St. Louis the Commercial Centre of North America [pp. 308-320]

SAINT LOUIS.
guarantee of efficient action and an early accomplishment of this
great work. The length of the bridge, together with its approaches, will be about 3,5,'0 feet, and the probable cost $5,000(000. The material of the structure will be steel. Chas. K. Dickson is President of the Company, and James B. Ends, the distinguished inventor, is Chief Engineer.
The initial steps for the erection of a bridge across the Missouri
at St. Charles have already been taken. The work should be
pushed forward with untiring energy to its consummation.
The iron, stone and timber necessary for these structures can
be obtained within a few miles of St. Louis, and the greater part
of the material can be transported by water. The construction
of public works, whose cost would be millions of dollars, would
afford employment to thousands of laborers, and give fresh impulse to the prosperity of St. Louis.
A full and persistent presentation of the superior claims of Carondelet ought to induce the Government to establish a naval
station at that point. The supply of labor and materiel which a
navy yard would require would be another source of wealth to
Missouri and its metropolis.
The effect of improvements upon the business of the city may
be illustrated by the operations of our city elevator. The elevator cost $450,000, and has a capacity of 1,250,000 bushels. it is
able to handle 100,000 bushels a day. It began to receive grain
in October 1865. Before the first of January 1866, its receipts
amounted to 600,000 bushels, 200,000 of which were brought directly from Chicago. The total receipts at the elevator in 1866
were 1,376,700 bushels. Grain can now be shipped, by way of
St. Louis and New Orleans, to New York and Europe twenty
cents a bushel cheaper than it can be carried to the Atlantic by
rail.
The facilities which our elevator affords for the movement of
cereals have given iise to a new system of transportation. The Mississippi Valley Transportation Company has been organized for the
conveyance of grain to New Orleans in barges. Steam tugs of immense strength have been built for the use of the company. They
carry no freight. They are simply the motive power. They save
delay by taking fuel for the round trip. Landing only at the large
cities, they stop barely long enough to attach a loaded barge. By
this economy of time and steady movement, they equal the speed of
steamboats. The Mohawk made its first trip from St. Louis to
New Orleans in six days, with ten barges in tow. The management
of the barges is precisely like that of freight cars. The barges are
loaded in the absence of the tug. The tug arrives, leaves a train of
barges, takes another and proceeds. The tug itself is always at
work. It does not lie at the levee while the barges are loading.
Its longest stoppage is made for fuel. The power of these boats is
enormous. The tugs plying on the Minnesota River sometimes tow
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