Historical November 1991 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
Certainly St. Louis is the Gateway ta the West.
After all, it was Hiram M. Chittenden who noted in his epic history of the American fur trade that St. Louis once held sway over an economic kingdom virtually second to none in the history of the human race. How could a city with such power forget its own involvement with what is now one of the most powerful destinations for tourists and travelers from around the globe? Actually, the story of “forgetting about the West” begins rather early in St Louis.
When Meriwether Lewis and William Clark finally reached the St. Louis riverfront late in 1803, one of their first tasks was to glean what they could from the den izensof the fur trading post.
After all, the British had attacked the place in 1780 because it was the center of western support for the Americans during the Revolutionary War.
It was local St. Louisans like the Italian, Francois Vigo, and the Frenchman, Gabriel Cent, who put up their money and goods to sponsor the “army” of George Rogers Clark which cleared the British out of the old French forts along the Wabash, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers.
On top of that, international exploiters had ventured out into the -aboriginal hinterlands using St. Louis as the center of their efforts. Many of these men were known in Canada, France, England, Spain—and the fledgling United States. People like Jacques Clamorgan, Jean Baptiste Truteau, the surveyor Soulard, and the ever present Chouteau family, had spent years up the Missouri.
Some had been to Santa Fe. Many had traded with the Pawnee, the Osage, and the Kansa Indians. Lewis and Clark figured they could make a fairly good map of the western country before they even left St. Louis. By January 1804 Clark had drawn a map based on several sources which conveys the general knowledge of the West in St. Louis at that time.
When Meriwether Lewis sent it on to the War Department as reference, he noted that he was not able to speak to the accuracy of the map but that it at least gave some idea of what they found nut.
For a period of 10 years, until 1814 or some eight years after Lewis and Clark returned to St. Louis, it was the official map of the West. That 1804 map garnered from the best knowledge of the West at St. Louis put the Rocky Mountains barely 350 miles west of the Mississippi. Actually, in today’s terms, the 1804 map Lewis and Clark based on the information gained at St. Louis has the Rockies essentially just on the other side of where Kansas City is now. Happily there is evidence that the Lewis and Clark Expedition did not take a copy of this map with them.
There were other existing maps, including the one Antoine Soulard had made for the fur expedition led by Jean Baptiste Truteau in 1794; which were more reliable.
However, they were not all that accurate either.
The maps Clark drew during the 28 month travel of the Expedition were much better and more detailed and accurate than anything done earlier.
The point is. even the St. Louisans from the time which Chittenden romantically referred to as the emerging height of the city’s influence really did not picture the West very well.
The river systems of North America have always been of central importance to understanding the culture of the native American Indians.
It would be assumed that a central confluence area such as where the Missouri, Mississippi, and Illinois Rivers converge would have had a major Indian presence.
This was confirmed less than 15 years ago when the World Heritage Convention of UNESCO named the first two World Heritage Sites in the United States: Yellowstone National Park and Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site.
On September 6, 1978, the St. Louis area was included among the elite of the globe’s historic and cultural treasures.
The largest urban center known from the history of the American Indian peoples is right in this region. One of the most powerful stone age urban settlements in human history, sending its armies and its hunters and its traders throughout the continent, was concentrated in the St. Louis area.
The fact remains, however, that this Indian culture, based on riverine expertise and traffic flows, is largely unknown at its home location in St. Louis.
The American Indian continues to fascinate world travelers and tourists. Thousands of Europeans and Orientals comb the ruins of Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon every year.
The number of Germanic and Japanese visitors who cross the country to see Indian historic sites increases constantly.
These modern “explorers” follow the river systems and learn the drainage patterns which suggest where to find the major Indian cultural archaeological sites. Modern St. Louis is already a major internationally designated American Indian cultural location due to the location of the river systems and the society the rivers supported.
The connection between St. Louis and the West, then, has always been somewhat below the consciousness of the area.
As the city drifted away from its connection to the Mississippi and Missouri, it also drifted away from its historic and prehistoric place.
It lost its focus.
The rivers are much more than a transportation system.
They are the central reason for the shape and place of St. Louis.
They are also the most dramatic features of the St. Louis area. Perhaps therein lies the reason the rivers are overlooked along with what they connect. Rivers are unpredictable, always changing, and always powerful. Maybe it is easier to forget them since to remember them is to recall floods, damage, and danger. Rarely do we recall explorers, engineers, and fur traders who wrestled knowledge and economic success from the river systems of the West.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, November 1991.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Archival transcription note: This is reprint of May1991 same essay; must reconcile existing post before publication to avoid unintentional duplicate. Source UNESCO date claim retained without new verification.
Original source: SD_Times1991_11.pdf, printed page(s) 5; PDF page(s) 5.
