. In St. Louis, the Mississippi remained above flood stage for 144 days between April 1 and September 30, 1993. ft. Anfinson, Secret History, Minnesota History 54:6 (Summer 1995):254-67. In his report for the 1871 season, Captain Wm. as part of a portfolio of multi-value projects approved by the midcontinent independent system operator, this river crossing is 1.56 miles (2.51 km) long, connects the maywood substation in missouri and the herleman substation in illinois, and is part of the illinois rivers transmission project 385 miles (620 km) of transmission from palmyra, 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. Subsequently he turned to newspaper editing and publishing.20 In his next report to the Chief of Engineers, Warren stated that new surveys showed that the Corps would have to build a second lock and dam, locating it near the mouth of Minnehaha Creek, about one-half mile below Lock and Dam No. The family lived in the upper two stories, George sharing the attic with his brother.18 From there the boys could see and hear every steamboat that stopped at or passed the levee. On November 20, 1855, the Mississippi and Missouri Railroad, which later became part of the Rock Island System, operated the first . A newly completed lock and dam and another one under construction promised to make Minneapolis the head of navigation. A bad bar could sever St. Pauls and Hastings connection with St. Louis, the Gulf of Mexico and the world.14 Normally, during the late summer or early fall, the river began falling and would enter the stage steamboat pilots and Corps engineers called low water. Alberta Kirchner Hill, Out With the Fleet, Minnesota History, (1961):286. . Many passengers came from the East; others came from Europe, fleeing famine in Ireland and political unrest on the continent. 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. 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. 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. 2, Appendix CC, Reports on Transportation Routes to the Seaboard, p. 455. ix-xix, 3-30; Robert S. Salisbury, William Windom, Apostle of Positive Government, (New York: University Press of America, 1993), pp. 65 Annual Report, 1880, p. 1495. Frederick J. Dobney, River Engineers of the Middle Mississippi: A History of the St. Louis District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978), p. 33. During the 1850s, traffic soared. Twice during December 1862, Grant ordered thrusts against the city from the north. . Due to the collapse of this tunnel, St. Anthony Falls was in danger of eroding away. 309-10. From the St. Croix to the Illinois River it varied from 18 to 24 inches.15 A few miles below St. Paul, the river sometimes became so shallow that boats would have to stop within sight of the city.16 The folklore that people once waded across the Mississippi is true. 206-09, 209, 246; William J. Petersen, Captains and Cargoes of Early Upper Mississippi Steamboats, Wisconsin Magazine of History 13 (1929_30):227-32; Mildred Hartsough, From Canoe to Steel Barge, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1934), pp. . Those that swayed back and forth with the current they called sawyers. During his trip, he fed the St. Paul Pioneer Press articles condemning railroads and the Chicago Board of Trade and promoting waterway improvement. Washington Crossing the Delaware By Emanuel Leutze Beautiful Detailed Print . Construction of the tied-in double-arch structure began in May 1967. And thus, Merrick recalled, we grew into the very life of the river as we grew in years.19 When old enough, Merrick began working on a steamboat as a cabin boy and after one season became a cub engineer. This act signaled a new era of internal improvements and the beginning of dramatic changes to the upper Mississippi River. John O. Anfinson, The Secret History of the Mississippi's Earliest Locks and Dams, Minnesota History 54:6 (Summer 1995):254-67. 1850: Birth of the levee system. George Byron Merrick captures well the perils of sailing the natural river. From Minneapolis' perspective, the channel improvement works on the upper Mississippi River only benefitted its principal rivalSt. He learned that Minneapolis and St. Anthony (the community on the rivers east bank that merged with Minneapolis in 1872) had funded the removal of boulders to encourage steamboats to travel above St. Paul. By 1857, St. Paul had become a bustling port, with over 1,000 steamboat arrivals each year by some 62 to 99 boats.2, As rapidly as the number of steamboats increased, they could not keep pace with demand. . Hundreds of miles of riverbank had been secured with riprap. Annual Report, 1894, pp. Seller assumes all responsibility for this listing . As the river fell, each wave formed a bar that acted like a small dam. The first railroad bridge across the Mississippi was open for 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. Henry P. Bosse. The area is ideal for classic resort cabin or camping vacations. 530, 1649-50; Annual Report, 1907, pp. The conference organizers' goal was to impress upon these key political officials the depth of the shipping crisis. The conservationist and local hero hails from the Quad Cities, a 300,000-person metropolitan area spanning two states on either side of the Mississippi River. Minnesota's population jumped from 6,077 to 172,023, Iowa's from 192,000 to 674,913, Wisconsin's from 305,391 to 775,881 and Illinois' from 851,470 to 1,711,951.9 Passenger traffic became so important to the steamboat trade that by 1850 passenger receipts exceeded freight receipts.10, Before 1866, during the heyday of steamboats, the upper Mississippi River still possessed most of its natural character. . The ferry runs right next to the Sandy Island Bald Eagle Sanctuary & Lock and Dam #25 making it an ideal spot to look for Bald Eagles in the winter. Woods, Knights of the Plow: Oliver Kelley and the Origins of the Grange in Republican Ideology, (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1991), Chapters 7 and 8, supports and greatly expands on Barns' argument that Kelley actively pushed economic and political solutions and/or tacitly approved while others did so. It is a story with local and national significance. Military supplies and furs would dominate the much smaller steamboat trade above Galena. It required the company to spend $25,000 on the project before February 1, 1871. Little and Ives Company, 1944), p. 166; Hartsough, Canoe, pp. Nick is crossing the Mississippi for the first time, and feels the crossing will be "a big event". Assistant Engineer W.A. Born in Niles, Michigan, on the St. Joseph River, Merrick watched steamboats go back and forth between South Bend, Indiana, and the town of St. Joseph on Lake Michigan.17 When Merrick was 12 years old, his family left Michigan and traveled to Rock Island, Illinois. Contents 1Crossings 1.1Kentucky - Missouri 1.2Tennessee - Missouri 1.3Tennessee - Arkansas 1.4Mississippi - Arkansas 1.5Mississippi - Louisiana Tweet, History of Transportation on the Upper Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, p. 22. . Lying at the head of navigation, they demanded a river capable of delivering the immigrants needed to populate the land (not considering that they had taken it from Native Americans) and the tools and provisions needed to fully use it. The 1850s also saw railroads reach across the Mississippi River, serve parts of Texas, and lay down roots in California. Grant rejected any idea of a retreat. Finley's 1827 State Map of Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. The number of islands, of course, varied with the season and the year, as many islands were temporary. . This image pair shows the area around St. Louis, Missouri, in August 1991 and 1993. In less than 100 years, these projects would radically transform the river that nature had created over millions of years and that Native Americans had hunted along, canoed on, and fished in for thousands of years. So, commercial leaders in Minneapolis, supported by the State of Minnesota, sought federal support for navigation improvements in 1866. This is a list of all current and notable former bridges or other crossings of the Upper Mississippi River which begins at the Mississippi River's source and extends to its confluence with the Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois . 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. 40-42; William D. Barns, Oliver Hudson Kelley and the Genesis of the Grange: A Reappraisal, Agricultural History 41 (July 1967):229-30. By 1907, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Hastings and other river cities, through their successful lobbying and through the Corps, had changed the upper Mississippi River dramatically. The next . St. Paul District, Corps of Engineers. The dangers of navigating the natural river were so great, he said, that pilots had to memorize every bluff, hill, rock, tree, stump, house, woodpile, and whatever else is to be noted along the banks of the river.21 And pilots, he added, learned The artistic quality in handling of a boat under the usual conditionsin making the multitudinous crossings, . p. 213. Pauluntil Congress did something about the rapids below St. Anthony Falls. 29-30; Frederic L. Paxson, Railroads of the Old Northwest, before the Civil War, Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters 17 (1914):257-60, 269-71. as the mat went down under the load . The bridge was included in the Phase II survey as it is a large of exceptional span or overall length, which according . Subsequent engineers reduced this number to six. If lucky, they avoided hogging the boat; that is, warping or breaking its hull.24. 2103-04; Annual Report, 1869, p. 237; Annual Report, 1901, p. 2309; Raymond H. Merritt, The Corps, the Environment, and the Upper Mississippi River Basin, (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1984), p. 1; Merritt, Creativity, pp. A thick limestone mantle formed the riverbed. Trains ran when the river was high or low; they ran when the cold of winter froze it; for the most part, they ran throughout the year.42 Those railroads that ran east to westmost importantly to Chicagotook advantage of complementary markets. He would become one of the Senate's strongest advocates for railroad regulation and navigation improvement.52, The rapidly growing strength of the Granger movement in Minnesota and the threat of railroad monopolies spurred Windom to address the transportation issue with zeal. 312-15, quote from p. 315; Kane, St. Anthony, p. 94. This is the general phone line at the Mississippi River Visitor Center. Over the next year, the Grange founded nearly 12,000 chapters and claimed over 858,000 members. Not even a severe t-storm watch was issued. Esther (1823-1917): m1. United States army engineers responded in 1894 by announcing plans for two locks and dams . He evidently was a cattle herder in Mississippi, with many vouchers for his work. . 2, 62nd Cong., 3d sess., Doc. . Contrary to most histories that follow Dixon, A Traffic History, p. 48, in saying that there were thirteen bridges across the Mississippi River by 1880, Patrick Brunet, The Corps of Engineers and Navigation Improvements on the Channel of Upper Mississippi River to 1939, Masters Thesis, (Austin, University of Texas, 1977), p. 46, says that there were fourteen bridges across the river by 1877, and he lists them. Her father, Albert Kirchner, along with Jacob Richtman, both from Fountain City, Wisconsin, became the leading contractors for the Corps in wing dam construction. St. Paul and Minneapolis pushed especially hard. During low water, no continuous channel existed. 310-11. Opponents to the amendment included waterpower magnates William D. Washburn and Richard Chute. H. Doc. Railroad expansion following the Civil War accelerated the pace of the Midwest's unprecedented population and agricultural growth. The effort to channel the river away from the defenders cannons had been underway for weeks. proof Most of the trail crossed Arkansas from northeast to southwest, entering at Hix's Ferry (later Pitman's Ferry) across the The Saints left in companies and on June 14, 1846 Grandfather with 225 others arrived at the Missouri River, where a large . The river pioneers once forded with their wagons and livestock no longer existed. and finally crossing near St Cloud. In 1854 the first two railroads reached the Mississippi River: the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad at Rock Island, Illinois, and the Chicago and Alton at Alton, Illinois. 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). 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. 1578-79. Rail lines were generally shorter, more direct, and could reach deep into lands served by no navigable rivers. Ibid., p. 293. Merritt, Creativity, 140; Lucile M. Kane, The Falls of St. Anthony: The Waterfall that Built Minneapolis, (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1987), pp. While mining Fold3 today, I ran across the Citizens Records of John McKay. and also create a 30 second speech as if you were that person. This map displays the three land-based migration routes from the Carolinas and eastern Georgia to the newly opened lands of southern Mississippi. After charging men under him to undertake the tributary surveys, Warren began the upper Mississippi survey from the Rock Island Rapids to Minneapolis himself. Where necessary, the Engineers would return and add more wing dams, closing dams and shore protection. 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. Five dams at the Headwaters stored the winters snow, holding it for the summer and fall, when the millers at St. Anthony and the steamboats below would need it. The Confederates hammered the fleet, preventing a crossing. Portending the coming conflict with Minneapolis, St. Paul citizens criticized the project, as it would steal from them their valuable position as the head of navigation. The crossing back into Mississippi appears to have taken a physical toll on the animal. Over the next year, he began developing plans, determining that the Engineers could build one lock and dam with a 17-foot lift. U.S. Congress, House, Survey of Upper Mississippi River, Letter from the Secretary of War in answer to a resolution of the House, of December 20, 1866, transmitting report of the Chief of Engineers, with General Warrens report of the surveys of the Upper Mississippi river and its tributaries, 39th Congress, 2d Session, Ex. He questioned the value of removing boulders, believing that the steep grade and rapid current required locks and dams. 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. 58, pp. Shortly after the glaciers withdrew from southern Minnesota some 10,000 years ago, St. Anthony Falls stretched across the river valley near downtown St. Paul. 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. American Memory Project, Library of Congress. His prices were high$8 to cross a wagon at high water, falling to $6 by early July. During the late summer or early fall, when the Mississippi usually became a shallow, slow-moving stream, the wing dams could not direct enough water down the channel to scour it. Cassville's first ferry, a 40-foot rowboat, crossed the Mississippi River in 1833. Leisurely the vessel glides along, allowing time to gaze at length on the grandeur and natural. However, for the enslaved in the country years ago, the river represented something worlds away from oppression. Further work on the project, he declared, had to wait until the Engineers could take borings, which they could not do until the state returned the grant. 30, 50-52. As early as 1850, Minneapolis business and civic leaders had tried to convince shippers that steamboats could reach the falls. Twelve years later, in 1848, the territory became the new state of . History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. 11, (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1909), pp. Doc. Low water was based on the rivers elevation in 1864, when a severe drought occurred. Hartsough, Canoe, pp. .65 Once the willow mats had been laid in the water, the workers would sink them with rock. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. The second advance resulted in a bloody repulse at Chickasaw Bayou, north of Vicksburg. The committee recommended that Congress authorize surveys and get cost estimates prepared as early as possible in order to mature a plan for the radical improvement of the river, and of all its navigable tributaries.58 The committee suggested that the Corps establish a channel of 41/2 to 6 feet for the upper Mississippi River.59 To create a channel of these depths, the committee acknowledged, would require constricting the river with wing dams and closing dams.60. As Mackenzie anticipated, Congress, under pressure from Minneapolis to do something, provided $50,000 to the Corps to remove boulders, which the Engineers did during the summer of 1890 and in 1891. As steamboats evolved and as the region's population and production grew, the river's limitations as a navigation route would become unacceptable and Midwesterners would repeatedly call for its improvement as a commercial artery. Doc. Merrick, Old Times, p. 162, says that From 1852 to 1857 there were not boats enough to carry the people who were flocking into the newly-opened farmers' and lumbermans' paradise.. 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. For months he had studied them, conferred with subordinates, undertaken personal reconnaissances and endured failures. Annual Report, 1891, p. 2154; Mackenzie, Annual Report, 1890, p. 2034, reported that the Corps had completed several examinations of the area over the last year, in company with the Minneapolis representatives of the river interests.. Ibid. They would have to alter the pattern by which sand and silt moved along the river bottom. It would alter the navigable portion of the river through the MNRRA corridor dramatically. The many islands dividing the river disbursed the little water available into side channels and sloughs. On the Mississippis west bank, Maj. Gen. John A. McClernand marched his XIII Corps and two divisions from Maj. Gen. James B. McPhersons XVII Corps south to Hard Times, La., opposite Grand Gulf, the planned crossing point. While the river naturally eroded its banks, closing dams and wing dams accelerated erosion by increasing the channel's velocity and volume. Snags could, in an instant, impale a steamboat or tear it apart.11 The natural river became surprisingly narrow in places. Saint Paul Pilots, Merrick recounted, had to study the nightmares first. Hundreds of islands, some forming and others being cut away, divided the natural river, dispersing its waters into innumerable side channels and backwaters. 65-66; Roald Tweet, A History of Navigation Improvements on the Rock Island Rapids, (Rock Island District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, April 1980):2; John O. Jensen, Gently Down the Stream: An Inquiry into the History of Transportation on the Northern Mississippi River and the Potential for Submerged Cultural Resources, Wisconsin Archeologist 73:1-2 (March-June, 1992):71, says that only about 20 boats were operating above Galena before 1847. The young Daly recalled in his memoir that he could distinctly hear the grinding of her bottom on the gravel bar over which she was passing.23 Some boats ground to a halt on sandbars. Before he could develop a plan for achieving the 4-foot channel, Warren had to learn more about the upper Mississippi River and he had to complete his survey. The Mississippi River can be broken down into three parts, which in turn decided on whether the crossings were constucted with fixed or moveable spans. Sherman once said, Grant is brave, honest, & true, but not a Genius.. I could even smell the delightfully blended odor of the willows and of the creosoted marline twine with which the bundles were held together. 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. Missouri, during the "Golden Age of Steamboats" (1830-1850). The Mississippi River lies entirely within the United States. Together, the Grange, shippers and merchants, boosters in river towns and the Windom committee persuaded Congress to authorize the 41/2-foot channel project. 58, Survey of Upper Mississippi River, p. 25. Some opponents argued that it was the federal government's responsibility to improve the river, not private interests subsidized by the government. Porters gunboats arrived and began shelling the defenses. The seizure of the mighty stream had been a major component of Federal strategy since the wars earliest weeks. U.S. Congress, House, Laws of the United States Relating to the Improvement of Rivers and Harbors, vol. . 2, 10, 22, 46. Warren had recommended that Congress fund a survey of the upper Mississippi River's headwaters and tributaries in his 1869 report. They would have to eliminate the wide shallows and sandbars and the thou- sands of little pools that Warren had once sought to preserve. U.S. Army, Corps of Engineers, Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers,1872, (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1876-1940), p. 309. 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. For physical reasons, a single lock and dam must lie entirely within the limits of Minneapolis, or entirely within the limits of St. Paul. To do this, they would have to change the Mississippi's landscape and environment. The island divided the river, and the navigation channel sometimes ran on the east side and sometimes on the west. One measure of this was the number of times steamboats docked at the upper river's port cities. It drew national Senators and Representatives from 22 states and the governors of Minnesota, Ohio, Kansas, Missouri, and Virginia. Due to the milling operations at the falls, the cataract was in danger of deteriorating into a series of rapids. But navigating the river has never been easy, even today. Ibid., p. 243; The Select Committee recommended a depth of 5 feet at low water for St. Paul to St. Louis. This ferry crossed the Mississippi River near the small town of Batchtownin Calhoun Countyinto Lincoln County, Missouri connecting with Route 79. June 4, 2021 7:50 AM. . You will then create a visual (posterboard, glogster, MS Word, etc.) This will then be shared on a discussion board with . Gary F. Browne, The Railroads: Terminals and Nexus Points in the Upper Mississippi Valley, (in John S. Wozniak ed., Historic Lifestyles in the Upper Mississippi River Valley, (New York: University Press of America, 1983), p. 84, says the first railroad reached the Mississippi River at Rock Island on February 22, 1854. They also raised funds during the 1850s to remove boulders and other obstacles.69 Recognizing that the river's challenges required more than these futile measures, navigation boosters began discussing a lock and dam for the river above St. Paul as early as 1852. Jeffery's 1776 Map of the Course of the Mississippi River from the Balise to Fort Chartres. U.S. Congress, House, Laws of the United States Relating to the Improvement of Rivers and Harbors, vol. Before 1906, the important problem of the arrangement was largely left to the judgment of local engineers. The Engineers were to create a permanent, continuous navigation channel, 41/2-feet deep at low-water, for the entire river between St. Paul and the mouth of the Illinois River at Alton. 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. Annual Report 1872, p. 310. The engineers would return and add more wing dams, closing dams and wing dams Minnesota. The MNRRA corridor dramatically river through the MNRRA corridor dramatically rapid current required locks and dams Minnesota... 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