CHAPTER XXXVI.
ST. LOUIS.
Approach to St. Louis.—Bridge Over the Mississippi.—View of the City.—Material Resources of Missouri.—Early History of St. Louis.—Increase of Population.—Manufacturing and Commercial Interests.—Locality.—Description of St. Louis in 1842.—Resemblance to Philadelphia.—Public Buildings.—Streets.—Parks.—Fair Week.—Educational and Charitable Institutions.—Hotels.—Mississippi River.—St. Louis During the Rebellion.—Peculiar Characteristics.—The Future of the City.
THE LEVEE AND GREAT BRIDGE AT ST. LOUIS.
The visitor to St. Louis, if from the east, will probably make his approach over the great bridge which spans the Mississippi. This bridge, designed by Captain Eads, and begun in 1867, was completed in 1874, and is one of the greatest triumphs of American engineering. It consists of three spans, resting on four piers. The central span is 520 feet in width, and the side ones 500 feet each. They have a rise of sixty feet, sufficient to permit the passage of steamers under them, even at high water. The piers are sunk through the sand to the bed-rock, a distance of from ninety to one hundred and twenty feet, the work having been accomplished by means of iron wrought caissons and atmospheric pressure. Each span consists of four ribbed arches, made of cast steel. The bridge is two stories high, the lower story containing a double car track, and the upper one two horse-car tracks, two carriageways and two foot-ways. Reaching the St. Louis shore, the car and road ways pass over a viaduct of five arches, of twenty-seven feet span each, to Washington avenue, where the railway tracks run into a tunnel 4,800 feet long, terminating near Eleventh street. Bridge and tunnel together cost eleven millions of dollars.
This wonderful structure, which has few if any equals upon the continent, will impress the traveler with the commercial magnitude and enterprise of the great western city to which it forms the eastern portal. Looking from the car window he will see, first, the Mississippi, which, if at the period of low water, disappoints him with its apparent insignificance; but which, if it be at the time of its annual flood, has crept, on the St. Louis side, nearly to the top of the steep levee, and has filled up the broad valley miles away on the hither side, a rushing, turbulent river, turbid with the yellow waters of the Missouri, which, emptying into it twenty miles above, have scarcely, at this point, perfectly mingled with the clearer Mississippi. He will see next the river front of St. Louis—a continuous line of steamboats, towboats and barges, without a sail or mast among them; the levee rising in a steep acclivity twenty feet above the river's edge; and multitudinous mules, with their colored drivers, toiling laboriously, and by the aid of much whipping and swearing, up or down the steep bank, carrying the merchandise which has just been landed, or is destined to be loaded in some vessel's hold. Beyond the river rises the city, terrace above terrace, its outlines bristling with spires, and prominent above all, the dome of the Court House.
St. Louis is situated in the very heart of the great Mississippi Valley, and a large share of its rich agricultural products and mineral stores are constantly poured into her lap. Pilot Knob and Iron Mountain, both containing inexhaustible supplies of the useful ore, are not far distant. The lead districts of Missouri include more than 6,000 square miles. In fifteen counties there is copper. In short, within one hundred miles of St. Louis, gold, iron, lead, zinc, copper, tin, silver, platina, nickel, emery, cobalt, coal, limestone, granite, pipe-clay, fire-clay, marble, metallic paints and salt are found, in quantities which will repay working. In the State there are twenty millions acres of good farming lands; five millions of acres are among the best in the world for grapes; and eight millions are particularly suited to the raising of hemp. There is, besides, a sufficiency of timber land. With all these resources from which to draw, it would be surprising if St. Louis did not become a leading city in the West. Situated, as she is, on the Mississippi River, about midway between its source and its mouth, the junction of the Missouri twenty miles above, and that of the Ohio about one hundred and seventy-five miles below, and being the river terminus of a complicated system of western railways, the towns and cities, and even the small hamlets of the north, south and west, and to a limited extent of the east also, all pay her tribute. As Chicago is the gateway to the East, by means of the great chain of lakes and rivers at whose head she sits, so St. Louis holds open the door to the South and the East as well, through the Mississippi and the Ohio rivers.