claim are the author’s 1983 account and need independent verification before factual reuse.
Original source: SD_Times1983_09.pdf, printed page(s) 6; PDF page(s) 6.
