And Congress had authorized, that year, a sixth dam for the Headwaters, the one at Gull Lake. On the Mississippi's west bank, Maj. Gen. John A. McClernand marched his XIII Corps and two divisions from Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson's XVII Corps south to Hard Times, La., opposite Grand Gulf, the planned crossing point. . Wing and closing dam construction began at Pike Island at the mouth of the Minnesota River. Pilots, Merrick recounted, had to study the nightmares first. It had been nearly two years since Confederate forces had closed the Mississippi River to Union shipping. The Hernando de Soto Bridge, named after the Spanish explorer who reached the Mississippi River in 1541, opened to automobile traffic on August 2, 1973. Many trees fell into the water to become snags. crossing the mississippi river in 1850 middlebury college blanket Mary Meachum Celebration The United States grew up on the water and remains a maritime nation to this day. . They yearned to make their city the head of navigation. Kane, St. Anthony, p. 96, points out that the state never transferred the grant to the company. ft. Shermans troops, meanwhile, demonstrated against the citys northern defenses. The 4-foot project did not greatly alter the river's physical or ecological character and did not improve the river much for navigation, but it initiated a series of navigation projects that would do both. In turn, the Federal army would have to march south over poor roads and await the arrival of the transports. James Piggott, a late eighteenth century pioneer, settled in Cahokia and established a ferry operation, providing passage to St. Louis for travelers on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River. But, as a result of the economic panic beginning that year, a number of unprecedented droughts and the Civil War, navigation, they brashly claimed, had receded some sixteen miles, to St. Paul, where all the freight destined to these cities, (Minneapolis and St. Anthony) and the vast regions north and west . Heretofore I have had nothing to do but fight the enemy. Forward thinking entrepreneurs and politicians pushed for the development of such a railroad and in May 1869 the final spike of the Transcontinental Railroad was driven in Promontory Point in Utah. The river pioneers once forded with their wagons and livestock no longer existed. The first ferries crossing from Piggott's complex to St. Louis were pirogues, small boats similar to canoes, made from hollowed out logs. 7-8. Her father, Albert Kirchner, along with Jacob Richtman, both from Fountain City, Wisconsin, became the leading contractors for the Corps in wing dam construction. Lock and Dam 1 would have to be placed above Minnehaha Creek and have a lift of 13.3 feet. . 1491, (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1913), p. 704. George Byron Merrick captures well the perils of sailing the natural river. It served the Indians as a means of crossing long before the whites penetrated as far west as the Mississippi. Wing dams especially caused bank erosion by forcing the river away from one shore and against the other. It did not begin building the project, focusing instead on a provision in the grant that limited the company to selling no more than one section of land within a township. Frank Haigh Dixon, A Traffic History of the Mississippi River System, National Waterways Commission, Document No. To do this, they would have to change the Mississippi's landscape and environment. 2, 62nd Cong., 3d sess., Doc. Echoing the beliefs of their counterparts downstream, Minneapolis boosters pointed to the divine purpose of their project. As early as 1850, Minneapolis business and civic leaders had tried to convince shippers that steamboats could reach the falls. According to one historian, 'the Mississippi River gave slavery a whole new lease on life' (Johnson, 2013: 6-7, 146). . Due to the milling operations at the falls, the cataract was in danger of deteriorating into a series of rapids. It did so twice that year. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Grand Tower Mississippi River Color Lithograph by Nat Kinsey Steamboat Rivermen at the best online prices at eBay! 1491, (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1913), pp. U.S. Congress, House, Laws of the United States Relating to the Improvement of Rivers and Harbors, vol. 58, pp. The first European to cross the Mississippi River was Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto by boat in 1541, and then railroads crossed it in 1856. [and] suggested that the Congress study the problem and find a solution. Windom, Select Committee, p. 7; Schonberger, Transportation to the Seaboard, p. 29. branch, . In 1805-06 the pioneer expedition of U.S. Army officer Zebulon Montgomery Pike struggled to within 80 miles (130 km) of the river's source, and in 1832 Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, an Indian agent for the U.S. government, identified and named Lake Itasca (from the Latin veritas caput, "true head") as the Mississippi's starting point. Opponents to the amendment included waterpower magnates William D. Washburn and Richard Chute. As Cook had worked for the Washburns, Meeker expected a negative report. They did so by driving two tiers of piles nine feet apart and then filling between them with willow brush and placing sacks of sand on top to weigh the brush down. Finley's 1827 State Map of Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. William Washburn went so far as to purchase land at one of the reservoir sites in anticipation of a private or federal project there and later gave the land to the government. Hillhouse reported that the Caffreys work had included 1,600 feet of wing dams. House Ex. Well aware of the agrarian unrest, he had warned the Senate that, this issue would inevitably be forced on the Exec. Port Gibson, MS. is a small town that played a part in the Civil War. 1780-81. Simple Add/Edit Procedure . Railroad trackage in the United States multiplied from 30,635 miles in 1860, to 52,914 in 1870, and 92,296 in 1880.39 Before the Civil War, only the Rock Island Railroad had bridged the upper Mississippi River from Illinois to Iowa. . The first enslaved Africans brought to the colony during the John Law Company period (1717-1731) were housed directly across from the settlement on the West Bank in what is now Algiers Point. Ibid. Cadwallader C. Washburn and his brother William D., the Minneapolis Mill Company's owners and two of the city's most powerful and prominent millers, adamantly opposed locks and dams. He estimated that Lock and Dam 1 would cost $568,222 and that Lock and Dam 2 would cost $598,235. Reeling from Chicago's increasing dominance over the region's trade, they saw the river as their best counteroffensive. Quincy and Cairo, Illinois, became railheads in 1856, and East St. Louis, Illinois, and Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, in 1857. . he concluded, calling on Congress to appropriate funding for every navigable stream in the West and to open the natural outlets free to all.47 To restore river traffic, Kelley insisted that the Mississippi needed grants like those given to railroads, and the Grange had to establish an agent in St. Louis to buy and sell Minnesota's products. Demonstrating the Grange's early concern for improving the Mississippi River, the state Grange convention of 1869 featured the river. From St. Anthony Falls to downtown St. Paul, some 15 river miles, the river falls more than 100 feet. Second, was the idea of the Grange really his? The next day, the Federals swept aside a Confederate force at Port Gibson, ensuring a firm Union foothold on the Mississippi Rivers eastern bank. Under steam power, people and goods could be transported upstream far more quickly and in greater numbers and quantities than on boats with sails or oars or poles. On June 7, 1868, the Minneapolis Daily Tribune claimed that the Meeker Island lock and dam would transfer the commercial prestige of this upper country from St. Paul to the Magnet.80 St. Paul industrial boosters also claimed victory. The Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railroads were the first railroads to be built in Iowa reaching Rock Island, Illinois, in August 1854 and connecting with Iowa by a ferry crossing the Mississippi River. Sitting on a bluff on the rivers eastern bank and shielded to the north by a maze of swamps, bayous and bluffs, Vicksburg posed a multitude of problems to Union planners. The bridge was completed on June 30, 1956. So, commercial leaders in Minneapolis, supported by the State of Minnesota, sought federal support for navigation improvements in 1866. . They would have to eliminate the wide shallows and sandbars and the thou- sands of little pools that Warren had once sought to preserve. Merritt, Creativity, p. 141, says that When it appeared that the Mississippi River Improvement and Manufacturing Company would not be able to resolve its internal conflicts, Congress decided to give the project over to the Corps of Engineers. Neither author discusses who pushed Congress to authorize the project. But it held little chance of success and was eventually abandoned. Merrick's father bought a warehouse on the levee from which he ran a storage and transshipping business. The Rock Island Bridge Company had been formed in 1853, but it wasn't until April 9, 1856, when the long-awaited Mississippi River Bridge - spanning from Rock Island to Davenport opened. The St. Paul businessmen included William E. McNair, Eugene M. Wilson, William S. King, Edward Murphy, and Isaac Atwater. This time I have to overcome obstacles to reach him., When Grant finally presented his plan to his senior officers, Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman voiced opposition to it. And in a speech before the Senate, he asserted that it was an admitted fact that present transportation facilities between the interior and the seaboard were totally inadequate. These transportation networks, he charged, were controlled by powerful monopolies who dictate their own terms to the people. On April 30, Porters gunboats passed Grand Gulfs guns and began ferrying McClernands infantry and artillery across the river. You will then create a visual (posterboard, glogster, MS Word, etc.) In 1855, the St. Anthony Express proposed building two locks and dams. If lucky, they avoided hogging the boat; that is, warping or breaking its hull.24. St. Paul District, Corps of Engineers. Annual Report, 1894, pp. Doc. Following through on the 1894 act, Congress provided for the construction of Lock and Dam 1 in the River and Harbor Act of March 3, 1899. David A. Lanegran and Anne Mosher-Sheridan, The European Settlement of the Upper Mississippi River Valley: Cairo, Illinois, to Lake Itasca, Minnesota1540 to 1860, in John S. Wozniak ed., Historic Lifestyles in the Upper Mississippi River Valley, (New York: University Press of America, 1983), pp. It would alter the navigable portion of the river through the MNRRA corridor dramatically. Annual Report, 1895, pp. 319-320; Kane, St. Anthony, p. 96. In St. Louis, the Mississippi remained above flood stage for 144 days between April 1 and September 30, 1993. Mackenzie added that the Corps would have to build a third lock and dam with a 10.1-foot lift to bring navigation to St. Anthony Falls and a fourth lock to bring navigation above it. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. And the Midwest needed the South's cotton, rice, sugar, and molasses. . . The endeavor would be difficult and risky, requiring Rear Adm. David Dixon Porters fleet to pass by Vicksburgs heavy guns. 530, 1649-50; Annual Report, 1907, pp. . . Oct 2020. Thompson gives a rule which is better adapted to the present project (the 6-foot channel), in which he places the dams in straight reaches the full channel width apart, increasing the space 25 per cent on the convex side and diminishing it 25 per cent on the concave side, depending on the degree of curvature. At this point, Minneapolitans began fighting among themselves over the project.83, Millers feared a competing water power so close to St. Anthony Falls and believed that the project might jeopardize federal funding for repair work at the falls. In 1880, however, it finally authorized an experimental dam for Lake Winnibigoshish and authorized the remaining dams shortly afterwards. It drew national Senators and Representatives from 22 states and the governors of Minnesota, Ohio, Kansas, Missouri, and Virginia. Bridgehunter.com | Ferry | Page 2 David Garlick and Elizabeth Buck (Found on the Internet . A traveler glides down the river, without much disturbance due to the shallow draft of the vessel. Eager to begin the project, Major Francis Farquhar, the new St. Paul District commander, reported that he had initiated a survey of the river and of the dam site. In his next report, Warren had suggested a system of 41 reservoirs for the St. Croix, Chippewa, Wisconsin and Mississippi River basins. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. Petersen, Captains, p. 235; Tweet, History of Transportation on the Upper Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, pp. . He describes the immense river as a "solid, shifting lake," a rather perfect description. Ibid., pp. Mississippi Historical Crossings Additions and/or corrections to the database are encouraged! Crossing the Mississippi River, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 20,655 views Nov 24, 2015 77 Dislike Share Save Josh Huffines 578 subscribers Eastbound on I-10 crossing the Mississippi River in. The small streams were crossed by fording; the larger ones by swimming the teams, wagons and all. Where steamboat pilots followed the deepest channel, as it hugged one shore or the other, leaning trees might sweep poorly placed cargo or an unwary passenger from a steamboat's deck. Major Francis R. Shunk to Minneapolis Mayor J. C. Haynes, February 17, 1909. Here, the Northern Light, one of the largest steamers on the upper river, passed them just after sundown. Before the Civil War, Congress authorized minor improvements for the upper Mississippi River but no work for the river above Hastings. By 1830, the steamboat age had come to the upper Mississippi and by 1840, there was heavy river commerce between St. Louis and the head of navigation at St. Anthony's Falls, near present-day St. Paul, Minnesota. The total cost of the bridge was $6.8 million (City of Clinton Bridge Commission 1956:2). 123-24. 67-68; Duties for the middle Mississippi stayed with the Office of Western Improvements in Cincinnati until 1873, when St. Louis became the new office for the middle river; see Dobney, River Engineers, pp. 1851 (age 35), Goddard, George He came from England with his wife and seven children, five of whom died before reaching Utah. Quick Description: A covered wagon on a 1840s wooden ferry at the Mississippi River crossing; the beginning of the Mormon Pioneer Trail in Nauvoo, Illinois. They also demanded a navigable river so they could deliver the bounty of their labor and their new land to the country and the world. By narrowing the river and thereby increasing the main channel's velocity, the Corps hoped to scour one uninterrupted navigation channel the length of the upper river.63 Wing dams, closing dams and shore protection required two simple components: willow saplings and rock. Planters were those that became lodged in the river's bottom, and sleepers hid beneath the water's surface. No. The lock and dam project hopelessly mired, the Corps, during its 1890 survey, evaluated removing boulders and rocks to encourage navigation.88 Major Alexander Mackenzie, the Rock Island District commander who had taken over this part of the river with the change in funding in 1888, suspected that Congress might authorize the Corps to remove the boulders in lieu of building locks and dams, even though it had authorized $25,000 to plan for a lock and dam in 1873. By a 4-foot channel, Congress meant a channel at least 4 feet deep if the river fell as low as it did in 1864. The Mississippi River gave birth to most cities along its banks, and those cities did all they could to ensure that the river would nurture their growth. Marker is on Levee Street north of Clay Street, on the left when traveling north. MN In December 1872, he had introduced a resolution to address the transportation problem. The Confederates hammered the fleet, preventing a crossing. The Corps had experimented with channel constriction in 1874. Sherman advocated a withdrawal of the army to Memphis, where it could regroup and then move south. But navigating the river has never been easy, even today. No. Twice during December 1862, Grant ordered thrusts against the city from the north. The best market for the Midwest's corn, flour, pork, and beef, it claimed, was the South. While steamboat traffic had remained strong before the Civil War, steamboats had begun losing passengers and grain to railroads. The Mississippi River touches 31 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces and is one of the largest rivers in the world. It came at the insistence of the states, farmers, business interests and the general public. Over the next year, the Grange founded nearly 12,000 chapters and claimed over 858,000 members. Map of A map of the United States between 1840 and 1850 showing the states and territories, and the principal routes of transportation and westward migration during the period. Some easterners came to take the fashionable tour. Arriving in St. Louis or at other railheads on the river's east bank, these excursionists traveled upstream, sometimes to St. Anthony Falls, imbibing the river's beauty (see the above references). When a series of bars came in close succession, the river could become seriously obstructed. Annual Report, 1873, p. 411; Annual Report, 1874, p. 287. U.S. Army, Corps of Engineers, Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers,1872, (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1876-1940), p. 309. Railroad expansion following the Civil War accelerated the pace of the Midwest's unprecedented population and agricultural growth. The Upper Mississippi, that is the Mississippi from its source to the mouth of the Missouri, drains 173,000 sq. Later a New City West was built on the Chicago-Detroit road through the dunes area, but this, too, declined after the railroads came through Porter County in the early 1850's. New City West stood in the vicinity of present-day Tremont, on US 12. Deep was anything over three feet. Sandbars determined the river's controlling depththe minimum depth for navigation at low water. St. Louis merchants were among the Mississippi River's greatest advocates. It was a method that had proven successful in France and elsewhere.36 Mississippi River pilots had learned that by running their paddle wheels over the crest of a bar, they helped the river cut through it, allowing the flow from the pool to deepen the cut just enough for the boat to pass. Because some of the bridges across the river may be under construction, unofficial, small or in disrepair, the exact number of bridges that cross the Mississippi River is difficult to pin down to a single precise number; however, it can be said that there are at least 130 bridges that cross the Mississippi River. This act signaled a new era of internal improvements and the beginning of dramatic changes to the upper Mississippi River. In addition to the Mississippi River crossings, there are six Rock River crossings and another in the final design stage. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. Gone now, the island lay some three miles below the falls, in Minneapolis. 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