For physical reasons, a single lock and dam must lie entirely within the limits of Minneapolis, or entirely within the limits of St. Paul. 319-320; Kane, St. Anthony, p. 96. 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. 1578-79. He describes the immense river as a "solid, shifting lake," a rather perfect description. During low water, no continuous channel existed. They would build as many wing dams, close as many side channels, and protect as much shoreline as needed to establish a 41/2-foot channel. 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. Grant had to abandon another joint army-navy effort when he lacked enough transports. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. issues at that time included . No sooner had a barge of rocks been pulled up to the dam, Hill remembered, than the symmetry of the load was destroyed as the men began the routine of sinking the mat. 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. Instead of going to St. Louis or New Orleans, a steamboat from St. Paul might unload at La Crosse or Rock Island or at other railheads, and increasingly, most river commerce became local.41, While the river had been hauling grain since the birth of Midwestern agriculture, railroads held too many advantages over the undeveloped waterways. He hoped to restore the dying river connection between St. Paul and St. Louis. A favorable landing site on the east bank would have to be located, while other operations would be necessary to distract the Confederates. George Byron Merrick, Old Times on the Upper Mississippi: The Recollections of a Steamboat Pilot from 1854 to 1863, Appendix B, Opening of Navigation at St. Paul, 1844-1862, (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1987), p. 295. 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. crossing the mississippi river in 1850. United States army engineers responded in 1894 by announcing plans for two locks and dams . Well aware of the agrarian unrest, he had warned the Senate that, this issue would inevitably be forced on the Exec. At Guttenberg, Iowa, an island split the river into two channels, one passing in front of the city and the other running along the Wisconsin side. This steep slope, combined with a narrow gorge and limestone boulders left by the retreat of the falls, made the river through this reach too treacherous for steamboat navigation.25 Thus, St. Paul had become the head of navigation. The remaining maps focused on problem reaches or detailed the river near a specific town.32 From these maps and from what he would learn about early navigation improvements, Warren began planning the 4-foot channel project. Those that bowed in and out of the water they labeled preachers. 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. Twenty-seven river miles downstream, at Hastings, they recorded a rise of about one foot and at Red Wing about one-half foot. The Corps simply did not have the funding, equipment, personnel or authority to make significant and permanent changes. He also sold boat-stores and groceries to the steamboats that stopped at the levee. This act signaled a new era of internal improvements and the beginning of dramatic changes to the upper Mississippi River. While railroads could send many cars in both directions with full cargoes, barges delivering their commodities at St. Louis or New Orleans or points in between too often returned empty.43. While the Minnesota legislature appointed someone else to finish Norton's term, Windom won the seat in 1871. 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. No. Reeling from Chicago's increasing dominance over the region's trade, they saw the river as their best counteroffensive. Hundreds of islands, some forming and others being cut away, divided the natural river, dispersing its waters into innumerable side channels and backwaters. 1682-83; U.S. Congress, Senate, Construction of Locks and Dams in the Mississippi River, 53d Cong., 2d sess., Exec. As long as the Corps ran the dredges, it could limit the depth of the cut on a bar and preserve much of the deeper pool behind it. . As the state failed to return it, the Corps did not begin work. The works built under the 41/2-foot channel project embody these national movements and local efforts. Lucile M. Kane, Rivalry for a River: the Twin Cities and the Mississippi, Minnesota History 37:8 (December 1961):309-23. Doc. The burdens they impose upon both consumer and producer are too grievous to be long endured.55 On March 26, 1873, responding to Windom, the Grange and the transportation crisis, the Senate directed Windoms committee to study the problem.56, On April 24, 1874, Windoms committee submitted its report to the Senate. 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. Kane, St. Anthony, p. 96, points out that the state never transferred the grant to the company. 58, pp. Between 1800 and 1860, 'at least 875,000 . Few boats plied the river above Galena. To secure their objective, the company needed support from businessmen in Minneapolis, and for that support, Minneapolis interests won back control of the company. Pike, Sources of the Mississippi, p. 24; Keating, Narrative of an Expedition, p. 297. He does not provide a location for this work and there is no mention of it in later reports, however. Quincy and Cairo, Illinois, became railheads in 1856, and East St. Louis, Illinois, and Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, in 1857. During its 1872 to 1873 session, Congress temporarily ended debate over the project, when it refused to amend the land grant.84. But when the Father of Waters was reached, these methods were out of the question: here apparently was an insurmountable obstacle. 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. Alberta Kirchner Hill spent 19 summers (1898-1917) with her father's fleet as they built the dams for the government. Many just mention herds of Government cattle, but one, for 305 head in June of 1863, specifically mentions Texas cattle. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. 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. and finally crossing near St Cloud. The seizure of the mighty stream had been a major component of Federal strategy since the wars earliest weeks. Without enough current, this happened too slowly for navigation. 341, pp. In newly constricted reaches, the channel might be good for a season or two and then become difficult again, due to the river's natural tendencies or as a result of the improvement works themselves. As with the drive for railroad legislation, the push for waterway improvement was not just a farmers' movement. Lock and Dam 2 (the Meeker Island Lock and Dam) could then be placed about 2.9 miles upstream, below Meeker Island, and would have a lift of 13.8 feet. 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. Annual Report, 1895, pp. 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. 1491, (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1913), pp. 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.. Wings should be pointed upstream at the following angles: 105N to 110N, in straight reaches, 100N to 102N in concave, 90N to 100N in convex, and they should be so located where practicable, that their axes prolonged would meet in the center of the channel. Barns also argues that Kelley came away from his southern trip with the idea for the Grange, and that Kelley had a more radical organization in mind from the outset than Buck and other historians admit. Throughout his article (pp. The parish seat is Edgard, an unincorporated area, and the largest city is LaPlace, which is also unincorporated.. St. John the Baptist Parish was established in 1807 as one of the original 19 parishes of the Territory of . 58, p. 5. In 1892, Mackenzie again insisted that only locks and dams could regularly entice steamboats above Meeker Island; any other efforts, he charged, wasted time and money.89, Signaling a possible break, the Chief of Engineers, on February 15, 1893, directed Mackenzie to prepare new and exact estimates for locks and dams for this portion of the river . In December 1872, he had introduced a resolution to address the transportation problem. In 1855 a railroad entered Galena. . Below Red Wing, water from the reservoirs had little effect.68. . No. By authorizing the 41/2-foot channel project, Congress directed the Corps to remake the upper Mississippi. Over the next year, the Grange founded nearly 12,000 chapters and claimed over 858,000 members. They would have to eliminate the wide shallows and sandbars and the thou- sands of little pools that Warren had once sought to preserve. 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. 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. The solution, they insisted, lay in improving the nation's waterways, especially the Mississippi River and its tributaries. Porters gunboats arrived and began shelling the defenses. The Union general had determined after the December failures to march his army down the Louisiana side of the river south of Vicksburg and then ferry it across to the east bank. The Corps had experimented with channel constriction in 1874. For months he had studied them, conferred with subordinates, undertaken personal reconnaissances and endured failures. 68-74; Jane Carroll, Dams and Damages: The Ojibway, the United States, and the Mississippi Headwaters Reservoirs, Minnesota History, (Spring, 1990):4-5. 1780-81. 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. First, did Kelley get the idea for the Grange on his trip through the South? American Memory Project, Library of Congress. Hill, Out With the Fleet, p. 291. The endeavor would be difficult and risky, requiring Rear Adm. David Dixon Porters fleet to pass by Vicksburgs heavy guns. . he concluded, calling on Congress to appropriate funding for every navigable stream in the West and to open the natural outlets free to all.47 To restore river traffic, Kelley insisted that the Mississippi needed grants like those given to railroads, and the Grange had to establish an agent in St. Louis to buy and sell Minnesota's products. Havighurst, A Wilderness Saga, p. 161. While mining Fold3 today, I ran across the Citizens Records of John McKay. m., over which the annual rainfall averages . 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. A newly completed lock and dam and another one under construction promised to make Minneapolis the head of navigation. Deep was anything over three feet. 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. Sandbars determined the river's overall navigability. For wing dams, the suggested proportion of brush to rock was two to one, although where the current was strong, the ratio might increase to a ratio of three or four portions of brush for every one of rock. The first enslaved Africans brought to the colony during the John Law Company period (1717-1731) were housed directly across from the settlement on the West Bank in what is now Algiers Point. To do this, they would have to change the Mississippi's landscape and environment. These slight dams, Warren commented, had been somewhat successful, indicating a way of deepening the low-water channel worthy of special attention. But these measures had been only temporary; high water usually swept the dams away. It did so twice that year. Here, the Northern Light, one of the largest steamers on the upper river, passed them just after sundown. St. Louis merchants were among the Mississippi River's greatest advocates. Congress initially balked at the projects pork-barrel appearance. 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. Crossing the Mighty Mississippi River From La to Ms highway 82 There are two locks.93 Minneapolis had somehow won the debate over building one or two dams. Location: Illinois, United States. Not only could the steamboat haul freight, but it had comfortable accommodations for passengers. Merrick's father bought a warehouse on the levee from which he ran a storage and transshipping business. H. Doc. A movement into central Mississippi ended when Southern cavalrymen captured the Federals supply base at Holly Springs. MN The Mississippi River is the second longest river in North America measuring a total length of 2320 miles from its traditional source at Lake Itasca. Carey's 1814 Map of Missouri Territory formally Louisiana. C $24.12 . 111 E. Kellogg Blvd., Suite 105 Midwestern farmers sent grain to Chicago, and Chicago merchants and eastern manufacturers sent their goods back on the railroads. 311-12; Kane adds that during these years Meeker had sought to get the required completion date extended. Sandbars determined the river's controlling depththe minimum depth for navigation at low water. Vol. The four broad projects are known as the 4-, 41/2-, 6- and 9-foot channel projects. To subscribe, click here. It drew national Senators and Representatives from 22 states and the governors of Minnesota, Ohio, Kansas, Missouri, and Virginia. .65 Once the willow mats had been laid in the water, the workers would sink them with rock. This also caused some delay. Bradley B. Meeker and Dorilus Morrison formed the Mississippi River Improvement and Manufacturing Company in 1857, with a group of Minneapolis businessmen, to develop this potential. Finley's 1827 State Map of Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. St. Paul District, Corps of Engineers. From this work, Warren contended that in its natural state the Mississippi River's navigation channel frequently changed and that the Corps would have to survey the river each year until they understood how it worked.29 In some reaches, Warren reported, sandbars moved in waves along the channel bottom, looking something like snowdrifts. But navigating the river has never been easy, even today. 1; see U.S. Congress, House, Survey of the Upper Mississippi River, Exec. 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 next day, Colonel Benjamin Grierson and 1,700 troopers started on a mounted raid through central Mississippi to destroy railroad tracks and mislead the Southerners. Out with the fleet, p. 96, points out that the state failed to return,. 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