USA > Missouri > St Louis County > St Louis City > History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men > Part 2
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1880.
1879.
1878.
DIREC- TION.
Tons.
Per Cent.
Tons.
Per Cent.
Tons.
Per Cent.
North
761,976
7.07
578,381 1,824,575
6.95
509,229
7.28
West
2,842,112
26.35
21.95
1,473,434
21.06
South
3,345,793
31.03
2,644,618
31.80
2,122,624
30.35
East
3,833,708
35.55
3,267,335
39.30
2,889,95៛
41.31
Total ..... 10,783,589
100.00
8,314,909
100.00
6,995,241
100.00
It will be observed from these tables that the com- merce of St. Louis towards the east was larger in 1880 than in any other direction, and a much larger traffic passes over the great bridge than is transported on the river. In direct trade with foreign countries in 1880, the value of eastward shipments by rail via Atlantic ports was seventy per cent. greater than the value of the shipments southward via the
Mississippi River, the values standing for eastward or via Atlantic ports at $17,000,000, and southward or via New Orleans at $10,000,000.
As illustrating the course of the internal commerce from St. Louis, the following movements of cotton, grain, flour, provisions, and live-stock will be found instructive :
Articles.
Direction.
1880.
1879.
Cotton, bales.
.Shipped south 66
5,417
7,208
..
elsewhere ...
south .
6,202,586
2,518,547
=
66
east ...
elsewhere
183,904
99,436
Corn, bushels.
south
12,962,076
5,287,394
east ...
4,591,944
3,009,775
Flour, barrels ...
south
1,350,442
1,049,504
..
east ..
1,912,171 30,090
68,041
Flour and grain 1
south
28,377,271
15,134,163
east ..
19,555,975
17,952,999 589,262
Hog products, pounds ...
4
east ..
45,388,116
53,669,511
Cattle, number
=
elsewhere, by rail ..
5,474
4,798
Sheep, number.
south, by rall ...
5,690
2,441
east, by rail .....
72,384
76,286
elsewhere, hy rail ....
12,421
9,374
66
hy river in all directions ....
south, by rail ..
4,323
5,401
east, hy rall .....
759,323
679,513
elsewhere, by rall.
5,642
1,815
=
...
by river in all
directions ....
1,481
The percentage of the shipments of cotton towards the south in 1880 was 1.13, and towards the cast 97.65, and 1.22 in other directions ; of wheat, 54.82 per cent. went south, and 43.55 per cent. went east, 1.63 per cent. in other directions; of corn, 73.77 per cent. went south, 26.13 per cent. went east, 0.10 per cent. in other directions ; of flour, 41.01 per cent. went south, 58.07 per cent. east, and 0.92 per cent. in other directions; of grain, etc., 58.45 per cent. went south, 40.47 east, and 1.08 in other directions ; of hog products, 75.38 per cent. went south, 22.67 per cent. east, and 1.95 per cent. in other directions ; of cattle, 0.77 per cent. went south, 95.84 per cent. east, and 3.39 per cent. in other directions ; of sheep, 6.38 per cent. went south, 77.40 east, and 16.22 in other directions ; of hogs, 0.56 per cent. went south, 98.52 per cent. east, and 0.92 in other directions.
The steady expansion of the commerce of St. Louis is shown by the increase during 1880 over 1879 of the shipments of flour and grain from St. Louis to the east and to the south, the former of which increased 1,602,976 bushels, or 8.9 per cent., and the latter 13,243,108 bushels, or 87.05 per cent. ; in 1879 the shipments to the east exceeded those to
1 Including wheat, corn, rye, oats, barley, and flour, at five bushels to the barrel.
466,975 5,827
1,289
Wheat, bushels ...
4,927,389
4,684,093
elsewhere.
17,302
13,836
...
....
...
elsewhere
388,737
south.
150,949,883
158,639,570
elsewhere.
3,913,027
3,892,698
east, hy rall ..... south, hy rail ..
1,774 219,350
2,041 219,416
hy river in all directions ....
2,281
...
3,027
.........
Hogs, number ..
66
"
east
317,269
1,927,490
elsewhere ...
994
HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS.
.
the south by 2,818,836 bushels, but in 1880 the shipments to the south exceeded those to the east by 8,821,296 bushels ; in 1879 about 53 per cent. of the shipments was to the east, but in 1880 nearly 59 per cent. of the total shipments was to the south ; the total shipments for 1880 exceeded those for 1879 by 14,645,559 bushels. The receipts of flour at St. Louis in 1880 exceeded those for 1879 by 100,000 barrels; those of wheat increased 4,000,000 bushels ; of corn, 9,000,000 bushels ; of oats, 600,000 bushels ; and of barley, 730,000 bushels ; while the receipts of rye decreased 250,000 bushels .as compared with 1879.
There is a wide disparity of opinion in regard to the limits of the territory actually tributary to St. Louis, and consequently the extent of the products controlled by that city. We wish to present both views, that which is less favorable to the pretensions of St. Louis and that which is more favorable. We will state in advance that we incline to accept the claim for the wider horizon and the broader destiny. No city has a grander geographical site, and none a more generous and nobler population. If these two, working together in steadfast co-operation,-intelli- gence reverently and diligently utilizing and applying the gifts and largess of nature, the stored-up forces and conservated energies of immemorial ages,-cannot make a great city and a great centre of trade, then nothing can. Anyhow, it is proper that a city should have implicit confidence in its resources. As Col. George E. Leighton, president of the Missouri His- torical Society, said, in his very intelligent and thought- ful address at the last annual meeting, Jan. 16, 1883, " A living interest and belief in the real greatness of a city will alone make it great. Such a feeling is con- tagious, and if we but do our part, we can impress ourselves and others with the belief that we have in St. Louis a city worthy of our interest, and of our labors to make it attractive in all those directions which ennoble, dignify, and refine our lives, as well as in those which minister to its material progress."
Mr. Joseph Nimmo, Jr., chief of the Bureau of Statistics of the Treasury Department, Washington, in his very comprehensive and suggestive report on the " Internal Commerce of the United States," sub- mitted to Secretary of the Treasury Windom, July 1, 1881, attempts to define the " territorial limits of the commerce of St. Louis." What he says is as fol- lows :
" It is deemed proper in this connection to present a general description of the range of the commercial activities of St. Louis, such as was presented in a preceding report on the internal com- merce of the United States, with such modifications as the
changed conditions of trade and of transportation have rendered necessary.
"The limits of the trade of St. Louis cannot be precisely de- fincd, nor can the limits of the trade of any other great commer- cial city, as each city is either directly or indirectly the compet- itor of every other commercial city. St. Louis has direct trade with San Francisco, with St. Paul, Minn., with Chicago, with New Orleans, with the principal Atlantic seaports, and with many of the principal ports of Europe. This is also true of .other great commercial cities, both at the West and on the sea- board. But in the sense of being the principal market for the sale of general merchandise, and for the purchase of surplus agricultural products of the surrounding country, the terri- torial extent of the commerce of St. Louis may be described as follows : -
"The commerce of St. Louis west of the Mississippi River and north of the State of Missouri is quite small, the city of Chicago having secured the principal control of that trade by means of the system of cast and west roads centring in that city.
"St. Louis competes sharply with Chicago for the trade of Northern Missouri, Kansas, Southern Nebraska, Colorado, the Territories tributary to the traffic of the Union and Central Pa- cific Railroads, and for the transcontinental trade with the States of the Pacific coast, and mainly controls so much of the trade towards the Southwest as is embraced in the southern and central portion of Missouri, the State of Arkansas, the larger part of the State of Texas, and the northwestern section of Lou- isiana. For the trade of Kansas, the northern part of Texas, and the Indian Territory, St. Louis meets an active competition in the commercial enterprises of Chicago.
" The advent of railroads as highways of commerce has led to many changes, not only in the limits of the commerce of cities, but also in their relation to each other. This fact is strikingly illustrated with respect to the commerce of St. Louis and of New Orleans. Twenty years ago almost all the commercial interests of these two cities were mutual and reciprocal, but to-day, with respect to the large and rapidly-growing southwestern com- merce, St. Louis is a formidable rival of New Orleans. This new condition of affairs has resulted mainly from the construc- tion of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railroad and connections, and the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad. These lines, by their extension into Arkansas, Western and Northern Louisiana, and Texas, have not only invaded a section formerly embraced within the trade limits of New Orleans, but they have been the instrumentalities through which a very large commer- cial development has taken place within this highly productive section. The railroads referred to have invited a large immigra- tion into these States, and trade and industry have thus been greatly promoted. Not only are the surplus products of a large part of the State of Arkansas, as well as of parts of Louisiana and Texas, shipped to St. Louis and other northern cities for a market, but, in return, general merchandise is shipped to those States.
" By the completion of the railroad line from New Orleans to Houston, the former city has become a direct competitor with St. Louis for a large part of the traffic of the railroads of Texas. The competition of New Orleans for the trade of Texas will un- doubtedly become sharper upon the completion of the railway line designed to connect that city with Shreveport, La., at which point connection will be made with the Texas Pacific Railroad and its connecting lines.
"For the trade of the States cast of the Mississippi River and south of the Ohio River, St. Louis meets the active compe- tition of the trade of New Orleans, Louisville, Cincinnati, and Chicago, and of the principal citics on the Atlantic seaboard.
-
995
SAINT LOUIS AS A CENTRE OF TRADE.
The trade of St. Louis with those States has exhibited no ma- terial increase for several years.
" The trade limits of St. Louis east of the Mississippi River and north of the Ohio River, not including the through traffic with the States of the Atlantic seaboard and with foreign coun- tries, embrace a considerable portion of the State of Illinois and extend into Indiana and Ohio. This is a commerce almost entirely by rail, only a very small percentage of it being carried on by means of boats plying on the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers. All this trade, with the exception of that in the im- mediate vicinity of St. Louis, is highly competitive as between Chicago, Toledo, and St. Louis. This applies both to the pur- chase of agricultural products and to the sale of supplies and general merchandise. The state of the markets at these rival cities determines the course of trade of this section at all times.
"The commerce of St. Louis with the States and Territories already referred to has as its distinguishing characteristics the purchase of the surplus products of those States and Territories and the sale of merchandise for consumption within such terri- torial limits. But the commerce of St. Louis with the Atlantic seaboard States and with foreign countries presents itself under an entirely different aspect."
Mr. Nimmo at this point speaks of the railroads which centre at St. Louis and the sharp competition of the east-bound trunk lines, a matter which it is not necessary to discuss now or here. There are two reasons for this : in the first place, the rates of com- petition are so fluctuating and uncertain that there is
no standard, as there is also neither good policy, es- tablished policy, honor nor honesty in the competition for freight from the west to the Atlantic seaboard cities. These things will finally adjust themselves, and in the final adjustment it will be " devil take the hindmost." But in the mean time, so long as " pool- ing" corrects distance, no scale of rates can be per- manently laid down. We have nothing but expedients, and very temporary ones at that, and St. Louis can afford to wait until time, which adjusts everything else, has adjusted this also. In the second place, St. Louis possesses a regulator of freight rates to eastern seaports which, she is fain to believe, will finally re- construct everything, and especially readjust the " dif- ferential rates" entirely in her favor. This regulator is the Mississippi River, which, no matter what rail- road managers may say, intends to have a potential voice in the final adjustment of freight rates from western trade centres to European markets, and will not be ignored, belittled, or frightened by any of their " statements."
The area of country really and actually tributary to St. Louis, the more sanguine friends of its com- merce in the future claim, is as follows :
STATES AND PARTS OF STATES TRIBUTARY TO ST. LOUIS, THEIR POPULATION, RAILROADS, AND PRODUCTS, 1879-80.
STATES.
Population.
Miles of Railroad.
Wheat.
Corn.
Oats.
Rye.
Barley.
Number of Live-Stock.
Missouri.
2,168,804,
4434
24,966,627
202,485,723
20,670,958
535,426
123,631
7,611,671
Arkansas
802,564
620
1,269,730
24,156,417
2,219,822
22,387
1,952
....
Kansas,
995,966
1957
17,324,141
105,729,325
8,180,385
413,181
300,273
2,814,383
Nebraska.
152,433
3083
13,847,007
65,150,435
6,555,875
424,348
1,744,686
1,836,286
Illinois (2)
1,539,384
5645
25,555,251
162,896,240
36,594,600
1,591,897
614,761
Iowa (2).
812,310
1539
15,577,102
137,512,123
25,305,295
759,302
2,011,294
2,408,071
Texas (}).
771,287
3400 1
1,283,880
14,532,586
2,446,679
12,699
36,393
8,665,221
Kentucky (}).
824,354
1065
5,678,056
36,426,131
2,290,369
334,025
243,163
...
Tennessee (}).
771,231
792
3,665,676
31,382,214
2,361,095
78,209
15,009
...
Colorado
194,649
727
1,425,014
455,968
640,900
19,465
107,116
1,985,119
New Mexico
118,430
715
706,641
633,786
156,527
240
25,026
Louisiana (2).
470,051
681
2,517
4,953,094
114,920
506
......
Mississippi ..
1,131,592
1448
218,890
21,340,800
1,959,620
5,134
174
...
...
1 All the Texas railroads are tributary to St. Louis, so also are the Texas cattle and other live-stock.
Cotton and other products are given in other tables. The above table is supposed to represent the States which send or are to send their products to St. Louis. The States and Territories which St. Louis supplies more or less with goods, either of her own manufac- ture or through the jobbing trade, are exemplified in a statement of Mr. E. C. Simmons, president of the Simmons Hardware Company of St. Louis :
" We purchase goods at many points throughout the North- ern as well as Eastern States, from the Mississippi River east to Providence and Boston. There are also many manufacturers of goods in our line here in St. Louis from whom we draw sup- plies. We have goods manufactured at several of the principal penitentiaries of the country. We also still import largely of
certain lines of goods chiefly from England and Germany, and some from France and Switzerland. All of our goods, both do- mestic and foreign, are shipped to us direct on through bills of lading.
" The range of our sales is very wide indeed. We sell goods as far east as Indiana, north as far as Wisconsin and Minnc- sota, Dakota, Idaho, and Wyoming, west as far as Colorado, Utah, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and California, and south to the Gulf of Mexico. We also have trade in Ala- bama and Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky, with some scatter- ing trade in North Carolina and Virginia, Ohio and Michigan.
" This widely extended business is chiefly done through com- mercial travelers or agents employed by our house. The whole territory is divided up into districts, each district being in the particular charge of one of our commercial travelers, who is held responsible for the maintenance and extension of trade within his district. He is also expected to keep the house informed in
Indian Territory
...
996
HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS.
regard to the competition which he meets from every point, from other business houses in this city and in other cities, also as to crops and facts of interest touching the influence of com- peting rail rates. The limits of our trade depend very largely upon the rates for transportation which we have to meet from competing business houses in other cities.
" At present we have thirty-one commercial agents employed. " Nineteen-twentieths of our trade is by rail. The great ad- vantage afforded by rail transportation is the readiness and quickness with which goods can be distributed. All we have to do is to ship goods by rail on a through bill of lading to a re- mote point. They may pass over three or four different rail- roads, but the railroad companies attend to transshipment from the line of one company to that of another.
" Insurance is a thing that bears heavily against water ship- ments. Merchants will buy goods from points where they will reach them quickest. Take, for instance, Corsicana, Texas. The all-rail rate from St. Louis is $1.25 to $1.50 per one hun- dred pounds, and from New York by Morgan line it is but fifty to seventy-five cents per one hundred pounds ; still, on account of the quicker transportation, the merchants buy most of their goods in St. Louis, and ship by rail. In our trade east of this point we find a very sharp competition from Chicago, but we do not meet much competion from Chicago in Missouri south of this point, or in the Indian Territory, Arkansas, or Texas. All that we regard as especially our territory.
"Throughout the States south of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi River, viz. : Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Ala- bama, Georgia, and Louisiana, and some little in North Caro- lina, we meet the competition of Louisville and Cincinnati merchants, and also a very vigorous competition from New York. Our best trade may be said to be in Iowa, Illinois, Mis- souri, Kansas, Arkansas, and Texas."
The foregoing statement in regard to the range of the business of a single house, both in its territorial extent and in the degree to which its management involves the exercise of executive and administrative ability, affords a striking illustration of the manner in which the wholesale or jobbing trade is carried on at the present time. In the range of its activities and in the methods employed, the commerce of the present day is widely at variance with all ideas of trade which prevailed even thirty years ago. At all the points where purchases are made by the business house above referred to, purchases are also made by mer- chants doing business in a hundred rival towns and cities. Throughout almost the entire area in which the sales of this business house are made, competition is also met from business houses in Chicago, Louis- ville, Cincinnati, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and many other towns of lesser magnitude.
St. Louis competes with Louisville and other cities in the manufacture of tobacco, selling all the Missouri product. In the sale of dry-goods, clothing, and groceries, she competes, on their own territory, with Galveston, New Orleans, Mobile, Nashville, Louisville, Cincinnati, and Chicago; New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Baltimore sometimes invading her terri- tory. In the distribution of corn whiskey, as well as
in its manufacture, she competes with Cincinnati and Louisville, Indianapolis and Peoria. In the manufac- ture and distribution of malt liquors, St. Louis controls the whele Southern and Western trade, in conjunc- tion with Cincinnati and Milwaukee. The drug trade of the lower Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, Kansas, etc., is controlled by St. Louis. In wood and willow- ware, St. Louis has all the South and West, even Tennessee. One house in this city is known to be the largest distributing house in the United States. In queensware, St. Louis supplies the Southwest. In stoves its only rivals are Cincinnati and Pittsburgh.
It is thus apparent that St. Louis has a productive commerce as well as a distributive one. This is greatly in her favor, as the productive trade is more profitable as well as more durable and certain. Prop- erly defined, distributive commerce includes all trade which is accompanied by a movement to or from the city, considered of commodities that are neither altercd nor produced within its limits. With relation to this form of commerce a city is a point of exchange. Pro- ductive commerce includes all trade which exists or arises between a city and its markets as a result of manufacturing or altering commodities within its boundaries. With relation to this form of commerce a city becomes a manufacturing centre.
Now, since the influences which are favorable to the distributive trade of a city form only one set of advantages necessary to make that city a desirable manufacturing centre, and since it is possible that a city may be very desirable as a point of production without having any of the elements to make it a suc- cessful point of exchange, it follows that a city may have at least two well-defined areas of trade, one for its productive and the other for its distributive com- merce. And it will, thereforc, be desirable to learn the position occupied by each of these elements in order to arrive at the commercial situation and pros- pects of the city under consideration.
In a given area the relations of commerce to avenues of transportation are so intimate and so recip- rocal, either capable of acting towards the other as cause or effect, that an understanding of the one not only involves a knowledge of the other, but an intel- ligent consideration of either is best promoted by making it an exponent of the other, and dividing the former into such areas or epochs as naturally pertain to its correlative.
The history of railroad progress in the territory south of the Ohio River and south of the State of Missouri shows that prior to the latter part of the year 1860 there were no through rail trunk lines running north and south in any part of said territory.
997
SAINT LOUIS AS A CENTRE OF TRADE.
The trunk lines of transportation in this section were water highways, and while the railroad interests of the whole country were rapidly developing during the twenty years previous to that date, yet they had not become the leading commercial highways. Hence in the following remarks on commercial influences we designate the period prior to 1860 as the era of water transportation, or the era of western development.
For a like reason, since the year 1860, as the ten- dency of railroads in this southern territory has been so largely towards the formation of through trunk lines, both by the construction of missing links and by the consolidation of local roads, and as the move- ments of commerce since that date have taken place so essentially over railroad highways that water ave- nues have assumed a secondary position and influence, the period covered by the last twenty years may be commercially termed an era of railway transportation.
During the era of western development the com- merce of the entire United States followed essentially an east and west movement, and this movement still, as applied to the total commerce of our country, is probably the largest onc.
During the era of railroad transportation, most of the changes in the commercial highways of the inte- rior have tended to foster a north and south move- ment of commerce, and the development of that movc- ment has been so rapid that it promises to become a formidable rival to the ancient monopoly.
It is a universal accompaniment of distributive com- merce that as railroads extend facilities for its move- ment, they are liable at the same time to give like facilities to smaller as well as larger centres. Hence the very instrument which tends to develop a city's distributing powers places the means at the disposal of its tributaries to make of themselves active com- petitors. In other words, an extension of railway facilities in a country tends to increase the number and decrease or rather equalize the size of distributive centres. This tendency is mostly a subordinate one, but it is not on that account to be lost sight of.
Furthermore, in a distributive commerce ave- nues of transportation are always the elements of primary importance in marking out its course and dc- fining its limits, while with productive commerce trans- portation avenues may be secondary considerations.
A town may be a very active distributing centre, and all of the elements of its prosperity appear to be permanent, but every change in its railway outlets and avenues must vitally affect its welfare for better or worse, according to the nature of the change.
Examples of towns almost annihilated by changes in transportation facilities are frequently to be found
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