USA > Missouri > Carroll County > History of Carroll County, Missouri : carefully written and compiled from the most authentic official and private sources, including a history of its townships, cities, towns and villages, together with a condensed history of Missouri ; the Constitution of the United States, and State of Missouri ; a military record of its volunteers in either army of the Great Civil War ; general and local statistics ; miscellany ; reminiscences, grave, tragic and humorous ; biographical sketches of prominent men and citizens identified with the interests of the country > Part 12
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RAILROADS IN MISSOURI.
The earliest account of any movement in this state with regard to rail- roads is to the effect that on the 20th of April, 1835, a railroad convention was held in St. Louis, and resolutions were adopted in favor of building two railroads-one from St. Louis to Fayette, in Howard county; and the other one southward to Iron Mountain, Pilot Knob, etc .* The reason for projecting a railroad from St. Louis into the great iron region is obvious enough; but why they should at that early day have thought of building more than one hundred and fifty miles of railroad to reach a town that was only twelve miles from Old Franklin, on the banks of the Missouri river, is an unsolved mystery. It indicates, at least, that those "early
*The first steam railroad in this country was the Baltimore and Susquehanna line, in 1830; though horse railroads had been used before, especially at coal mines and marble quarries, and in two cases engines had been used on such roads.
105
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI.
fathers" were not under the control of any narrow or shallow views con- cerning the practical value of railroads, or the future grandeur of St. Louis as the central point for all trans-Mississippi traffic. In this first railroad convention ever held west of the Allegheny Mountains there were sixty-four delegates in attendance, representing eleven counties; but practically nothing ever came of their deliberations.
In 1840 a State Board of Internal Improvement was created, and it made a survey for a railroad from St. Louis to the Iron Mountain, by the way of Big River. February 7th, 1849, Col. Thomas H. Benton, sena- tor from Missouri, introduced into the U. S. senate a bill to provide for the location and construction of a central national road from the Pacific ocean to the Mississippi river, to be an iron railway where practicable, and the rest a wagon way. February 20th, same year, a public meeting was held in St. Louis, which petitioned the legislature for a charter and right-of-way for a railway across the state from St. Louis to the western boundary; and on the 12th of March this charter was granted. 1
Next a meeting was held which called a national convention at St. Louis to consider the project of a national Pacific railway across the continent. This convention was held October 15, 16, 17, 18, 1849. ' Fif- teen states were represented; the grand project was warmly commended, and a strong memorial sent to Congress asking the public authorities to take some action in the matter.
Such was the beginning of definite moves toward a trans-continental railroad.
The Missouri Pacific was the first railroad commenced and first finished in the State. Incorporated March 12, 1849; authorized capital $10,000,- 000; opened to Cheltenham, March 23, 1852; amount of state aid, $7,000,000; St. Louis county aid $700,000; land sold, 127,209 acres; entire length from St. Louis to Kansas City, 382 miles; total cost, $14,- 382,208.
The successive stages of its construction were: Chartered, March 12, 1859; first ground broken, by Mayor Kennett of St. Louis, July 4, 1851; road opened to Cheltenham, Dec. 23, 1852; to Kirkwood in May, and to Franklin July 23, 1853; completed to Washington, February 11, 1855; to Hermann, August 7, the same year ;* and to Jefferson City, March 12, 1856; completed to California in Moniteau county, May, 14, 1858; to Tipton, July 26, same'year; and to Syracuse, August, 1, 1859; opened to Otter-
*November 1. 1855, a large excursion train left St. Louis to celebrate the opening of the railroad through to Medora station, about twenty miles beyond Hermann. It was a long train filled with business men of ths city and their families, and the occasion was one of great festivity and rejoicing. But while the train was crossing the Gasconade river the bridge gave way, and plunged cars, bridge and people in one mixed and horrible wreck into the gulf of waters fifty feet down. The president and chief engineer of the road, and 30 prominent citizens of St. Louis were killed, while scores of others were more or less injured. It'was the first and the most terrible railroad accident that has ever occurred in the state.
106
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI.
ville, August 24, 1860; to Smithton, November 1, same year; and to Sedalia in February 1861. Here it stopped during the first two years of the war. But Pettis county voted $75,000 to aid it, and Jackson county $200,000. Commenced running trains to Dresden, May 10, 1863; to Warrensburg, July 3, 1864; in 1865 the road was opened to Holden, May 28; to Pleasant Hill, July 19; to Independence, September 19. Meanwhile work had been going on from Kansas City westward, the two gangs of workmen meeting at Independence; and on this 19th day of September, 1865, the last rail was laid and the last spike driven, which connected Missouri's two principal cities with iron bands unbroken from east to west line of the noble commonwealth. On the next day, the president of the road Mr. Daniel R. Garrison, left Kansas City at 3 A. M., and arrived in St. Louis at 5 P. M., thus making the first through trip over the completed line.
There is now not a county north of the Missouri river which has not one or more railroads within its limits; and of the seventy counties south of the Missouri, only 22 have no railroad reaching them. However, new roads and branches are being built each year, so that within a few years every county will be provided with good railroad facilities.
January 1, 1880, there were, in round numbers, 3,600 miles of railroad in operation in the state, embraced in about fifty different main lines and branches, allowned by thirty-five different corporations, and operated by twenty-five different companies, as shown in the following table:
Atchison, Topeka and Sante Fe. 22
Missouri Pacific. 375
Burlington and Southwestern. 64
Quincy, Missouri and Pacific. 75
Cherry Valley. 6
St. Joseph and Des Moines. 45
Chicago and Alton .. 264
St. Louis, Hannibal and Keokuk .... 48
Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific. 16916 St. Louis, Iron Mount'n and Southr'n 380
Crystal City. . 4 St. Louis, Keokuk and Northwestern 132%
Hannibal and St. Joseph. 29116
St. Louis, Salem and Little Rock .... 45
Kansas City and Eastern .. 43
St. Louis and San Francisco ..... 3631%
Kansas City, Ft. Scott and Gulf. 8 Springfield and Western Missouri .. 20
Kansas City, St.Joe and Council BIff's 198
Union Railway and Transit Company 1
Little River Valley and Arkansas. 27
Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific. 655
Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska 70
Missouri, Kansas and Texas 284
West End. Narrow Guage. 16 Total.
3,607
POSTAL AND TELEGRAPH FACILITIES.
There are within the state 15,208 miles of postal routes, of which 10,426 miles are by stage and horseback, 575 miles by steamboat, and 4,207 miles by railroad, the whole involving a cost for the year 1878-9 of $768,904. There are 1,700 post towns-but four states in the union have a greater number. These are all offices of registration, where letters and parcels can be registered for transmission through the males to all parts of this and foreign countries. In 200 of these post-offices, money- orders may be purchased, payable at all similar offices in the United States, and a portion of them issue orders drawn on Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, etc.
107
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI.
There are in the state 562 telegraph stations, whence messages can be sent all over the telegraph world; 2,423 miles of line and 6,000 miles of wire.
MANUFACTURING.
The following statistics of the capital employed in manufacturing indus- tries, and the amount of production, is collated from careful estimates made in 1876, the latest at hand, although it is well known that great increase of these industries has been made since that date. These esti- mates showed that the state then contained 14,245 manufacturing estab- lishments, using 1,965 steam engines, representing 58,101 horse-power, 465 water wheels, equaling 7,972 horse-power, and employing 80,000 hands. The capital employed in manufacturing was about $100,000,- 000; the material used in 1876 amounted to about $140,000,000; the wages paid were $40,000,000, and the products put upon the market were over $250,000,000. Outside of St. Louis the leading manufacturing counties of the state are Jackson, about $2,000,000; Buchanan, $7,000,- 000; St. Charles, $4,500,000; Marion, $3,500,000; Franklin, $3,000,000; Greene, $1,500,000; Cape Girardeau, $1,500,000; Platte, Boone and Lafayette, upwards of $1,000,000 each, followed by several counties nearly reaching the last sum.
The products of the different lines of manufacturing interests are, approximately, as follows:
Flouring Mills.
$30,000.000
Furniture
$5,000,000
Carpentering.
20.000,000
Paints and painting ..
4,500,000
Meat Packing.
20,000,000
Carriages and Wagons
4,500,000
Iron and Castings
15,000.000
Bricks. . 4,500,000
Tobacco
14,000.000
Marble, Stone- work and Masonry.
4,000,000
Clothing.
11,000,000
Bakery Products ...
4,000,000
Lumber
10,000.000
Sash, Doors and Blinds.
3.250,000
Bags and Bagging
7,000,060
Cooperage ..
3,000,000
Saddlery.
7.000,000
Blacksmithing.
3,000,000
Oil
6.000,000
Bridge Building.
2.500,000
Machinery
6,000.000
Patent Medicines
2,500,000
Printing and Publishing.
5,500,000
Soap and Candles.
2,500,000
Molasses
5,000,000
Agricultural Implements.
2,000,000
Boots and Shoes. .
5,000,000
Plumbing and Gas-fitting.
2,000,000
Liquors.
10,000,000
Tin, Copper and Sheet Iron 4,000,000
Of the manufacturing in Missouri, more than three-fourths is done in St. Louis, which produced, in 1879, about $275,000,000 of manufactured articles. The city has, for some years past, ranked as the third in the United States in the amount of her manufactures, leaving a wide gap between her and Chicago and Boston, each of which cities manufactures a little more than one-half as much in amount as St. Louis, and leaves a doubt as to which of them is entitled to rank as the fourth manufactur- ing city.
FLOUR .- In St. Louis there are twenty-four flouring mills, having a daily productive capacity of 11,000 barrels. The total amount of flour received and manufactured by the dealers and millers of St. Louis, in
108
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI.
1879, was 4,154,757 barrels, of which over 3,000,000 were exported. They also made 425,963 barrels of corn meal and 28,595 barrels of hominy and grits. Of their exports, 619,103 barrels were sent to European nations and to South America.
COTTON .- There are in the city two mills, which consume from 15,000 to 20,000 bales annually. To supply the manufactured cotton goods annually sold in St. Louis will require mills of ten times the capacity of those now in operation.
PRINCIPAL CITIES.
St. Louis is the commercial metropolis not only of the state of Missouri but also of the Mississippi and Missouri valley regions of country; and the history of Missouri is to a very large extent the history of St. Louis. There is so much concerning this imperial city embodied in other parts of this work that little need be added here.
St. Louis is situated upon the west bank of the Mississippi, at an altitude of four hundred feet above the level of the sea. It is far above the highest floods that ever swell the Father of Waters. Its latitude is 38 deg., 37 min., 28 sec., north, and its longitude 90 deg., 15 min., 16 sec., west. It is twenty miles below the mouth of the Missouri, and 200 above the conflu- ence of the Ohio. It is 744 miles below the falls of St. Anthony, and 1194 miles above New Orleans. Its location very nearly bisects the direct distance of 1,400 miles between Superior City and the Balize. It is the geographical center of a valley which embraces 1,200,000 square miles. · In its course of 3,200 miles the Mississippi borders upon Missouri 470 miles. Of the 3,000 miles of the Missouri, 500 lie within the limits of our own state, and St. Louis is mistress of more than 16,500 miles of river navigation.
The Missouri Gazette, the first newspaper, was establised in 1808, by Joseph Charless, and subsequently merged in the present Missouri Republican. The town was incorporated in 1809, and a board of trustees elected to conduct the municipal government. In 1812 the territory of Missouri was designated, and a legislative assembly authorized. The Missouri Bank was incorporated in 1814. The first steamboat arrived at the foot of Market street in the year 1815, followed soon by others. In 1819 the first steamer ascended the Missouri, and the first through boat from New Orleans arrived, having occupied twenty-seven days in the trip. In 1821 a city directory was issued. The facts stated in this volume show that the town was then an important and thriving one. In 1825 Lafayette visited the city and received a grand public ovation. This year the United States arsenal and Jefferson barracks were established.
109
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI.
In 1827 there were hardly a dozen German families in St. Louis, where now there are as many thousands of them. In 1830 the population was 6,654. In 1835 the first railroad convention was held. [See page 106.] In 1837 the population was 16,187, and 184 steamboats were engaged in the commerce of the city. The decade between 1840 and 1850 saw increased advancement in all kinds of industry, and in architectural growth. We find that in 1840 there were manufactured 19,075 barrels of flour, 18,656 barrels of whisky, and 1,075 barrels of beef inspected, and other branches of business had correspondingly increased. In 1846, the now extensive Mercantile Library was founded. The close of the decade, 1849, brought upon the city the double misfortune of fire and pestilence. On May 19th, the principal business section was swept away by a conflagration originating in a steamboat at the levee; and, during the summer of the same year, the population was scourged by cholera. In 1851, the first railroad enterprise-the building of the Missouri Pacific -was inaugurated, and quickly followed by others. . [See page 105.] The decennial increase of population has been as follows:
Year.
Pop.
Year.
Pop.
Year.
Pop.
1799
925
1830
5,862
1860
160,733
1810
1,400
1840
1.6,469
1870
310,864
1820
4,928
1850
74,439
1880
350,522
During 1880 St. Louis received 1,703,874 barrels of flour; manufactured 2,077,625 barrels; and shipped 3,292,803 barrels. Of this amount 975,970 barrels were shipped in sacks to England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Hol- land, France, Belgium, Germany, Brazil, Cuba and Mexico. During the same year St. Louis shipped 11,313,879 bushels of wheat; and of this amount 5,913,272 bushels went to foreign countries via New Orleans, while the rest went eastward by rail: The receipts of corn were 22,298,- 077 bushels; shipments, 17,571,322 bushels, of which 9,804,392 went by barges to New Orleans for foreign ports, 3,157,684 to the south for con- sumption, and 4 591,944 eastward by rail or Ohio river. The receipts of cotton were 496,570 bales, and shipments 478,219 bales.
During the packing season of 1879-80, there were 927,793 hogs packed. The shipments of coffee reached $5,000,000, and that of sugar $8,500,000.
The above principal items are gleaned from the commercial pantheon of statistics published in January, 1881, by the Merchants' Exchange of St. Louis.
Kansas City .- In 1724 the Kansas tribe of Indians had their chief town a few miles below the mouth of the Kansas river, and M. DeBourgmont, the French commandant of this region, held a grand peace council with different tribes gathered at this place for the purpose, on July 3d of that year. This is the earliest historic record of white men in the vicinity of where Kansas City now stands. In 1808 the U. S. government established
110
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI.
a fort and Indian agency here, calling it Fort Osage, which was not abandoned until 1825, when the Indian title to a certain strip.of country here was extinguished. In 1821 Francis G. Chouteau established a trad- ing post on the Missouri river about three miles below the site of Kansas City, but a flood in the spring of 1826 swept away everything he had, and he then settled six miles up the Kansas river.
The original town plat of Kansas City consisted of 40 acres, and was laid out in 1839. In 1846 some additional ground was laid off, and a public sale. of lots netted $7,000, averaging $200 per lot.
The first charter was procured in the winter of 1852-3, and in the spring of 1853 was organized the first municipal government. The first established newspaper made its appearance in 1854, with the title of the "i Kansas City Enterprise," now known as the "Kansas City Journal." During the years 1855-6-7, the border troubles very visibly affected the prosperity of the city, so that business in those years did not exceed, all told, the sum of $2,000,000; but at the close of the struggle, in 1857, busi- ness began to revive, and it was then stated, in the St. Louis "Intelligen- cer," that she had the largest trade of any city of her size in the world. This may be distinguished as the great steamboat era. It was estimated that, in the year 1857, one hundred and twenty-five boats discharged at the Kansas City levee over twenty-five million pounds of merchandise. In May of this year, also, the steamboats were employed to carry the United States mail, and in 1858 the first telegraph pole in Jackson county was erected.
The first bank established in Kansas City was a branch of the Mechan- ics' Bank, of St. Louis, organized May 1, 1859, and the second was a branch of the Union Bank, organized in July of the same year. The first jobbing dry goods house opened in July, 1857. The first city loan for local improvement was made in 1855, amounting to $10,000, all taken at home, and expended in improving and widening the levee; and, in 1858, another loan of $100,000 for street improvements. Only in the matter of railroads was Kansas City seriously affected by the panic of 1857; gov- ernment moneys, immigration over the border, and the New Mexican trade tiding her safely over the sea of financial excitement and prostra- tion. She had also become, even as early as the year 1854, a noted mart for the purchase and sale of live stock, the immense freighting across the plains inviting trade in this direction, and in the annual reviews of the papers it is said that, in 1857, the receipts for that year, in mules and cattle, were estimated at $200,000, and also that, in 1858, about 20,000 head of stock cattle were driven here from Texas and the Indian territory. In 1857 over six hundred freighting wagons left Kansas City with loads for Santa Fe, New Mexico.
The principal railroads centering at Kansas City are, the Hannibal &
11.1
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI.
St. Joseph railroad, the Kansas Pacific railroad, the Kansas City, Law- rence & Southern railroad, the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Gulf railroad, the Chicago & Alton railroad, the Atchison & Nebraska railroad, the Kansas City, St. Joseph & Council Bluffs railroad, the Missouri Pacific railway, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railway, the Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific railway, the Atchison, Topeka & Sante Fe railroad, the Kansas City & Eastern railroad, (narrow gauge). The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroad has extended its road to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and to Guyamas, on the Pacific coast; to San Francisco, California, and is building to the City of Mexico.
The elevator storage capacity in the city January 1, 1881, was 1,500,- 000 bushels. In 1879 about 1,600 new buildings were erected, costing $1,500,000. The U. S. postoffice and custom house building cost $200,- 000. The union depot building cost $300,000. The Kansas City stock yards rank as second only to those of Chicago in the extent and com- pleteness of their facilities for the cattle trade.
The population of Kansas City, by U. S. census in June, 1880, was 62,977 Taxable wealth, $13,378,950. Cost of new buildings erected during the year 1880, $2,200,000*
St. Joseph. In 1803 Joseph Robidon, a French fur trader, located here, and continued to occupy his place and trade with the Indians for 33 years. Up to 1843 the place contained only two log cabins, and a small flouring mill on Black Snake creek. In June, 1843, Mr. Robidoux received his title from the government to 160 acres of land, and laid out the city, which was called St. Joseph in his honor, and not, as is commonly supposed, in honor of the Saint Joseph of the church calendar. January 1, 1846, the town had 600 inhabitants, having been incorporated as a vil- lage February 26, 1845, with Joseph Robidoux as president of the board of trustees. The first city charter was obtained February 22, 1851, but it has been many times amended. The population was: In 1850, 3,460 ; in 1860, 8,932; in 1870, 19,625; in 1880, 32,461.
St. Joseph is situated on the east bank of the Missouri, 545 miles from its mouth, 2,000 miles from the great falls, nearly 1,300 miles below the mouth of the Yellowstone, 310 miles from St. Louis by railroad, with which it is connected by three different lines, and 565 miles from St. Louis by river; but it is only 180 miles on an air line from the Mississippi river. The latitude of St. Joseph is 39 degrees 47 minutes north, and the same parallel passes through Indianapolis, and within less than four miles of Denver, Colorado, Springfield, Illinois, and the famous Mason and Dixon's line, separating Maryland and Pennsylvania, reaching the Atlantic coast half way from Cape May to New York City, and the Pacific, two degrees
*These statistics are gathered mostly from the able annual reports of W. H. Miller, Esq., who has been secretary of the Kansas City Board of Trade continuously since 1873.
112
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI.
north of San Francisco, near Cape Mendicino. A straight line drawn on the map from Augusta, the capital of Maine, to San Diego in California, passes through Detroit, Chicago, and St. Joseph, and this last city is just half way from end to end of this line .
St. Joseph has an altitude of about 1,030 feet above the sea, which is 200 feet higher than St. Paul, 400 feet higher than Chicago, and nearly 600 feet higher than St. Louis. The city is romantically and beautifully situated, the business portion lying in a huge basin on a great bend in the Missouri river, while the residence part of the city clambers up the mound-shaped hills, which rise on all sides like a vast amphitheater.
The wholesale and retail trade is figured above $40,000,000 annually, while it is said that there are no fewer than eight commercial houses which have a cash capital of $1,000,000 each. It is stated on reliable authority, that there is handled at this point 15,000,000 bushels of corn, 5,000,000 of wheat, 250,000 rye, and 500,000 barley, per annum. The stock yards cover seven acres, and belong to a stock company. There are received at the yards 120,000 to 150,000 hogs per annum, and 10,000 to 12,000 cattle. The figures do not include direct shipments to several large packing houses, which will increase the number of hogs to 300,000. There are four packing houses in the city-one having a capacity of. 15,000 hogs per day.
The railroad lines which connect St. Joseph with the rest of the busi- ness world are the Hannibal & St. Joseph, the pioneer road of the state, extending east across the entire state to Hannibal and Quincy on the Miss- issippi river; the Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific, forming a direct line to St. Louis; the St. Joseph & Western, extending across the great iron bridge, through Kansas and Nebraska, to a junction at Grand Island with the Union Pacific, of which it is really a part; the Missouri Pacific, another connecting line with St. Louis; the Kansas City, St. Joseph & Council Bluffs, extending south to Kansas City and north to Omaha, with its Nodaway Valley branch, extending through the Nodaway valley, and its Chicago branch, making connection with the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy; the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe; the St. Joseph & Des Moines, now owned and operated by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy; the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, and the Atchison & Nebraska.
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STATE SCHOOL OF MINES AND METALLURGY, AT ROLLA, PHELPS COUNTY, MO.
CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND ITS AMENDMENTS.
We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitu- tion for the United States of America.
ARTICLE I. - 1
SECTION 1. All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a congress of the United States, which shall consist of a' senate and house of representatives.
SEC. 2. The house of representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states, and the electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature.
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