History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men, Part 14

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts
Number of Pages: 1358

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This was the era in Federal polities when the au- thority of the general government to undertake works of internal improvement was denied by a powerful and often suceessful party. It was also a time when the discipline of party was stronger and more binding than the interests of States and seetions. That theory as well as discipline may be said to have departed

forever from the polities of the country, since the River and Harbor bill of 1882 appropriated nearly $20,000,000 for the improvement of the rivers and harbors of the country, of which $4,123,000 was for the Mississippi River. Up to 1873 the United States government had expended for the improvement of rivers and harbors on

The Atlantic coast

$9,587,173

The Gulf coast ..... 579,706

The Pacific coast 638,003

The Northern lakes.

10,437,158

The Western rivers.

11,438,300

Total

$32,680,340

Above the Falls of St. Anthony to Leeeh Lake, a distance of six hundred and seventy-five miles, the Mississippi may be navigated in certain conditions of the rainfall. A reeonnoissanee of this part of the river was made in 1869 by Franeis Cook, eivil engi- neer, under the direction of Gen. G. K. Warren, of the United States Engineer Corps. In his report of Jan. 22, 1870,2 Mr. Cook presents mueh valuable informa- tion in regard to the improvement of the upper Mis- sissippi, and revives the " reservoir" plan of Mr. Ellet for supplying the river both above and below the Falls of St. Anthony during dry seasons. A lockage at Sauk Rapids of eighteen feet will connect the reaches of the river and extend the navigation to Little Falls, where a loekage of fourteen feet will form a eonnec- tion with another navigable reach extending to the mouth of Pine River, where the removal of bowlders and the opening of eut-offs will extend navigation to Pokegama Falls. At that point a loekage of thirty feet will open the navigable waters above to Lake Leeeh and Winnebagoshish Lake. Thus continuous naviga- tion will be had for six hundred and seventy-five miles above the Falls of St. Anthony. The natural reser- voirs that would supply the Mississippi River, both above and below the Falls of St. Anthony, during the seasons of low water are to be formed by eon- strueting a dam at Pokegama Falls, by which a supply of 37,057,638,400 eubic feet of water eould be ob- tained, and a dam raising Lake Mille Lacs two feet would increase that amount 10,036,224,000 eubie feet. The estimated eost of these reservoirs was one hun- dred and fourteen thousand dollars, and they would supply to the upper Mississippi a permanent depth of from four and a half to five feet during the entire season. In a report to the War Department, Dee. 22, 1873,8 Maj. F. W. Farquhar, of the United States Engineer Corps, recommended that a complete survey be made of the navigable portions of the Mississippi

1 " The Commerce and Navigation of the Valley of the Missis- sippi, and also that appertaining to the city of St. Louis, con- sidered with reference to the improvement by the general gov- ernment of the Mississippi and its principal tributaries, being a report prepared by authority of the delegates from the city of St. Louis for the use of the Chicago Convention of July 5, 1847."

? Ex. Doc. 285, Forty-first Congress, Second Session.

8 Ex. Doc. 145, Forty-third Congress, First Session.

1046

HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS.

River above the Falls of St. Anthony, and urged the further improvement of the river between St. Anthony and St. Cloud. These improvements have all been undertaken by the general government, and for con- tinuing operations on the reservoirs at the head-waters of the Mississippi, Congress appropriated, Aug. 2, 1882,1 three hundred thousand dollars. By the same act twenty-five thousand dollars was appropriated for the removal of snags, ten thousand dollars for contin- uing the improvement of the Mississippi River above the Falls of St. Anthony, and twenty-five thousand dollars for improving the falls.

Upon the Mississippi between St. Paul and St. Louis two dredge-boats have been employed since 1867, operating chiefly upon sand-bars, removing snags and overhanging trees. The Rock Island Rapids2 have been improved by excavating a chan- nel so as to give a width of two hundred feet and a navigable depth of four feet at extreme low water, and a canal 6.7 miles in length was constructed at Keokuk Rapids. This canal is from two hundred and fifty to three hundred feet in width, with a minimum depth of five feet. The act of Aug. 2, 1882,8 appro- priated two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for con- tinuing the improvement of the Mississippi River from St. Paul to Des Moines Rapids, and thirty thousand dollars for the construction of a dry-dock at the Des Moines Rapids Canal, and thirty thousand dollars for improving Des Moines Rapids Canal. " The widening of the channel at Rock Island," " said a committee of St. Louis business men in a letter to a committee of Congress, " the completion of the canal at Des Moines, the construction of the wing-dams before alluded to, the removal of wrecks and snags, and the construction of the Fort St. Philip Canal would, we believe, result in the utilizing of this great waterway from St. Paul to New Orleans, and reduce the cost of transportation to a uniform cost not exceeding the lowest average as shown by the tables of freight accompanying this report. In the opinion of this committee, the removal of wrecks and snags between St. Louis and New Or-

1 River and Harbor Bill.

2 In 1836, Lieut. R. E. Lee was in charge of the improve- ments, and continued work thereon until 1839. No appropria- tion was made from 1839 to 1852, when, under an appropriation by Congress, the work was intrusted to Lieut. Warren, of the topographical engineers. In 1856, Maj. Floyd was put in charge of the work, and since then it has been prosecuted under the supervision of engineers of the United States.

$ River and Harbor Bill.

4 Letter signed E. O. Stanard, chairman, Erastus Wells, W. H. Stone, Lewis V. Bogy, R. P. Tausey, Webster M. Samuel, George Bain, H. C. Haarstick, Isaac M. Mason, Myron Coloney, George H. Morgan, in report of Transportation Committee, page 598.

lcans is of vital importance to the commerce of the river. Wrecks between St. Louis and Cairo, sunken many years ago and forgotten, are so numerous that, from the extra hazard they present, our rate of insur- ance is not only increased upon boat hulls and cargoes, but steamers with thin hulls and light drauglit are re- fused insurance at any rate. It is necessary, there- fore, to construct much stronger and more expensive hulls, and necessarily of deeper draught, than would be acceptable to underwriters were these wrecks and snags removed." The opinions of these leading com- mercial men, as well as the reports of engineers, at length created so strong a public sentiment in regard to the improvement of the Mississippi River that Con- gress, by the act of June 18, 1879, created the Mis- sissippi River Commission, to examine and report such plans, specifications, and estimates as would ren- der the river, when the work was completed, fully equal to the demands of commerce. For the commence- ment of this great work there was appropriated by the act of August, 1882, the sum of $4,123,000 for the improvement of the Mississippi River " from the head of the Passes to Cairo," and $600,000 for improving the river " from Cairo to the Des Moines Rapids." The estimates of the cost of the various im- provements of the Mississippi and its tributaries, made by the Merchants' Exchange of St. Louis, amounted to $16,010,000, and are supposed to cover the entire cost of the radical improvements of these rivers, with the exception of the Ohio.

The improvement of the latter river so as to secure a uniform depth of six feet at low water from Pitts- burgh to Cairo has long been recognized as being demanded by the vast interests that line the banks of that mighty stream. The length of the river between those points is nine hundred and twenty-seven miles. Six States border upon it, viz .: Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois, and the territory drained by it embraces 214,000 square miles. W. Milnor Roberts, in 1868, estimated the value of the commerce of the cities and towns on the river at $1,623,000,000. The coal and other mineral interests are of immense value and importance. The coal area embraces a territory of 122,000 square miles, and the shipments of coal by the river in 1873 amounted to 60,000,000 buslicls, or 2,300,000 tons. Almost all the coal consumed in the cities, towns, and country bordering on the Mississippi River and its navigable tributaries below St. Louis, consumed by steamers on the Mississippi River, and to a great extent by ocean-stcamers from New Orleans, is shipped on the Ohio River. During a single rise in that river forty-six fleets, composed of three hundred and sixty-

1047

THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.

nine barges, and earrying 4,156,000 bushels of coal, started from Pittsburgh within three days.

A board of commissioners for the improvement of the Ohio River was created in 1872 by the joint aetion of the States of Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, and Illinois, which presented a memorial to Congress Dec. 16, 1872, asking the general government to undertake the work, which was stated to be " not one of en- gineering but of finanee." The difficulty which em- barrasses the navigation of the Ohio arises fromn a descent of four hundred and twenty-six fcet between Pittsburgh and Cairo, in consequence of which the eurrent varies from one and a half to three and a half miles per hour. In 1870, W. Milnor Roberts, United States engineer, suggested a plan of improvement, the . estimated eost of which was twenty-three million seven hundred and seventy-seven thousand six hun- dred and sixty-two dollars, and Gen. G. Weitzel, major of engineers, and W. E. Merrill, major of engineers, as a board of commissioners, appointed by the War Department April 16, 1872, reported a plan of im- provement Jan. 31, 1874.1 With the exception of the purchase of the Louisville and Portland Canal around the falls of the Ohio and making the same free, very little of any importanee and nothing of any permanent value has been done towards the improve- ment of the Ohio River by the Federal government.

The improvement of the Illinois River was begun as early as 1836 with the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which was to extend from Chicago to the Illinois River at La Salle, a distance of about one hundred miles, but in the general financial erash of 1837 the work was suspended. The bonds issued for the construction of the eanal were owned principally in England. In 1844 a proposition was made to the Eng- lish bondholders that if they would advanee sixteen hundred thousand dollars for the completion of the canal it should pass into their hands, and its revenue go, with what lands2 the State owned,-the avails of the bonds being paid into the eanal funds to reimburse the State,-to pay the bonds, interest and principal. In accordance with this suggestion the English bond- holders appointed two trustees and the State one, under whose control the work remained until May 1, 1872. The original plan of building the eanal was to give it an incline from the Chicago River to the Des Plaines River at Lockport, and then supply a portion of the water by pumping-works at Bridge- port, at the commencement of the eanal. The eity of

Chieago, under authority from the State, removed the " beneh," or summit level, thus securing a constant flow of water from the Chicago River to Loekport. A distance of twenty-seven miles was thus deepened to eight feet, at a cost of about three millions of dollars. The original design of this canal was to connect the navigable waters of the Illinois River with Lake Michigan. The tolls and revenues of the canal were never sufficient to pay even the interest on the bonds, owing to the fact that the Illinois River of late years has had less water in it than when the eanal was projected. Though the improvement of the Illinois River had been urged upon Congress for many years, it was not until about 1865 that an appropriation of eighty-five thousand dollars was made for that work, but very little was done under that appropriation, the money being diverted by the Secretary of War to the improvement of the Rock Island Rapids. In 1869 the Legislature of Illinois appropriated four hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the work, and in the same year Congress appropriated two millions for Western rivers, of which sum eighty-five thousand dollars was ex- pended on this river. In 1870, Congress appropriated one hundred thousand dollars for the work. In 1873 the estimated eost of its completion was two million two hundred thousand dollars, and by the River and Harbor bill of 1882 there was appropriated one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars for continuing the work, which is now being carried on by the general govern- ment. In addition, the further improvement of the navigation of the Illinois River is contemplated by the construction of the Hennepin Canal from Henne- pin to Rock Island. The estimated cost of this work is four million five hundred thousand dollars,8 for which the River and Harbor bill of 1882 appropri- ated the sum of thirty thousand dollars, with, how- ever, the proviso "that nothing herein shall be con- strued to commit the government to procced with the construction of the said improvement." The im- provements of this river now completed and in con- templation will form with the Hennepin Canal a eon- tinuous line of canal and slack-water navigation from Chicago to the Mississippi River, as follows :

Illinois and Michigan Canal, Chicago to La Salle ... 96 miles. Slaek - water, Illinois River, La Salle to Hennepin ... 19

Hennepin Canal, Illinois to Mississippi River ... 65

Total 180

The improvements of the upper Mississippi now in progress will, when completed, afford seven hundred and sixty-one miles of continuous navigation between

1 Ex. Doc. No. 127, Forty-third Congress, First Session.

2 Lands donated in 1831 by United States along the canal.

3 Mr. Utley, of the Board of Canal Commissioners of Illinois : Transportation Report, p. 234.

1048

HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS ..

St. Louis and St. Paul for barges, which can pass through the Hennepin and the Illinois and Michigan Canals to the city of Chicago, thus affording compe- tition with all railroad lines which cross the Missis- sippi River between St. Paul and St. Louis.

Beyond the removal of the snags by the govern- ment snag-boats, nothing has been done for the im- provement of the navigation of the Missouri River. The Missouri River Improvement Association in 1881 addressed a memorial to Congress upon the sub- ject, but it is conspicuous by its absence from the bulky volume of the River and Harbor bill of 1882.

The Fox and Wisconsin Rivers have formed an important highway for two hundred years. It was by pursuing this route that Marquette in 1673 dis- covered the upper Mississippi, and along these rivers the French missionaries and traders made the earliest settlements in the West. In the ordinance for the government of the Northwestern Territory, adopted July 14, 1787, it was provided that the navigable waters leading into the Mississippi and the St. Law- rence, and the carrying places between the same, should be common highways and forever free. The same provision is embodied, in substance, in the act of Congress of Aug. 7, 1789, after the adoption of the Constitution ; in the act of Congress establishing a Territorial government for Wisconsin, approved April 20, 1836 ; in the act admitting Wisconsin as a State, Aug. 6, 1846, and in the Constitution of the State of Wisconsin. A preliminary survey of the cost of the improvement of these rivers was made by Capt. Cram, of the United States Topographical Engineers, in 1839. By the act of Congress Aug. 8, 1846, a grant of land was made to the State of Wisconsin for the purpose of improving the navigation of these rivers, and for constructing a canal through the di- vide, or " portage," to unite them, in which the declaration was reasserted that this channel should be free to the commerce of the United States. The State of Wisconsin, by its Board of Public Works, and afterwards by corporations duly authorized, under- took the improvement of these rivers, in the prosecu- tion of which over two millions of dollars, including the proceeds of the sale of the lands granted by Con- gress, were expended. The Fox River was improved so as to pass at low water boats of four feet draught from Green Bay to Lake Winnebago, and boats of two and a half feet draught from Lake Winnebago to the Wisconsin River. Little or no work was done on the latter river.

The improvement utterly failed to meet the rc- quirements of commerce, because it did not admit of the passage of boats from the Mississippi up the

Wisconsin River. On the Fox River the improve- ment aided in the development of that portion of the State,-a development which is traceable not only to the utilization of the water-power, but probably in a greater degree tó the competition, although neces- sarily small, existing between water and rail. In 1870, Congress directed the Secretary of War to adopt such a plan for the improvement of the Wis- consin as should be approved by the chief of engi- neers, and authorized him to appoint arbitrators to ascertain the sum which ought to be paid for the transfer of all rights in the works of improvement then held by the corporation created under the laws of Wisconsin. The sum fixed upon was one hundred and forty-five thousand dollars. By the act of July 7, 1870,1 Congress further directed that all tolls and revenues derived from the improvement, after pro- viding for current expenses, should be paid into the treasury until the United States was reimbursed for all sums advanced for the same with interest thereon, after which the tolls were to be reduced to the least sum which, with any other revenue derived from the improvement, would be sufficient to operate and kecp the improvement in repair. In 1871, Con- gress made the appropriation of one hundred and forty-five thousand dollars, and the deed of transfer was executed and delivered to the United States. Subsequently appropriations amounting to four hun- dred thousand dollars were made. The report of Col. Houston, then engineer in charge,2 in 1873, says, " The work now in the hands of the government is different from any other work of this character, and the appropriation that was made last year (1872) is too small an appropriation to carry on the work to advantage." In the River and Harbor bill for 1882 the sum of two hundred thousand dollars was appro- priated for continuing the improvement.

The efforts to improve navigation at the mouths of the Mississippi have a history running through more than a century and a half,-a history made up in large part of controversy and discussion among engineers, wherein almost every fact advanced by one was con- troverted by another, and every theory advocated was subsequently assailed or exploded. The vexed ques- tion has at last been definitely settled, and it is only necessary now to present in chronological order the historical facts in connection with this vast enterprise.

In 1722 the present South Pass was examined by M. Pauger, an engineer in the employ of the West- ern Company, and described as being " straighter

1 Rev. Stat., Sec. 5249.

2 Evidence before Committee on Transportation, pp. 229-32.

1049

THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.

than the ancient pass, but narrower." It was added that " at the outlet of this Pass there is a bar upon which there is but nine to ten feet water, and which is about one hundred toises wide." According to this engineer, there was an average draught on the bar of the South Pass, one hundred and sixty years ago, of about ten English feet. From the year 1764 to 1771, we learn from Gault's map, made from the Admiralty surveys, that the depth on the bar at the Pass was from eight to nine feet English. From that time to 1838 there are no data as to the depth of water. In that ycar (1838) a survey was made, under the direc- tion of the special board of United States engineers, by George G. Meade, who ascertained that " eight feet could be carried over the west and principal channel." After the Meade survey a spit of sand formed directly in the mouth of the Pass, which en- tirely closed up the entrance, so far as commercial purposes were concerned.

The Northeast Pass, or a branch thereof called the Southeast Pass, was in the early period of the navi- gation of the river the principal avenue of its com- merce. But this preference was probably due rather to its position, favoring vessels from the east, than to the actual depth of water at its mouth. The earliest notices of the bars speak of the entrance to the river as if there were but one that was used by the ship- ping, and Mr. Ellet says " it cannot be doubted that the Southeast Pass, or the Northeast Pass (which were in fact at that day, as they were fifty years later, but two distinct channels through the shoal water at the outlet of the Northeast Pass), is the channel to which these early notices apply." 1 The following allusion to this outlet is from a dispatch from Bienville, then Governor of the province, to the French minister in 1722: " I have had the honor to inform the Council by my last letters concerning the entrance to the river, and to assure them that vessels drawing not over thirteen feet (French) could then enter at full sail without touching, and that it would not be difficult to render the Pass practicable for vessels of the largest size, the bottom being nothing but a soft and movable mud." Mr. Ellet adds that " Bienville would have undertaken to deepen the water on the bar if the enginecrs who were specially charged with such works had con- curred with him in opinion upon the practicability of the enterprise." The difference of opinion among engineers which existed at that early day has con- tinued for a century and a half, and postponed the

1 Appendix to " Memoir on Mississippi and Ohio Rivers," p. 329.

work until Mr. Eads forced it through by assuming all risk, and undertaking its construction upon the terms of no pay without success.

As early as 1722 the engineer, Pauger, cxpressed the opinion that the deposit from the river " could be broken and carried off by stopping up some of the Passes of the Mississippi, by means of old vessels sunk to the bottom, together with trees, of which a prodigious quantity descends during the two first months of the year," and he proposed a system of dikes and brushwood for establishing the current of the river. This plan of improvement by dikes and brushwood, suggested in 1722 by M. Pauger, was assailed as useless and impracticable by Charles Ellet, Jr., in his memoir on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers :

"If we increase the velocity of the fresh-water currents by contracting the channel, or by stopping up the secondary out- lets, we shall certainly increase the depth and velocity of the column of fresh water flowing into the gulf on top of the sea- water. But that will not sweep out the bar. No part of the fresh water comes within eight feet of the top of the bar which it is expected to remove.

" The immediate effect of this increased force of fresh water will be to carry the upper portion of the salt water immediately below it farther out, and to transfer the place of deposit to some other point still on the bar, but nearer the sea, just as it is now transferred sometimes from above the head of the Passes, where it is occasionally found in extreme low water, to within half a mile of the edge of the gulf, to which point it recedes in com- mon high water. But this will not prevent an under current of salt water from flowing in and an upper current from flowing out, nor will it prevent deposits from taking place at the points where the direction changes, though with the same volume. of water it will change the position of that deposit."

Mr. Ellet further contended that

"while the effect of increasing the velocity of the current by contracting the embouchure of the river will not be felt in the removal of the bars, this increase of current will take place at the surface, and hence act with increased power upon the very works by which it is produced. These works must rest on foun- dations of loose mud, which has been deposited in the existing order of things. There is, therefore, reason to believe, at least to apprehend, that any material increase of littoral velocity would carry off this deposit, undermine the works, and conse- quently overthrow them."

In this opposition to what is now known as the jetty system Maj. C. W. Howell, of the United States engineers, concurred in his letter to Capt. J. H. Ogles- by, president of the New Orleans Chamber of Com- merce, saying,-

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History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men, Part 14

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898 Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts Number of Pages: 1358

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts
Number of Pages: 1358