History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men, Part 51

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

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 51

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The natural advantages of St. Louis as a centre of production are in part the result of the co-operation of soil and elimate with intelligent labor ; in part they are derived from the geological configuration of the earth,-the distribution of its mineral strata and the superficial contour,-determining the course and volume of streams. St. Louis could not oecupy its present commanding position and maintain its lofty attitude as a trade eentre if it were seated upon a bog, like those of Ireland, or amid the granite bowl- ders and masses of trap and sand which diversify the soil of New England, or upon the margin of a swamp, like New Orleans, or in the gateway of a great fresh- water pond, like Chicago. As has been sufficiently

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HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS.

shown in other parts of this work, St. Louis combines more of the advantages of site and location-which arc necessary to the building up of a great city-than any other interior city in the world. It is the focal point, the centre, the key to the greatest river system, the largest and most magnificent. valley, the widest area of the richest and mnost productive soils, the finest juxtaposition of exhaustless mineral wealth, and the most comprehensive and far-reaching railroad system upon the face of the globe.

What naturc bestows, man has seized upon and is improving to the utmost with energy and intelligence. " Science, whence foresight, foresight, whencc ac- tion,"-excellent words of Auguste Comte,-is the guiding rule of man's action upon nature for the de- velopment of the resources of St. Louis. " Man com- mands nature only by obcying her laws," the philoso- phers liave declared, and the limitation is thoroughly well understood in St. Louis. Capital, labor, talent -meaning by talent natural capacity developed and shaped by acquired skill-are the three forces which have worked together in harmonious unison to pro- mote the growth and expand the trade of this " the great city of the futurc." St. Louis is not so rich in money eapital as many older and larger cities, but what she possesses is entirely in hand, absolutely active, and so thoroughly energized and vitalized by will, purpose, and intelligent co-operation, that some- how each dollar seems to do the work which it requires three to do elsewhere. In that capital which money does not always stand in place of and whichi often money cannot buy,-business talents, business judg- ment, business pluck, business co-opcration and associa- tion,-St. Louis allows no rivalry, admits of no equal.

In different parts of this work we have spoken in detail and given the complete statistics of the re- sources of St. Louis in production and for conversion and exchange. It only remains to speak of these things in a group as the essential qualifications for producing a great and unrivaled eentre of trade. The promise of the future can best be seen by comparing the results and accomplishments of the past and the present. St. Louis may reasonably expect to become the greatest market on the continent, because the tendencies of the city's development, ever since it began to grow, have been favorable to that expce- tation, and because the character of the improvements made and the facilities enjoyed arc all in the dircc- tion of consummating and perfecting a great central mart for the conversion and exchange of the products of a very wide and very rich area. No city in the world has such an extent of back country convenient to it, and which is or can be made tributary to it.

Let us give an example of what we mean by a region which has or must become tributary to St. Louis. Take the cotton manufacture, which is as yet only a nascent industry in St. Louis, although nothing can prevent it from becoming a supreme and controlling one, if St. Louis will but make a proper use of its many and superb advantages in this respect. The cotton of Arkansas, Texas, West Tennessee, West Louisiana, and Middle and North Alabama- an arca in which more than half the entire cotton crop of the country is grown-can be delivered by rail or river on the Levee at St. Louis as cheaply as it can at Atlanta, Mobile, New Orleans, Chattanooga, and any other distributing centre in the country, excepting only Memphis, and more cheaply than at Chicago, Boston, New York, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Norfolk, Charleston, and Savannah. To convert this cotton into fabrics there are needed capital, food, fuel, machinery, labor, and skill. Now how docs the case stand ? The cotton gathered at St. Louis is sent fif- teen hundred miles farther east to New England, or four thousand miles farther cast to England, to be manufactured. To aid in this distant manufacture,- the finished products of which are returned to St. Louis to be distributed by her merchants in every region to which their trade extends,-St. Louis further contributes food-supplies for the labor employed in it, and iron for the manufacture of the machinery used. Thus St. Louis, having the capital, having the raw material, having the cheap food and the cheaper fuel, sends all these things thousands of miles away, and fetches the finished products thousands of miles back again, instead of employing the means necessary to invite or compel the capitalists engaged in this indus- try to bring their plant and their skilled labor to the trade centre, where there is not only the newest and most complete conjunction of cheaper food and chcap- est fuel, with cheap raw material, but where also there is the best market for the sale and distribution of the finished fabries. This is an unnatural perver- sion of ways and means, an unnatural misusc of su- perior facilities, and it canuot last .. The cotton manufacturer, other things being equal, will not pay for the transportation of his raw materials and his products over such long distances when he can pro- ducc and sell his fabrics on the spot where cheap raw materials meet cheaper food and cheapest motive power. Mohammed will go to the mountain, for the reason that it is cheaper than for the mountain to go to Mohammed. There cau be but one settlement of this problem. It has been delayed by the rapid cheapening of transportation, the reluetance of capital and manufactures to change their sphere of operation,

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TRADE, COMMERCE, AND MANUFACTURES.

and by other causes ; but it is certain to come in the end, for St. Louis, whenever the right use is fully made of her facilities, is the place where cotton ean be manufactured most ehcaply. A hundred years hence, perhaps, Alabama, Georgia, and Texas may be competing with St. Louis, through their natural ad- vantages, for the position of cheapest manufacturing point ; but this will not be the case so long as St. Louis maintains her superiority as a centre for cheap food, cheap fuel, and cheap exchange.1

The Cotton-Trade .- The cotton manufacture will grow as the cotton-trade lias grown. From a few balcs in 1844, from twenty thousand bales in 1863, to five hundred thousand in 1880 looks like a considerable stride, but it is the work of a very few years, and it is only the beginning, for the cotton country properly tributary to St. Louis yields three million bales and upwards per annum. That trade triekled along like a feeble rivulet for some time, then suddenly it ex- panded into a great river. It must continue to expand with every mile added to the Southern railroad con- nections of St. Louis, which are already so extensive. So will it be with the cotton manufacture of St. Louis. That appears to be fecble and small, but it must ex- pand and grow to greatness, bceause all the con- ditions arc exceptionally favorable to it. The census of 1880 only shows three faetorics, with capital of $625,500, hands 444, $86,325 wages, $318,156 value of materials, and $453,295 value of products,-an in- fant indeed; wages $192.40 per capita per annum for employés, of whom three-fourths were women and children, and profits inside of eight per cent. on the invested capital ; but it is the beginning, the founda- tion of a controlling industry of the future.

The first indication we have of the establishment of a cotton-factory in St. Louis appears in the old Missouri Gazette of the 31st of January, 1811. The paragraph reads,-

1 " Forty years ago the trades and industries of St. Louis were already extensive and flourishing. At this time (1841) there were in St. Louis two foundries, twelvo stone, grate, tin, and eopper manufactories, twenty-seven blaeksiniths and house- smiths, two white-lead, red-lead, and litharge manufactories, one eastor-oil factory, twenty cabinet- and ehair-factories, two establishments for manufacturing linseed-oil, three factories for the making of lead-pipe, fifteen tobaceo and eigar man- ufactories, eleven coopers, nine hatters, twelve saddle, har- ness, and trunk manufactories, fifty-eight boot- and shoo- shops that manufactured, six grist-mills, six breweries, a glass-cutting establishment, a Britannia manufactory, a earpet manufactory, and an oil-eloth factory. There was also a sugar- refinery, a chemieal and faney soap manufactory, a pottery and stoneware manufactory, an establishment for eutting and beau- tifying marble, two tanneries, and several manufactories of plows and other agricultural implements."-Edwards' Great West, pp. 376-77.

" An event, not viewed as of publie importance in itself, may yet be highly interesting from tho reflections to which it gives rise. An English gentleman (Mr. Bridge), of considerable capital, arrived here on Tuesday evening last, with his family, for the purpose of establishing himself in this place. We un- derstand he has brought with him the machinery of a eotton- factory and two merino rams. Such an emigrant is an impor- tant acquisition to tho country."

Whether Mr. Bridge ever carried his purpose into excution does not appcar, but the probability is that the " two merino rams" may have diverted him into the wool business, as seven years afterwards " carding- machines and cotton-spinning machinery" were pre- paring to commenec, in the spring of 1818, in St. Louis.

Adolphus Mcier2 enjoys the distinction of having been the first to establish a cotton-factory in St. Louis.3

2 Adolphus Meier was born in the eity of Bremen, Germany, on May 8, 1810. His father, Dr. G. Meier, oeeupied a very honorable and influential position, being a lawyer of that eity and seeretary of the Supreme Court. He gave his son Adolphus all the opportunities of an early education, which wero ample in Bremen, and further to improve it sent him for some time to Switzerland.

After completing his edueation, Adolphus Meier spent three years in a large banking-house, where he became instruetod in the business of banking, but wishing for a more active field engaged for some time in the shipping business. On May 9, 1831, he commeneed business on his own neeount, and was sueeessful from the outset; and feeling comfortable in life, on April 21, 1835, was married to Miss Anna R. Rust, daughter of a respectable merehant of his native eity. Mr. Meier having freighted many vessels with emigrants at Bremen, and hearing much of the fertility of the great Mississippi valley, embarked at Bremen for New Orleans on Oet. 20, 1836, with his wife, ehild, and "household gods." After landing at New Orleans, Mr. Meier took passage for St. Louis, and arrived there on March 2, 1837. He opened a hardware-store in an old riekety building on the corner of Main and Chestnut Streets. He oeeupied this spot for many years, until the old building was torn down and a splendid edifice ereeted in its stead, whero the fırın of Adolphus Meier & Co. conducted their extensive opera- tions. The firin at this time (1860) consisted of Adolphus Meier, his eldest son, and John C. Rust.

3 The statement that Mr. Meier was tho first to establish a cotton-factory in St. Louis is denied by a correspondent in the Republican of March 15, 1857, who says, " The first establish- ment of the kind (a cotton-batting factory) was put in opera- tion by Mr. J. T. Dowdall, now of the firm of Dowdall, Mark- ham & Co. The demand increased so rapidly that within twelve months from the commencement it required about two thousand pounds per day to fill the orders. The proprietors, Messrs. J. T. Dowdall & Co., when starting in St. Louis hnd connected a finishing-shop with their fuetory, and as tho de- mand for machinery inereased it became necessary to enlarge this branch of their business. The starting of a eotton-batting factory in St. Louis attracted the attention of persons wanting sueh deseriptions of machinery, and a demand for cotton- and wool-earding machines having sprung up, they determined to dispose of their cotton-factory, and devote their entire attention to the manufacture of steam-engines, mill-work, and earding- machines. Messrs. Doan, King & Co. became the purelasers of the factory, and continued their business in connection with

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HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS.

In 1844, Adolphus Meier & Co. started a cotton- factory at the corner of Main and Chestnut Streets. It had at first twelve spinning-machines and cight hundred spindles, which were soon increased to double the number. The business proved successful from the start, and the firm soon erccted a new and commodious building at the corner of Eleventh and Soulard Streets, sixty feet wide by about one hundred and fifty in length and four stories high. They introduced new and improved machinery, and in 1854 it was the only factory west of the Mississippi River making yarn carpet warp and " bats" and lamp-wick. It is thus described in the account of that year's industries, under the head of the St. Louis Cotton-Factory :

"This is one of our carliest and most extensive manufacturing establishments; Adolphus Meier & Co. are the proprietors. The factory itself is built on a square of ground, three hundred by one hundred and fourteen feet, between Soulard and Lafayette Streets. One-half of the block is covered with substantial brick buildings, and full of machinery of the latest and most im- proved kinds. The factory employs about one hundred and ten hands, and runs over one thousand spindles. We learn that its annual capacity of production may be thus stated: 570,000 pounds of yarn, 90,000 pounds of cotton yarn, 90,000 pounds of white and colored carpet warp, 80,000 pounds of candle- wick, and 150,000 pounds of batting. The proprietors, we also learn, are now putting in power-looms to weave one-half of their yarns into brown sheetings. This will give employment to a largely increased number of operatives, and to St. Louis the credit of having the first cotton-factory west of the Missis- sippi. It will not be long, we trust, before the necessity of im- porting cotton yarns from the Ohio River will altogether cease to exist."

The factory did a successful business until 1857, when it was totally destroyed by fire. At the time of this disaster the factory contained 4500 spindles, and consumed thirty-five bales of cotton per week. It was making daily 2500 yards of sliecting, 2400 pounds of yarn, 500 pounds of batting, 150 pounds of twine, 150 pounds of wieking, besides a large quantity of carpet warp and bagging. The period of

their jobbing trade until the latter became so large that they were compelled to dispose of the former, and sold to Messrs. Bredell & Baldwin. The demand by this time had greatly increased, and large quantities of the batting were sent to the cities and towns along the lake shore as far as Buffalo and New York. The death of Mr. Bredell closed their business. About one year after this the foreman of the factory commenced busi- ness on a very limited scale, and although he has since in- creased his works, still he cannot supply even the demand of the retail trade. There is now another factory to be started by Messrs. Essex & Block, which they hope will be able to supply not only the demand of our city, but ' to ship a large amount to the Northern and Southern markets.' This factory will be located on Green Street, between Seventh and Eighth, and within sixty days from this time the builders of their machinery, Messrs. Dowdall, Markham & Co., expect to put it in full opera- tion."

labor was twelve hours a day for five days in the week, and nine hours on Saturday, all the year round. Em- ployment was given to 150 hands.

After the fire the company was reorganized and incorporated as the "St. Louis Cotton-Factory," Mr. Meier holding the largest amount of stock, and being elected president. The works were rebuilt, and the factory under Adolplius Meier's able management continued to do a lucrative business.

In 1865 the St. Louis Cotton-Factory Company was rcorganized under a new charter, and its manu- facturing eapaeity increased. At this time Col. Rob- ert Campbell and other leading citizens became largely interested in the enterprise. .

In 1854, when Mr. Meier's factory was in success- ful operation, the total receipts of cotton in St. Louis was 913 bales. Now it is the greatest eotton market of the interior, and, what is equally to the purpose in support of its destiny to become the centre of a great cotton manufacture, it is the centre of a dry-goods trade and distribution now valued at over forty mil- lion dollars, and rapidly increasing. The capital in this business is over ten million dollars. Tlic busi- ness and capital have all grown up since 1840, and more than half the sales made are of cotton fabrics.

George H. Morgan, secretary of the St. Louis Mer- chants' Exchange, who is one of the most intelligent and best-informed business experts in the United States, has given it as his opinion that St. Louis must continue to increase rapidly in importance as a eotton market. He gives as the reasons for his faith the summary of superior facilities and advantages pos- sessed by the city, as compiled and presented by C. W. Simmons, secretary of the St. Louis Cotton Exchange :

" 1. St. Louis is in a direct line from Arkansas and Texas to the East and Liverpool.

"2. As the country merchants control the cotton, they save exchange by shipping to where they buy.

"3. St. Louis is the best point from which the planters and merchants can draw their supplics.

"4. St. Louis is above the yellow fever line, and the trade can be conducted the year round.

"5. The cotton produced by the above States is of the best quality, thus making our market desirable for spinners and buyers.

"6. Our market, under its system of warehousing, can and does handle cotton cheaper than other mnarkets.

"7. Our railroad facilities are better than those of any other cotton market.

"8. Our purchasers are the North, East, Liverpool, and home."

In the same way, the advantages and facilities of St. Louis as a eentre for cotton manufacture might be summed up :

A. Production.

a. Control of the best quality of the staple by means

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TRADE, COMMERCE, AND MANUFACTURES.

of cheap transportation on short interior lines by the most direct routes to the Southwest. This area, the cotton produced in it and the connection of St. Louis with it, are rapidly and steadily increasing every year.

b. The planters sell to the country merchants from whom they buy their supplies. As plantations be- come smaller, the sales of the country merchants will become larger and tend more and more to include the entire line of goods consumed by the planting class. It might pay the planter of one hundred to five hun- dred bales to go to the city and buy at wholesale ; but the planter of five to fifty bales cannot do this. Hence the country merchant's trade is increasing in volume and importance.

c. To the country merchant of the Southwest St. Louis is the best and cheapest market. It is better stocked, its goods are cheapest, its transportation facili- ties most extensive, most convenient, and cheapest. The country merchant of the Southwest, therefore, will buy in St. Louis his corn, flour, provisions, dry-goods, cloth- ing, fertilizers, groceries, hardware, agricultural im- plements, and the furniture, vehicles, jewelry, liquors, and luxuries which the planter needs and the country merchant supplies,-an enormous line of goods, all of which can be most cheaply paid for in live-stock and baled cotton. Thus St. Louis secures and is able to maintain control of unlimited supplics of the raw ma- terial of the cotton manufacture on the most favorable terms possible.

B. Conversion.

a. Manchester (England) and Fall River (Mass.), to compete with St. Louis in the cotton manufacture, must buy their raw cotton in St. Louis and carry it to their mills, a distance of fifteen hundred miles in one case, of four thousand miles in another. This is a freight advantage in favor of St. Louis which aver- ages, under all circumstances, onc-fourth of one cent per pound.

b. Fall River must pay for coal, the controlling motive-power in cotton manufacture, fifty per ecnt. more than it costs in St. Louis. In Manchester eoal is not quite as cheap as in St. Louis, and while the price of fuel in the latter place tends to decrease as wider arcas of coal are opened and the facilities for cheap transportation are increased, the tendencies of fuel in price in England are upward, in consequence of diminished supply and greater cost and difficulty of procuring it.

c. Fall River and Manchester equally must buy their breadstuffs and provisions in St. Louis,-that is to say, they must pay for breadstuffs and provisions a price which is equal to the St. Louis price plus the cost of transportation from St. Louis and their deliv-

ery in those cities. This is equal to an enhancement of twenty-five per cent. upon the price of food in St. Louis. But the total labor employed in cotton manu- facture is twenty-five per cent. of the cost, and in England and this country the cost of food represents about seven-twelfths of the total cost of labor. Thus St. Louis, through its cheaper food, has an advantage in the cost of labor in cotton manufacture equal to fourteen and one-half per cent.

d. The sum of the advantages of St. Louis for cot- ton manufacture, therefore, growing out of its position as a trade centre, would be seventeen per cent. over England and New England.

e. These advantages are increasing steadily from natural causes, and to them must be added a similar line of advantages in respect to the raw materials for machinery, and the cheapness of rents, sites for facto- ries, etc.

f. The advantage of new plants and machinery of latest and most improved make, when St. Louis goes into cotton manufacture, must not be overlooked. In old establishments usually one-half the capital is locked up in old, inconvenient buildings and machi- nery, heating apparatus and the like, which do not produce the best results, and are costly out of propor- tion to their value.

C. Exchange.

St. Louis could distribute more cheaply than any competing city the products of looms capable of con- verting into fabrics every bale of staple annually re- ceived by her merchants. This cotton-goods market is extending rapidly through new connections with the far West and with Mexico, and it would be still more largely enhanced by the facilities of St. Louis for outstripping competition in the extensive manu- facture of cotton.

The drawbacks are want of capital, want of ma- chinery, want of skilled labor, and the opposition, of course, of the jobbers, who sell the goods manufac- tured in other places. These deficiencies St. Louis must remove. With her natural and acquired ad- vantages she can well afford to do so. In corrobo- ration of the facts and conclusions adduced above, it is proper to add the following statistics and figures :1

GROWTH OF THE ST. LOUIS COTTON-TRADE.

No. of Bales.

Gross.

Net.

Net per ct. of Crop.

1866-67.

19,338

...

......

1871-72.

36,421

16,706

0,56

1873-74.

103,741

79,418

1,90

1879-80.

496,570

324,284

5.63

1880-81.

398,839

301,353

4.56

1881-82

374,415

259,151

4.78

1 From a paper by Charles W. Knapp on "St. Louis : Past, Present, and Future," read before the "Round Table Club," Oct. 14, 1882.

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HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS.

" This presents a picture of trade aggrandizement which should at once inspire confidence in the future and stimulate the merchants of St. Louis to try what the same energy and enterprise will accomplish in other fields. To have built up in half a dozen years from unimportant proportions a trade running yearly over twenty million dollars proves that it is often only necessary to dare in order to do. I ask your atten- tion especially to the fact that the cotton trade of St. Louis showed signs of healthy growth during the year just closed, in despite of the great falling off in the volume of its receipts, as you will see that only in 1879-80 did it receive so large a percentage of the whole cotton crop. The significance of this fact you will find still more strikingly illustrated by the follow- ing:

PERCENTAGE OF COTTON CROP RECEIVED AT LEADING MARKETS, ESTIMATED ON GROSS RECEIPTS.

Per Cent. of Crops of

1881-82.

1880-81.

1879-80.

St. Louis ..

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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 51

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