The inland and intercoastal waterways, with the Upper Mississippi highlighted in red. Although New Orleans had fallen to Union troops in April 1862, the Mississippi remained closed as long as the cannons at Vicksburg, Miss., swept its waters. Led by Ignatius Donnelly, Grange supporters had organized the People's Anti-Monopoly party, with a platform striking at monopolies, advocating state railroad controls, and denouncing postwar corruption. The first European settlement in the Twin Cities area was Fort Snelling. As it had learned more about the upper Mississippi River, the Corps had recognized the futility of keeping the river navigable by dredging.61 In 1874, when the Montana could not dredge due to high water, the Engineers refitted it with a pile driver and went to Pig's Eye Island, five miles below St. Paul (Figure 8). This is the general phone line at the Mississippi River Visitor Center. This image pair shows the area around St. Louis, Missouri, in August 1991 and 1993. I could even smell the delightfully blended odor of the willows and of the creosoted marline twine with which the bundles were held together. To secure their objective, the company needed support from businessmen in Minneapolis, and for that support, Minneapolis interests won back control of the company. The keynote of the meeting was a determined effort to obtain federal money for the improvement of western waterways so that they might be used as reliable routes for cheap transportation.48 Cheap transportation, delegates argued, would allow the United States to monopolize the markets of the world.49, In May 1873, cheap transportation advocates held another convention in St. Louisthe Western Congressional Convention. 1578-79. Echoing the beliefs of their counterparts downstream, Minneapolis boosters pointed to the divine purpose of their project. This map displays the three land-based migration routes from the Carolinas and eastern Georgia to the newly opened lands of southern Mississippi. Crossing the river was essential from the outset. Planters were those that became lodged in the river's bottom, and sleepers hid beneath the water's surface. In his memoirs Grant wrote of that signal achievement: When this was effected, I felt a degree of relief scarcely ever equaled since.I was on dry ground on the same side of the river with the enemy. 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. 58, Survey of Upper Mississippi River, p. 25. A thick limestone mantle formed the riverbed. Before 1906, the important problem of the arrangement was largely left to the judgment of local engineers. 2, 10, 22, 46. This act signaled a new era of internal improvements and the beginning of dramatic changes to the upper Mississippi River. Warren had recommended that Congress fund a survey of the upper Mississippi River's headwaters and tributaries in his 1869 report. Doc. The Vicksburg Riverfront Murals are located on the Yazoo Diversion Canal levee wall. Merrick lists the number or arrivals and the number of boats at St. Paul for each of these years. It runs through ten states, and many people today just see the Mississippi River as a bunch of water. When a series of bars came in close succession, the river could become seriously obstructed. 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. Jeffery's 1776 Map of the Course of the Mississippi River from the Balise to Fort Chartres. The Engineers did not build all the works depicted in one area at the same time. An interview with historian Richard M. McMurry on his 2023 book, The Civil Wars of General Joseph E. Johnston, Confederate States Army.. While Grant continued planning and waited for the roads to dry out, he kept the troops at work digging a canal. The bridge was completed on June 30, 1956. 17-18. 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. In its petition, the state stressed that boats had frequently landed within two and one-half miles of downtown Minneapolis, up until 1857. The number of islands, of course, varied with the season and the year, as many islands were temporary. The Headwaters project provided for construction of the Winnibigoshish Dam in 1883-1884 and the completion of dams at Leech Lake (1884), Pokegama Falls (1884), Pine River (1886), Sandy Lake (1895), and Gull Lake (1912). The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. Wing dams especially caused bank erosion by forcing the river away from one shore and against the other. The Corps of Engineers was working on a project to save the falls. Between 1800 and 1860, 'at least 875,000 . 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. Doc. Hundreds of islands, some forming and others being cut away, divided the natural river, dispersing its waters into innumerable side channels and backwaters. Ibid., p. 293. As Cook had worked for the Washburns, Meeker expected a negative report. 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. 1780-81. Havighurst, A Wilderness Saga, p. 249; Merrick, Old Times, p. 232. Despite the growing menace of the railroads, river traffic remained strong.38. I t took approximately 300 years from 1500 to 1800 for European population to extend from the East Coast of America to the Mississippi River. Grant had come south on a transport and learned from a local black man that Bruinsburg, Miss., a few miles downriver, offered a favorable place for Federal forces to land. 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. In 1855 a railroad entered Galena. The works built under the 41/2-foot channel project embody these national movements and local efforts. As more settlers arrived in the late 1770s and early 1800s, however, the need for more reliable ways to cross rivers became evident. The Civil War then delayed construction of the railroad. 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. 106-7. Meeker, Kane says, retained some shares of the company for himself, as did his friends. Download the official NPS app before your next visit. Examples: a dried up lake, a destroyed building, a hill leveled by mining. 92-93; Kane, Rivalry, p. 312. To do this, they would have to change the Mississippi's landscape and environment. 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. Merrick's father bought a warehouse on the levee from which he ran a storage and transshipping business. Little and Ives Company, 1944), p. 166; Hartsough, Canoe, pp. Three of those nightmaresthe sandbars at Prescott, Grey Cloud, and Pig's Eyereceived special note in Merricks history. A wave would start at the head of the reach and begin moving down, even when the current slowed. 109, pp. 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. The map shows frontier forts, outposts, and settlements, the primary migration routes of the Oregon Trail, Northern California Trail, Santa Fe Trail, Old San Antonio Road, Emory's Route, and Cooke's Wagon Route. In these reaches, Warren found that the river seems, as it were, lost, and indecisive which way to go and the pilot is scarcely able to find the line of deepest water even in daylight, and is unable to proceed at night with any confidence.31 The small pools behind the bars would play an important part in Warren's strategy for navigation improvement on the upper river. Photo by Henry P. Bosse. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. Ahead of him lay the capital at Jackson, and then Vicksburg. According to most estimates, the Yellowstone River measures approximately 692 miles (1,114 kilometers) long. After Union forces captured Vicksburg, Mississippi, in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln saw the emancipated river as a symbol of a nation unified: "The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the. . As cited in U. S. Congress, House, Letter from the Secretary of War, Transmitting, with a Letter from the Chief of Engineers, Report of Estimate for Six-Foot Channel in the Mississippi River between the Missouri River and St. Paul, Minn., 59th Cong., 2nd sess., H. Doc. Warren brought new hope for the project, when, in his 1867 annual report, he requested $235,665 to construct a lock and dam at Meeker Island.78 Warren engaged Franklin Cook, a former employee of the Minneapolis Mill Company, to undertake the survey. In 1855, the St. Anthony Express proposed building two locks and dams. . The crossing back into Mississippi appears to have taken a physical toll on the animal. The Senate also considered a warning from Republican President Ulysses Grant. 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 lists 99 boats counting for 965 arrivals in 1857 and 62 boats as accounting for the 1,090 arrivals in 1858. Alberta Kirchner Hill, Out With the Fleet, Minnesota History, (1961):286. 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! In his report for the 1871 season, Captain Wm. In 1862, Nathan Daly, the son of a Minnesota pioneer family fleeing from the Dakota Conflict in Minnesota, recounts the effect bars could have on a steamboat's hull. 68-74; Jane Carroll, Dams and Damages: The Ojibway, the United States, and the Mississippi Headwaters Reservoirs, Minnesota History, (Spring, 1990):4-5. Key local projects included Locks and Dams 1 (Ford Dam) and 2 (Hastings), Lower and Upper St. Anthony Falls Locks and Dams, and the little known Meeker Island Lock and Dam, which was the rivers first and shortest-lived lock and dam (Figure 2). Without a lock and dam, the river above St. Paul was too narrow, too shallow, too strewn with boulders and the current too fast for steamboat navigation.34 To create a safe and continuous 4-foot channel for the river between St. Paul and the Rock Island Rapids, Warren asked for $96,000 to acquire and operate two dredge and snag boats, $5,000 to construct an experimental closing dam at Prescott Island, about 26 miles below St. Paul, and $5,000 for another experimental closing dam for the Wacouta chute near Red Wing, Minnesota.35. They had closed nearly all the side channels. Prior to the war, with a few exceptions, Congress and/or the President had opposed a federal role in internal improvements.26, The 1866 act provided for the first project to focus on the whole upper river.27 It directed the Corps to survey the Mississippi River between St. Anthony Falls and the Rock Island Rapids, with a view to ascertain the feasible means, by economizing the water of the stream, of insuring the passage, at all navigable seasons, of boats drawing four feet of water. Grant rejected any idea of a retreat. Capt. Major General Ulysses S. Grant stood over maps searching for answers. Solon J. Buck, Granger Movement, A Study of Agricultural Organization and Its Political, Economic and Social Manifestations, 1870-1880, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1933), pp. At 692 miles, the Yellowstone River ranks . Here, the Northern Light, one of the largest steamers on the upper river, passed them just after sundown. In 1836, the ferry carried a 23-year-old New Yorker named Nelson Dewey across the river. On November 20, 1855, the Mississippi and Missouri Railroad, which later became part of the Rock Island System, operated the first . Woods, Knights, pp. The 2,340 miles of the Mississippi River are entirely within the . In June and July of 1891, Mackenzie carried out even more accurate surveys of most of the river from the Minneapolis steamboat warehouse to the Short Line bridge below Meeker Island and of select areas down to the Minnesota River; see Annual Report, 1891, p. 2154. They would have to focus the river's current into one main channel and block off the myriad side channels. Image: This cotton . As the experiments with closing dams had shown, cutting off the side channels greatly increased the main channel's flow. In 1867, they held, according to one historian, the most important navigation improvement convention before 1873. The Missouri drains 528,000 sq. 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. Annual Report, 1894, pp. So they actively participated in local, regional and national campaigns for navigation improvement. 17 Oct 1872 BUTLER, Thomas *15: BRAKEMAN, Harriet (1835-1866): m'd 05 Jul 1852 WADSWORTH, Elisha . At Lock and Dam 1, the Engineers had begun constructing the lock.92 Few, if any, spectators watching the Itura paddle through Lock 2 imagined that the new facility would be destroyed within 5 years. 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. 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. 309-10. A day earlier, the St. Paul Daily Dispatch had declared that the dam had given St. Paul a water power equal to St. Anthony, and would provide enough power to make St. Paul one of the largest manufacturing cities on the continent.81 Through a deal between Meeker and a number of St. Paul businessmen, St. Paulites had gained control of Meeker's company and would get the waterpower created by the dam, even if Minneapolis and the state thought it overshadowed by St. Anthony Falls.82, On March 6, 1869, the state awarded the land grant to the Mississippi River Improvement and Manufacturing Company. ix-xix, 3-30; Robert S. Salisbury, William Windom, Apostle of Positive Government, (New York: University Press of America, 1993), pp. The river pioneers once forded with their wagons and livestock no longer existed. Finley's 1827 State Map of Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. The wing dams' success depended upon the main channel's volume and velocity. Navigation boosters in Minneapolis failed, however, to convince Congress of the importance of their project. 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. 341, pp. Over the next year, he began developing plans, determining that the Engineers could build one lock and dam with a 17-foot lift. Some opponents argued that it was the federal government's responsibility to improve the river, not private interests subsidized by the government. Barns credits Kelley with founding the Grange, recognizing the role of others, particularly of Miss Carrie Hall, Kelley's niece. The density of channel constriction works and the degree to which they physically and ecologically changed the river increased gradually over the project's history. Sherman advocated a withdrawal of the army to Memphis, where it could regroup and then move south. a splashing began. Railroads have got enough for the present. The remarkable physical adaptation of our country for cheap and ample water communications, the committee concluded, point unerringly to the improvement of our great natural water-ways, and their connection by canals, or by short freight-railway portages under control of the government, as the obvious and certain solution of the problem of cheap transportation.57, Relying on the reports the Corps of Engineers submitted, the committee noted that improvements on the Mississippi River had been sporadic. Carey's 1822 Geographical, Statistical and Historical State Map of Arkansas. John O. Anfinson, The Secret History of the Mississippi's Earliest Locks and Dams, Minnesota History 54:6 (Summer 1995):254-67. Historical Features are physical or cultural features that are no longer visible on the landscape. In 1805, President Thomas Jefferson sent a young army Lieutenant, Zebulon Pike, into the area to find a suitable site to build a military outpost. However, for the enslaved in the country years ago, the river represented something worlds away from oppression. The second advance resulted in a bloody repulse at Chickasaw Bayou, north of Vicksburg. Kane, St. Anthony, p. 96, points out that the state never transferred the grant to the company. A favorable landing site on the east bank would have to be located, while other operations would be necessary to distract the Confederates. Port Gibson has a nice little downtown area and town square which features the Claiborne County courthouse. 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. Frederic Paxson, American Frontier, 1763-1893, (Chicago: The Riverside Press, 1924), p. 517. 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. Doc. Tornado warnings and bow echos were everywhere, but once it crossed the river, it immediately started weakening. 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. Playing on the desire of Minneapolis navigation boosters, they proposed building a lock and dam between the two cities to aid navigation and to secure the hydropower for themselves.71, Meeker, a territorial judge and local entrepreneur, and Morrison, a St. Anthony Falls sawmill operator, lobbied for and obtained permission from the Minnesota Territorial Legislature to build their lock and dam near Meeker Island. Windom had already served in the House for a decade. 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