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 52
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112 | Part 113 | Part 114 | Part 115 | Part 116 | Part 117 | Part 118 | Part 119 | Part 120 | Part 121 | Part 122 | Part 123 | Part 124 | Part 125 | Part 126 | Part 127 | Part 128 | Part 129 | Part 130 | Part 131 | Part 132 | Part 133 | Part 134 | Part 135 | Part 136 | Part 137 | Part 138 | Part 139 | Part 140 | Part 141 | Part 142 | Part 143 | Part 144 | Part 145 | Part 146 | Part 147 | Part 148 | Part 149 | Part 150 | Part 151 | Part 152 | Part 153 | Part 154 | Part 155 | Part 156 | Part 157 | Part 158 | Part 159 | Part 160 | Part 161 | Part 162 | Part 163 | Part 164 | Part 165 | Part 166 | Part 167 | Part 168 | Part 169 | Part 170 | Part 171 | Part 172 | Part 173 | Part 174 | Part 175 | Part 176 | Part 177 | Part 178 | Part 179 | Part 180 | Part 181 | Part 182 | Part 183 | Part 184 | Part 185 | Part 186 | Part 187 | Part 188 | Part 189 | Part 190 | Part 191 | Part 192 | Part 193 | Part 194 | Part 195 | Part 196 | Part 197 | Part 198 | Part 199 | Part 200 | Part 201 | Part 202 | Part 203 | Part 204 | Part 205
7.21
6.11
8.43
Memphis
6.24
7.13
7.12
New Orleans.
21.91
24.37
26.13
Galveston
8.45
10.83
8.60
Mobile.
4.88
5.95
6.23
Savannah
13.64
13.51
12.88
Charleston
9.61
10.19
8,59
Houston ...
7.80
10.60
...
Cincinnati.
7.46
4.90
5.46
" This presents a comparison of gross receipts, of which alone could I find the statistics for comparison. St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Savannah arc the only points which show receipts of a larger percentage of the crop than previous years, and of these Cincinnati, as heretofore stated, is only a point in transit and not a market. St. Louis, therefore, held its own in 1881- 82 better than any other market in the country, and has every reason to count upon a large increase this year, if the crop realizes present anticipations."
In the same connection, Mr. Nimmo, in his recent report on the internal commerce of the United States, sums up the
"RECEIPTS OF COTTON AT ST. LOUIS, BY RIVER AND BY RAIL, DURING THE PAST FOURTEEN YEARS.
Cotton Year Ending August 31st.
By River.
By Rail.
Total.
1866
53,506
1,921
55,427
IS67
18,712
1,066
19,779
1868
38,804
220
39,024
IS69
16,614
S2
16,696
1870
17,034
1,484
18,51S
1871
15,582
4,688
20,270
1872
30,018
6,403
36,421
1873
26,577
33,132
59,709
1874
27,538
76,203
103,741
1875
11,750
122,219
133,969
1876
19.620
224,978
244,598 217,734
1878
9,998
238,858
248,856
1879
15,012
320,787
335,799
ISSO
32,279
464,291
496,570
" The receipts of cotton at St. Louis by river fell from 53,506 bales during the cotton year 1866 to 32,279 bales during the cotton ycar 1880, while the receipts by rail rose from 1921 bales to 464,291 bales. The total receipts increased from 55427 bales to 496,570 bales.
" The receipts of the cotton year ended Aug. 31, 1880, were principally by the rail lines west of the Mississippi River, the Iron Mountain Road alone bringing about 84 per cent. of the total receipts.
" The total receipts were as follows :
Bales.
By Iron Mountain Railroad 417,23S
San Francisco Railroad 21,669
Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad .. 20,867 railroads east of Mississippi River ..... 4,517
lower Mississippi River boats 32,279
Total 496,570"
And George H. Morgan, secretary of the St. Louis Merchants' Exchange, in the report on which Mr. Nimmo based his conclusions, replied as follows to some of the interrogatories propounded to him :
" Question 1S. Please to state such facts as will indicate the growth of the cotton traffic of St. Louis, giving both receipts and shipments, and presenting tables showing the growth of the cotton traffic over the various routes during the last five or six years. In this connection please also to give the States and localities in which the cotton received by the different routes is produced.
" Answer. The business of the cotton year ending Aug. 31, 1880, has more than realized the expectations of the tradc. The gross receipts amounted to 496,570 bales, placing St. Louis at the head of the interior cotton markets of the country. The prevalence of yellow fever at Memphis during the fall of 1879 no doubt turned to St. Louis some cotton that otherwise would not have come to this market, but the amount so diverted could not have exceeded at the utmost 25,000 bales. The increase was by the railroads from Arkansas, Texas, and the Indian Territory, which trade legitimately belongs to St. Louis, and will doubtless increase with the production in those States.
" The value of the cotton business to our city is equal to at least $50,000,000 per annum. The value of the net receipts the past year, at $55 per bale, would be $17,835,620. It is safe to estimate that the greater portion-say three-fourths to seven- eighths-of the procceds of the cotton sold here is expended in the purchase of goods and supplies. Add to this the trade that has naturally followed the channel opened by the cotton trade, and the amount named will not more than cover the amount of business that is the natural result of the diversion of cotton to this market. Of the gross receipts, 172,286 bales were on through bills of lading to Eastern and foreign markets, leaving 324,284 bales as the amount handled by our factors, against 218,716 bales the previous year. Of the shipments, 173,644 bales were ex- ported dircet to Europe, 7248. bales to Canada, 110,761 bales to the Atlantic scaboard citics, 432 bales to San Francisco, and 186,134 bales to interior manufacturing points. Of the receipts, the larger amount came from Arkansas, and the next from Texas, as will be seen by tables on following pages. As the business has increased the facilities for handling the same have been provided. The St. Louis Cotton Compress Company, the largest establishment of its kind in the world, has added to its former buildings, and has also erected a compress on the line of the Missouri Pacific Railroad. The capacity of the three com- panies is now as follows :
Storage Capacity.
Capacity per Day for Com- pressing.
Bales.
Bales.
St. Louis Cotton-Press Company.
150,000
4000
Factors' and Brokers' Compress Company .... Peper Cotton-Press ..
25,000
1000
25,000
1500
Total
200,000
6500
Bales.
Bales.
Bales.
1877.
6,650
211,084
TRADE, COMMERCE, AND MANUFACTURES.
1219
The tables below, derived from the same source, about complete this exhibit :
STATEMENT showing the sources of supply of cotton received at St. Louis for the year ending August 31, 1880.
Bales.
From Arkansas.
239,374
Texas.
207,779
Missouri
24,180
Tennessee.
15,589
Mississippi ...
6,136
Indian Territory.
3,268
Alabama ..
93
Kentucky.
89
Louisiana.
62
Total receipts .. 496,570
FOREIGN EXPORTS AND DOMESTIC SHIPMENTS IN 1880-81.
Bales.
To Liverpool, England
188,160
London,
.6
..
492
Oldham,
... ......
402
Manchester,
............
372
Farnsworth,
...........
127
Wigall,
..........
51
Burg,
.........
78.
To Havre, Franco.
Bremen, Germany.
3,531
llamburg,
569
Antwerp, Belgiuur.
2,507
Amsterdam, Holland
253
Rotterdam,
2,417
4,940
Chemnitz, Saxony.
200
Canada .
5,S10
New York for export
1,575
Total foreign ..
212,080
To seaboard points :
To New Orleans ....
7,240
Philadelphia.
7,353
New York
34,190
Boston
4,269
Baltimore, Md.
3,816
Interior shipments :
To Massachusetts.
44,633
Rhode Island
23,830
Connectieut ...
15,872
Pennsylvania.
13,745
New Hampshire
7,751
Maine ..
5,518
New York (State).
2,426
Vermont ..
1,834
Ohio ..
819
Delaware.
728
New Jersey.
240
Maryland
629
Illinois
153
Michigan
269
Wiseonsin
S7
Indiana ..
603
Kentucky
11
Minnesota
184
San Francisco
270
Total exports.
388,550
RECEIPTS TIIROUGII COTTON. By
1879-80. 1878-79.
St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway.
149,041
115,957
Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway.
11,853
1,076
St. Louis and San Francisco Railway
9,713
....
By River ..
1,679
50
Total bales
172,286
117,083
1879-80.
Bales.
Bales ..
496,570
335,799
117,083
61,561
69,258
324,284
218,716
187,295
148,476
The rate of freights on cotton from interior points in Texas to St. Louis is about the same as that to Galveston, and the transportation charges from in- terior points in Texas to Liverpool via St. Louis do not materially differ from those via Galveston to Liverpool, thus making St. Louis a strong competitor with Galveston for the cotton trade of interior Texas.
On the general subject of the mutual interaction of local advantages in production, conversion, and exchange, as affecting St. Louis and its competitors, C. H. Pope, an expert in transportation matters, ob- serves, in regard to the territory south of the Ohio River and of the State boundary of Missouri, that
" at the opening of the era of railway transportation the com- mercial relations of Chicago with the territory considered were meagre and spasmodie. The city did not form a market for any of the produets of the Southern soil; it did not possess organized railway facilities nor lines of non-competitivo com- modities, all of which, added to disadvantageous position, praetieally placed that eity outside the commercial pale for the Southern Mississippi River basin.
" Her first traffic with the States of Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana, via the Illinois Central Railroad and connections, was rapidly improved and followed up, and trade relations were organized which, on some lines of merchandise, have remained permanent and prosperous. The influeneo of Chicago in the South at present is an important one. It is felt muost largely along the line of the New Orleans, St. Louis and Chicago Railroad, and of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad. In fact, during tho era of railway transportation, the line of New Orleans, St. Louis and Chicago Railroad has formued as nearly a dividing boundary for the commerce of the interior cities as it is possible to establish.
"To the west of this road the eity of St. Louis, since tho completion of its Southern trunk connections, controls more uf the commerco of the country than either Cincinnati or Louis- ville, and in this territory Cincinnati, Louisville, and Chicago each enters as a competitor, the aggregato valuo of the com- merce in all commodities controlled by each therein being almost equal, although the trade sceking each eity varies largely with tho commodities moved,-i.e. the aggregate trado of each eity in particular commodities being widely different."
He adds that the trade specialties which Chicago advantageously offers to this territory are grain, hides, pork, and live-stock, besides a large list of manufac- tured goods, including clothing, implements and ma- chinery, iron, etc. Those which St. Louis offers are furs, flour, grain, and manufactured articles.
J. D. Hayes, of Detroit, one of the experts best known in connection with trade and transportation, in a letter to Mr. Nimmo, dated April 7, 1881, re- marks as follows upon the force of natural advan- tages in promoting manufactures :
1877-78. Bales. 248,856
1876-77. Bales. 217,734
Gross receipts .. ..... Shipped via St. Louis on through bills of lading. .Net amount handled by St. Louis factors.
172,286
1878-79.
119,602
Bules.
Bales,
56,868
189,682 3,266
4,100
1220
HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS.
"In reply to your valued favor of 23d ultimo, in regard to ' tho development of manufacturing interests in the chief cities of the West, viz., Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Chicago,' I would say the manufacturing interests of those cities, as well as all other cities, towns, and villages, depend very much upon natural advantages, aided by circumstances, controlled by business energy, and capital to bring out and develop those natural advantages.
" Take St. Louis for example. For hundreds or thousands of years before the present race of people were known the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers formed their junction near the place where St. Louis now stands,-those rivers being navigable for so many hundred miles in each direction, drain- ing a country rich in agricultural lands, as well as very abundantly supplied with iron, coal, and other minerals, together with the great variety of different kinds of valuable timber suitablo for manufacturing, all of which could be brought to that point from tho north by the natural flow of water, thence onward down to the Gulf of Mexico, to reach open and unobstructed ocean navigation all the year round to all parts of the world. This vast region of country along those rivers is capable of sustaining a population of three hundred millions of people, without having more inhabitants to the square mile than some parts of Europe. With such a country and such natural resources to and from, such a central point would not fail to attract the attention of the dullest mind to its future prospects long before the steamboats or the railroads had entered into competition in rates with the currents of the rivers in their onward course to the ocean. Thereforo from tho beginning to the present time, and for all coming time, rail- roads and steamboats must compete with the currents of those rivers for the traffic of St. Louis; therefore manufactories at that point enjoy benefits which are in some respects a protec- tion as against interior towns or cities having to pay local or non-competing rates. The St. Louis rates affect the rates upon all productions far back into the country each side of that river, as far as to where the local rates into St. Louis and the through rate from St. Louis added together equal the cast- bound rate by rail from the interior cities and towns.
"The public are educated to call this natural advantage ' dis- erimination in rates in favor of St. Louis,' which is true so far as the other places are concerned, but it is a 'discrimination' made by God himself in the formation of the world, therefore beyond the power of railroad managers to change. The man- ufacturer can with some degree of certainty put his money, energy, and material together at that point, looking to the future wants of the vast number of people that are now in the West and the millions upon millions more that will be there, and go forward with manufacturing enterprises without limit, feeling secure in the ability to compete with any other part of the world."
In different words and varying forms, all that has been said on this subject only serves to enforce and illustrate what was said long ago by the author of the " Wealth of Nations," Adam Smith, in that great work, the foundation, in fact, of all political economy, and in many respects the wisest and most healthy treatise upon that complicated science :
" The great commerce of every civilized society is that which is carried on between the inhabitants of the town and those of the country. It consists in the exchange of rude for manufac- tured produce, either immediately or by the intervention of money, or of some sort of paper which represents moncy. The country supplies the town with the means of subsistence and
.
the materials of manufacture. The town repays this supply by sending back a part of the manufactured produce to the inhab- itants of the country. The town, in which there neither is nor can be any reproduction of substances, may very properly be said to gain its whole wealth and subsistence from the country. We must not, however, upon this account imagine that the gain of the town is the loss of the country. The gains of both are mutual and reciprocal, and the division of labor is, in this as in all other cases, advantageous to all the different persons employed in the various occupations into which it is sub-divided. The inhabitants of the country purchase from the inhabitants of the town a greater quantity of manufactured goods with the produce of a much smaller quantity of labor than they must have employed had they attempted to prepare them themselves. The town affords a market for the surplus produce of the coun- try, or what is over and above the maintenance of the culti- vators, and it is there that the inhabitants of the country ex- change it for something else which is in demand among them. The greater the number and the revenue of the inhabitants of the town, the more extensive is the market which it affords to those of the country ; and the more extensive that market, it is always the more advantageous to a greater number. The corn which grows within a milo of the town sells there for the same price with that which comes twenty miles' distance. But the price of the latter inust generally not only pay the expense of raising it and bringing it to market, but also afford the ordinary profits of agriculture to the farmer. The proprietors and culti- vators of the country, therefore, which lies in the neighborhood of the town gain in the price of what they sell, over and above the ordinary profits of agriculture, the whole value of the car- riage of the like produce that is brought from more distant parts, and they save, besides, the whole value of this carriage in the price of what they buy."
And this rule applies not only to cotton, but to every other manufacture in which St. Louis has cm- barked already or will embark in the future, and the extent and profits of these manufacturcs of St. Louis will be in exact proportion to the extent of tributary country, its need for supplies, and the advantages of transportation and conversion possessed by St. Louis over other competing trade ecntres. The extent of thesc natural and acquired facilities constitutes what may be termed the natural protection of St. Louis, as distinguished from the artificial protection which may be derived through the tariff. The percentage of that natural protection cannot exactly be determined, since so many various factors enter into its composition. We have shown that it is at least seventeen per cent. in the ease of cotton. In the case of flour and pro- visions for the cotton sections tributary to St. Louis it is probably fully as great.
COTTON COMPRESS COMPANIES .- What the clc- vators are to the handling of grain the compress com- panies are to the handling of cotton shipments, and in " terminal facilities" for the latter trade St. Louis is without an cqual, one of the three establishments of the kind of which the city boasts being, as we have indicated, the largest, most complete, and most convenient of the kind in the world. There are three
1221
TRADE, COMMERCE, AND MANUFACTURES.
compress companies in St. Louis, and a summary of their compressing facilities makes the following re- markable exhibit :
Capital Stock.
Storage Capacity.
Capacity per Day for Compressing.
Bales.
Bales.
St. Louis.
$1,250,000
200,000
6000
Factors' and Brokers'.
150,000
25,000
1500
Peper.
100,000
25,000
1000
REPORT OF COTTON COMPRESSED AT ST. LOUIS.
Year ending
Receipts.
Shipments.
Stock.
Aug. 31.
Bales.
Bales.
Bales.
1882
259,151
265,637
1739
1881.
317,195
316,537
8225
1880.
358,124
351,818
7467
1879
237,437
237,101
1161
1878.
205,861
206,537
825
The Peper Cotton Compress was the first in St. Louis, being erected in 1871, at the old building cor- ner of Twelfth and Market Streets. The press was of primitive character and capacity, but was used until 1878, when the company removed to its present spa- cious warehouse, bounded on the river-front by the Levee, and on its western length by the tracks of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway. The warehouse is two hundred and fifty by three hundred feet, and two stories high. It contains two powerful hydraulic presses, with a maximum power of five mil- lion pounds pressure on the bale. The other ap- pointments of the warehouse are also very complete. The officers of the company are Jerome Hill (of Hill, Fontaine & Co.), president; Christian Peper, vice- president ; and E. D. Mcier, secretary and treasurer.
The St. Louis Compress Company was organized July 20, 1873, and has since so increased its business as to employ one million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars capital. The vast establishment covers a space of five entire blocks, with a total frontage of seventeen hundred and forty-eight feet, occupying fifteen acres of ground, and with its two stories occupying thirty acres of floor space. The company's warehouses are arranged in three divisions,-two on the Levee and Park Avenue, and a third (new) on the Missouri Pacific and San Francisco Railways in the West End. There are in the first two nine buildings with heavy brick walls and iron doors. A network of railway tracks surrounds the platforms, and the arrangements for loading and unloading direct from cars and boats are most complete.
Cotton is received and delivered by the company free of drayage. After a bale has been properly classcd and marked up for shipment it is compressed, and taken from the delivering platforms by the Cotton Transportation Company, which company was or- ganized for the express purpose of transporting cotton in through car-load lots, without breaking seals, to the initial lines in East St. Louis, and from thence
to the East and Europe. As the Compress Com- pany insure all cotton in their hands, this organ- ization of the Transportation Company in connection with them enables them to cover the cotton by one policy from the time they receive it until it is handed to the railroad companies in East St. Louis. The Transportation Company was organized and con- ducted under the able management of Col. J. W. Paramore, the first president of the Compress Com- pany. As a greater security from fire, the buildings are divided into some twelve or fifteen compart- ments, and throughout the whole the arrangements for handling the cotton are of the most elaborate character. The floors are all on an inclined plane from the receiving platforms to the compresses, and thence to the delivery platforms, and all of these plat- forms are well roofed in.
The company has four powerful presscs, so com- bining steam and hydraulic power that they compress a bale of cotton to a density of nine inches, enabling twenty-five thousand pounds to be readily loaded on an ordinary freight-car. In 1879-80 two hundred and seventy-five thousand bales were compressed here. The new warehouse comprises six hundred feet front by a depth of four hundred, with thirty-seven and one- half acres of ground, and most complete machinery and other appointments. The company employs from three hundred to eight hundred men, according to the scason, and paid for labor since its organization, and up to September, 1880, three hundred and ninety- four thousand two hundred and four dollars. The original officers remained up to 1881, when President J. W. Paramore was obliged, on account of his great railway operations in Arkansas and Texas, to resign. The officers of the company then chosen and still re- maining as such are William M. Senter, president ; C. M. Donaldson, vice-president, secretary, and treas- urer ; F. W. Paramore, assistant secretary ; Directors, William M. Senter, James L. Sloss, M. C. Humphrey, J. D. Goldman, J. N. Stegall, Thomas H. West, I. M. Wiener, George D. Fisher, R. B. Wright, C. M. Don- aldson, William F. Obear.
The board for the Texarkana Cotton Compress Com- pany, which is also a St. Louis enterprise, is composed as follows : F. M. Martin, C. M. Donaldson, R. B. Wright, J. H. Reifsnyder, A. C. Stewart, J. W. Phillips, M. C. Humphrey, J. D. Goldman, James L. Sloss, William M. Senter. The Texarkana Com- pany is organized under the laws of the State of Missouri ; the stockholders are mainly the same as in ' the St. Louis Cotton Compress Company ; the chief office is at St. Louis; the branch office and general agent at Texarkana.
78
1222
HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS.
The Factors' and Brokers' Compress Company, located on Columbus and Lafayette Streets, and covering an entire block of ground, commenced business in November, 1874, with a capital stock of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The mechanical advantages are suclı as to insure speedy and economical handling of the staple, and the ware- houses are extensive and conveniently arranged! The capacity has been so increased from year to year that the company can now handle with its two powerful presses fifty-five thousand bales during a cotton year. The officers are R. B. Whitte- more, president; C. T. Mitchell, secretary; and Messrs. Oliver Garrison, H. M. Mandeville, Richard H. Allen, and John G. Wells, directors.
There are as yet only two cotton-mills in St. Louis, those of Bemis & Marriott and of Theo. G. Meier, and both are doing so large a business that the erection of other manufactories on a still more exten- sive scale is in contemplation. The requisite capital is already assured.
Hemp, Bagging, and Tow .- Hemp and tobacco are still great staples of Missouri and great materials for manufacture in St. Louis, but their importance relatively is not so transcendent as it used to be. Other products have outstripped them in the scale and give larger results. Hemp and tobacco will always be grown upon limestone land, because this, the only soil which will produce blue grass, is also the only one upon which those two products can be suc- cessfully cultivated and without exhausting the fer- tility of the soil. These products have been culti- vated largely since the first settlements in Missouri. The French raised tobacco before St. Louis was founded, and it was an article of trade with the In- dians in the days of Laclede. The first Kentucky immigrants brought with them the cultivation of hemp, while the Canadian habitans of Cahokia grew and hackled flax for linen and tow-cloth from the days of Charlevoix down. Under the old colonial system, however, so active was the competition of to- bacco that the cultivation of flax and hemp and the manufacture of linen and cordage had to be enforced by penalties and encouraged by bounties, yet much of the domestic wear was of tow and linen and linsey- woolscy until fulling-mills were established and the use of cotton goods became universal. In St. Louis, in 1821, there was no linen made except a little spun and woven for domestic use, and there was no ropc nor bagging manufactured. The consumption of rope had been comparatively large, as there was a demand for it for cordelles, but it was all imported from New Orleans or from the Eastern cities. In 1810 the cul-
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.