History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men, Part 16

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

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allegiance to the Democratic party, which, since Gen. Jackson's veto of the Lexington and Maysville road bill, had opposed all internal improvements by the general government, could not very zealously advocate the bill for the improvement of St. Louis harbor, though he offered no opposition to its passage.2

The work of preserving the harbor of St. Louis was to be done under the supervision of Gen. Charles Gratiot. Mayor Darby immediately opened · corre- spondence with Gen. Gratiot, urging him to visit St. Louis and examine the harbor. This visit was made, and the river fully examined. Gen. Gratiot was in- troduced by Mayor Darby to the Board of Aldermen, on which occasion the Hon. Wilson Primm, then presi- dent of the board, addressed him in happy terms, alluding to his association and connection with the city and its inhabitants.

Gen. Gratiot, immediately upon his return to Washington, sent Lieut. Robert E. Lee to St. Louis, charged with the immediate supervision of the work of preserving the harbor. This was in 1837, and the work was continued by Lieut. Lee, with Henry Kay- ser as his assistant, until 1839, when the appropria- tion made by Congress was exhausted.

In December, 1837, Lieut. Lee wrote as follows concerning the St. Louis harbor :

" The appropriation for the improvement of the harbor has for its object the removal of a large sand-bar occupying, below the city, the former position of the main channel of the Missis- sippi, which, gradually augmenting for many years, has now become an island of more than two hundred acres in extent, and reaching from the lower part of St. Louis to two miles below. The extensive shoals formed around its base extend on the east to the middle of the river, and connecting with the mainland on the west afford at low water a dry communication between. A flat bar projects from the upper end to the foot of Bloody Is- land, opposite the town, which at low stages of the river presents an obstacle to the approach of the city, and gives reason to appre- hend that at some future day this passage may be closed. This is rendered more probable by the course of the river above. The united waters of the Missouri and Mississippi for some miles below their junction sweep with great velocity along the Illi- nois shore, where they are deflected to the other side. The

2 In 1847, Col. Benton wrote a letter to the St. Louis delega- tion to the Chicago Internal Improvement Convention, defining his position upon the question of internal improvements, say- ing, "I have always been a friend of that system, but not to its abuses; and here lies the difficulty, the danger, and the stumbling-block to its success. Objects of general and national importance ean alono elaim the aid of the Federal government ; and in favor of such objects I believe all the departments of the government to be united. Confined to them, and the Constitu- tion can reach them and the treasury sustain them; extended to local or sectional objects, and neither the Constitution nor the treasury could uphold them. National objects of improvement are few in number, definite in character, and manageable by the treasury ; local and sectional objects are innumerable and indefinite and ruinous to the treasury."

1055

THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.

main hody, passing west of Cascarot (now Cabaret) Island, joins with the lesser portion at its foot, and the whole is eom- pressed in a narrow gorge (opposite Bissell's Point). Spreading out in the wide area below, the main current still keeps to the Missouri shore, while a large part of the river directed toward the Illinois side is fast wearing away its hank and eutting out a large channel east of Bloody Island. ... The two channels again uniting at the foot of Bloody Island, the whole hody of water sweeps down the Illinois shore, and, its velocity becoming again inereased by the narrowing of its hed, the abrasion of its hottom recommences, all the deep water being here on the Il- linois side and all the shoal on that of Dunean Island. . .. But in order to arrest the wearing away of the eastern hank of the river and to protect the Illinois shore, it will he necessary to divert from it the force of the current. This may he done by running a dike from above the small sloughi on that side, par- allel with the western shore, sufficiently far to throw the water west of Bloody Island. ... The same effeet would be produced hy throwing a dam aeross directly from the head of Bloody Is- land to the Illinois shore. .. . In addition to these works, the head of Bloody Island will have to be protected, from its head to the centre, so as to secure it from the action of the current."

The report also recommended a dike extending down stream from the foot of Bloody Island. In the following year Capt. Lee reported the commencement of the work, and said that, with the small part of the work actually completed, about seven hundred feet of Duncan Island had been washed off.

The work under Lieut. Lee during two years turned the current of the Mississippi back to the Missouri side, washed out the sand-bars, and deepened the water in the harbor, but dikes were required to be built to pre- serve and protect what had already been accomplished.

Dr. William Carr Lane succeeded to the mayoralty of St. Louis in 1839, and the city authorities, without assistance or aid from any quarter, continued the work in the improvement of the harbor under the direction of the able assistant of Lieut. Lee, Henry Kayser. But they were harassed and annoyed by injunctions of certain parties in Illinois ; and the mayor and some of his subordinates were indicted on account of the work being done on the Illinois shore by some of the public functionaries of that State, from which, so long as the work was under the direction of the general govern- ment, they were exempt. Still the work in the face of all these trials progressed.1

- In 1846-47 the St. Louis authorities and the owners of the land on the Illinois side projected a dike, and agreed to extend it from the west side of Bloody Island to the main Illinois shore near where Vaughan's dike now is. It was begun in 1847, and prosecuted at great expense, which was borne exclusively by St. Louis.

In September, 1848, Governor French, of Illinois, directed the State's attorney at Belleville to ask the court there for an injunetion against the work on the dike, which was yet incom- plete. The injunction was asked and granted on the ground of the invasion by St. Louis of the State rights of Illinois.

An appeal was taken hy St. Louis to the Supreme Court of the

In 1840, Mr. Darby was again elected mayor, and the work on the harbor was continued by the city government. The application was renewed to Con- gress for aid in behalf of the city, for further appro- priations to continue the harbor improvements, but without success. The work was continued by the city for about fifteen years, under the supervision and man- agement at first of Henry Kayser, and subsequently of Gen. S. B. Curtis.

In 1844, Capt. T. J. Cram, United States Corps of Topographical Engineers, wrote as follows of St. Louis harbor :

State of Illinois. That tribunal having expressed the opinion at its Deeemher term in 1848 that not the judiciary hut the Legis- lature could properly determine what the interest of the State of Illinois required in the premises, the Legislature of 1848-49 was appealed to hy St. Louis, in the celebrated ease Illinois vs. St. Louis. In January, 1849, a joint resolution was passed au- thorizing the city of St. Louis to construct a highway over the dike then in progress of construction. The work was at once resumed, and progressed until June, 1851, when the dike and road, made of stone and earth, near completion, were swept away hy the flood of that year. After the water abated, how- ever, in the fall of 1851, one-fourth of a mile north of the site of the first dike and nearly parallel, another, the present dike, was projected. It was laid out by L. M. Kennett, mayor of St. Louis, and the city engineer, Gen. Curtis. It was finished in 1856, in the same status in which it now is. Its eost was one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars. The land helonged to the Wiggins Ferry Company.

Thus the channel on this side was stopped, and by the in- creased volume and velocity of the St. Louis channel, Dunean's Island was removed therefrom, and the port of St. Louis re- stored .- History of East St. Louis, hy Robert A. Tyson, page 28.

The Republican of March 24, 1852, speaking of Dunean's Island, said,-

" This hone of contention between this city and a number of elaimants is about to be lost among the things that were. Some two years past the tongue of land from Dunean's Island reached as high almost as Market Street, and while the Levee about that point had become perfectly inaccessible to boats, the sand eon- tinued still to accumulate and the island to extend upwards. Every one ean eall to mind the apprehended total ruin of the South Levee from this cause, and property-owners in lower St. Louis know best the disastrous consequences which such damages would have involved. The dikes and other works about Bloody Island have effected a thorough change in the river at that locality. Duncan's Island having heen eurtailed materially of its proportions, has become almost unrecognizable. Two or three days since we strolled along the Levee, witnessing the vast and costly improvements which have sprung up on every side. We were surprised to see the head of Dunean's Island entirely washed away and its uppermost limits removed some- where opposite the gas-works. A large hody of water fills the slough, still washing away the island on its west side, while the main current of the river, which strikes directly against the head, is carrying it away at the opposite east side. The river along the whole southern landing is more than deep enough for the largest class of steamers. Whatever may be said of the works in our harbor, the owners of property in South St. Louis have had material eause to know their efficieney in averting a great evil, for which nothing could have repaid them."

1056

HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS.

" In so far as the general natural main tendencies of the di- rection and force of the currents in different reaches of the river are being exerted, that portion of the river represented on the chart west of Bloody Island and forming the harbor of St. Louis, I regret to say, must be regarded in the condition of fast becom- ing a mere slough. . . . In the last six years, since the survey of Capt. Lee was made, the abrasion east of Bloody Island has been such as to wash away a strip three hundred feet wide and fifty feet deep. ... It appears that in 1839, 1840, and 1841 an extent of nine hundred and twenty-five feet of the dike recommended by Capt. Lee was constructed, extending from the foot of Bloody Island, in order to wash away the bar, costing about forty-six thousand dollars, when the work was stopped for want of funds and left to its fate, before it had been carried to one-half of Capt. Lee's estimated cost. Of all the piles that were driven, only forty-two could be found standing in Novem- ber, 1843. The work seems to have been constructed by driv- ing two rows of piles from twenty to forty feet apart and distant in the same row from each other six to ten feet, and the space between the rows of piles filled with brush and stone, battened from the piles outwards, one foot in three. The idea of a dam directly across from the head of Bloody Island to the Illinois shore seems to have been abandoned, and the oblique dike commenced starting from the Illinois shore near Venice, and extending in the direction as recommended in Capt. Lee's re- port. The funds for this work were furnished by the city of St. Louis, and executed at a cost of sixteen thousand dollars, ex- clusive of machinery. Commencing at the upper extremity of this work, about twelve hundred feet have sunk four and a quar- ter feet below its original level or been swept away by ice and drift or by the force of the current. There for an extent of eleven hundred feet it has either been swept entirely away or sunk eleven feet below its original level. In the next reach of four hundred and thirty-five feet it has either been swept away or sunk nine and a quarter feet. In all the remainder of the work, twelve hundred and sixty-five feet, quite to its lowest extremity, where it extended into the strongest part of the cur- rent, it must have been swept away or sunk fifteen feet below its original level. Throughout the whole of this dike there are but few piles found standing. The city has also expended about eleven thousand six hundred and seventeen dollars in the construction of cross-dikes of stone, thrown without piles or brush, to protect the west bank of Bloody Island from abrasion. It is observable that in most of these cross-dikes, which were extended from the shore perpendicular to the thread of the stream, the water has cut into the bank on their down-stream sides, in virtue of a current setting along the lower face of the dike directly into the bank. Also the bed of the stream has immediately below the dikes been made deeper by the plunge of water passing over their summits, as is always the tendency under the fall over a waste weir."

Capt. Cram quotes from the reports of Capt. Lee, in 1840, to show what had been the effect of the work begun in 1837. The report said,-

" The pier on the Illinois shore (i.e., from Venice south) has served to throw the main body of water west of Bloody Island, which has cut a broad and deep channel through the flat shoal that extended from the head of Bloody Island to the Missouri shore. As this channel enlarges that east of the island diminishes, and between the pier and head of Bloody Island is becoming more and more shoal. The pier from the foot of Bloody Island con- fines the water to the Missouri shore, and directs the current against the head of Duncan Island. A large portion of the head and eastern face of this island has been washed away during the past year. The deep water now extends close to it,

and admits the largest boats to the lower wharf of the city. The depth of the river on the Illinois side is diminishing. . . . Both piers, however, require to be finished. The upper ought to be strengthened and extended down the river and the lower completed."

The appropriations recommended, however, were not made, and the work went to pieces. Capt. Cram says (1844),-

" Had ample means been appropriated and expended accord- ing to the views of that officer, in all probability the harbor would have needed little more, except to fill up for the subse- quent settling of the work, the damage occurring from ice, abrasion, and driftwood. These would have cost considerably more than generally supposed, but I think that plan, if pur- sued to completion and to have been successful, would ulti- mately have resulted in a completely connected work, extending from near the foot of Kerr's Island quite to the head of Bloody Island, then along the west shore of that island by a revetment to connect with the dike, making two miles of dike-work, one mile of revetment, and nine hundred and twenty-five feet of dike."

The report of the city engineer in March, 1846, stated that in 1842 the lower part of the harbor was so obstructed by bars that the ferry-boat was com- pelled to land at the foot of Vine Street. In. the winter of 1845-46, although the water was two feet lower than had ever been known before, the boat could use her landing at the foot of Market Street, showing a decided improvement instead of impairment of the wharf front, as had been charged by parties hos- tile to the plan of the city extending the dikes at Hazel and Mulberry Streets. He further said,-

" The improvement of the harbor requires, first, a regular shore on the Missouri side, which in time will be afforded by the improved Levee ; second, a regular and nearly parallel shore on the Illinois side; third, regulation of the bed of the river above the city so as to direct the water into the channel under favorable conditions. The first is the work of the city, the latter two are and should be in the hands of the United States."

Congress at this time seemed entirely willing to make what at that time would have been considered liberal appropriations for the harbor of St. Louis and other public works, but all bills of this character were consistently vetoed by President Polk. As a result of the vetoes the question of internal improvements became a political issue of no little importance in the Northwest and West. Additional appropriations be- ing unobtainable, inquiry was made as to what had become of the unexpended appropriation of 1844. From all that can now be ascertained the balance, twenty-two thousand seven hundred and nine dollars, was never expended.

The controversy, already alluded to, with the Illinois authorities in regard to the river-front of East St. Louis being happily ended by the joint resolution of the Illinois Legislature, the construction of the dike

1057

THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.

opposite Duncan's Island was resumed in the spring of 1851. The river was then five thousand two hun- dred feet in width opposite the lower part of the city, and it was proposed to narrow it to eighteen hundred feet. In 1852, chicfly as a result of the efforts to close Bloody Island chute, which had not then fully succeeded, the east side had been removed until the island extended but five hundred feet east of the pro- posed wharf line. A small strip of the island was joined to the main land by cross-dikes in 1852-53.1

From that time and up to 1866 the chute west of the island was unnavigable. In 1866 the city engi- neer advocated straightening the river from the city to Carondelet by a front line passing through the island. About this time the west chute became the main channel, and the wharf line was left as cstab- lished in 1864 to the then city limits at Keokuk Street. As this line ended seven hundred and fifty feet from the shore, its adoption involved the widen- ing of the chute by washing away the west side of the island. Several small spur-dikes were pushed out from the Missouri shore behind the island previous to 1858, but not far enough to exert any controlling in- fluence during the time when it was uncertain which plan would finally be adopted. After the extension of the city in 1870, absorbing the old town of Caron- delet, the extension of the line in front of the newly- acquired territory was brought forward, and a project submitted by the city engineer accepting the line as then established by ordinance, nearly in the middle of the channel, affording an opportunity to make many blocks of ground.

The project of making the west chute the perma- nent channel was acquiesced in by all. The board of engineers in their report of April 13, 1872, had in- dorsed it to the extent of saying by implication that the United States should close the eastern channel if observation showed danger of the river leaving the channel to the west. Before this proposed extension of the wharf line was formally laid before the City Council, an ordinance was passed ordering the con- struction of a dike at the foot of Bryan Street. As no necessity was apparent for this dike, it is not un- reasonable to suppose that it was moved and passed with a view chiefly to commit the city to the proposed

line. Work on this dike was prosecuted so vigor- ously that the first intimation of its commencement to many was the complaint made by boatmen that the channel was obstructed, but the work had progressed far enough to cross the main channel, which had been along the main Missouri shore. The work being done in the spring, or at the season when the general tendency of the river is to rise, the conditions were unfavorable to the ostensible purpose of the dike, which was to compel the washing away of the west side of the island.

As the stage of water afforded a free discharge of the obstructed water by way of the eastern chute, that channel was deepened, and eventually became the main channel.

Growing out of the discussion which followed the re- turn of the channel to Cahokia chute, an urgent demand for the closure of that chute was made by all parties interested, for once all agreeing in desiring this action, and a survey was made by United States engineers in the summer of 1874, with special reference to this matter. The construction of a dam across Cahokia Creek was authorized by Congress. The act of Con- gress making appropriations for this dam specifically limits it to a low dam, although it was clearly statcd in the report that as such it would necessarily fail to accomplish all the requirements of the case.

Very little has actually been done towards the per- manent improvement of the harbor below the arsenal. The plans contemplate considerable reclamations of ground from the river, which must be a slow process. These proposed reclamations extend from above the arsenal to near Dover Street, from Fillmore to Stein Street, and from Stein Street nearly to Jefferson Barracks. When complete the alignment of the wharf south will be convex from Market Street to Bryan, a distance of sixteen thousand feet, and concave from there to Jefferson Barracks, thirty-six thousand feet.

On the east side of the river the corrected widtli is defined only at the Illinois and St. Louis Railroad dike, opposite Chouteau Avenue and opposite Marine Avenue, by the revetment of part of Arsenal Island, opposite Carondelct, by the incline of the East St. Louis and Carondelet Railroad, by the Waterloo Ferry dike and the coal-dump of the St. Louis and Cairo Narrow-Gauge Railroad. Farther down the United States dikes for the improvement of Horsetail Bar, with two thousand four hundred feet of partially- constructed training-wall, are steps toward the defin- ition of a line extending to the head of Carroll Island.

Arsenal Island belongs to the city of St. Louis, having been purchased from the school board for thirty-three thousand dollars in 1866. It was pat-

1 The Republican of Feb. 25, 1874, gives the following as the measurements of the river : "At the foot of Pine Street it is 1560 feet wide; foot of Wash Street, 1500 fcet; at Biddle Street, 1500 across to Bloody Island; North Market to the main shoro below the dikc, 3900; Warren Street to the end of the long dike, before the government commenced work, 2380 feet wide; to the shore below the dikc, 3500 feet; from Destrehan to the Veniee Ferry landing, 2580 feet; from Angelica Street to Bishoff's dike, 1450 feet."

1058

HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS.

ented to the school board in 1864 by J. M. Edmunds, commissioner of the general land office at Washing- ton. All of the land within the island previous to this time was known as "Quarantine Island," and sometimes called Arsenal Island. The total number of acres contained in the island at that time was 119.57. The deed to the city was signed by Felix Coste, pres- ident of the school board, and George M. Fitchten- kamp, secretary. During the civil war the upper portion of the island was used as a burial-ground by the government. After the city got possession it was used for a smallpox hospital. Many of the old graves, not otherwise removed, were washed away by the encroachments of the river.

Going back to the surveys, the first shore line we have a record of (in 1862) was opposite the north line of the arsenal. The head of the island moved down three hundred feet by 1865, in which year the main channel was on the east side of the island. At that time one could go from the St. Louis side to the head of the island on a sand-bar during low water, from October to about March. The next survey was made in 1874, when it was found that the head of the island had moved down one thousand three hundred feet from the survey of 1865, making the retrocession of the island altogether since the survey of 1862 about one thousand six hundred feet, over one-fourth of a mile in twelve years. The survey of 1874 showed the channel to be located on the west side, between the island and the Missouri shore. The change of the channel at that time was caused by dikes built by the Cahokia Ferry Company for the purpose of making a steam ferry-boat landing at Cahokia.

The survey of this island by City Engineer John G. Joyce in 1880 shows that the head of the island has moved down four thousand eight hundred feet from the survey of 1862, nearly a mile. The chan- nel still remains on the west side of the island. It is interesting to remark here that the dike built by City Engineer Moulton about 1867-68, at the foot of Bryan Street, diverted the channel from the west to the east side of the island, and also washed the head of the island down some three thousand feet. A cor- respondence sprang up about that time between the Governor of Illinois and Mayor Brown in reference to the Bryan Street dike, the Governor opposing the construction of the dike on account of the damage that would accrue to the farmers on the Illinois side in consequence of diverting the current to the Illi- nois shore ; the result was that the building of the dike was stopped, and the general government had to erect a dike from Arsenal Island to the Illinois shore from the upper eastern shoulder of the island.

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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 16

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