Joseph already existed, as the first railroad chartered by the state of Missouri in 1847. Louis and eventually connect with the transcontinental railroad that many dreamed of. First, the state chartered the Pacific Railroad to cross Missouri from St. Three events in 1849 affected the future of railroads in St. On the eve of the Civil War, most local merchants had already divested themselves of their steamboat interests, leaving only the hard-core boatmen. Louis spent $200,000 on wharf improvements, but it also purchased $250,000 in Pacific Railroad stock. Investors hedged their bets by the 1850s, as did city government. Louis before talk of the new Iron Horse started. The novelty hadn't even worn off the steamers in St. Ironically, the golden age was shortened by steam technology itself. As supply and demand ebbed and flowed, so too did prices and profits. ![]() ![]() Once the river froze over in the winter, boats-and merchants relying upon them-were out of business till spring thaw. The average life span of a steamboat was but a few years. Sparks jumped through smokestacks from wood-burning boilers, and explosions in boiler rooms were not uncommon. But steamboats suffered from two disadvantages. There were some 1,200 steamers on the Mississippi River by 1846 as many as fifty could dock on the wharf in St. The boats were large, lavish, beautiful, and powerful. The 1840s and 1850s have been called "The Golden Age of Steamboating". This new ability to move raw materials to the east and finished goods back again and in such short time was the key. Louis and trading partners in New Orleans, Louisville, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, or Kansas City. Now it was only a matter of days between St. Pike chugged up to the levee in 1817, it revolutionized the city and the way it did business. Past river travel relied on a combination of current, men's backs, and draft animals. River travel was transformed by the steam-powered river boat. A trading post - and a city at the intersection of the main water highways - was prime territory. Maxent, Laclede & Company made the same discovery. Marquette and Joliet passed by here in their seventeenth-century trek, and it was the jumping-off point for Lewis and Clark in 1804. Native Americans lived here because of the mobility the location afforded them. This area, where the Illinois and Missouri rivers converge with the Father of All Waters, was a main thoroughfare for goods and people traded throughout the middle of the continent.
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