The weekly Minnesotian. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1852-1858, 1852-05-22
ST. LOUIS AND THE UPPER VALLEY.


upon the past, present and future OF the
Great Western Valley. There is always
a newness connected with its rise, prog
ress and future destiny, which assures
one that whatever has been written and
said, still more-much more, can be writ
ten and said. You travel barely from
here, the head Of navi cation, this week
to St. Louis; note, as you think, every
particular that can arrest the eye and
every beauty that can please the fancy
and you think you can see no more. Next
week you return, and new panorama
spreads itself before you. New beauties
of scenery, new elements of gigantic
greatness, new fields for the enterprise
of man. extend themselves on every side.
So much as any thing temporal can be so,
it is little world of infinitude-never
ending-still beginning-which for untold
ages will continue to present these fresh
and living pictures to the eye of man, and
send forth its still developing strength to
bless its teeming millions, and elevate
with gratitude to the Almighty the heart
Of the passing traveller.
We had not been in St. Louis during a
period of ten years. What a change !
Where is that extensive waste of hun
dreds of acres just above where the city
stood in 1912? Covered with busy life
noisy with the tireless cough of the
steam engine, the rattle of machinery,
and the clatter of saw mills. The steam
boat landing as it was and as it is! Here
is change greatest of all. This produce
piled here, mountain high, is not corn,
and pork, and flour, and whisky, from the
Ohio river. No! 1t is for export. 1t
is Missouri hemp and tobacco; and wheat,
and corn, and pork, and bacon from Hi
nois-Northern and Central Illinois-and
Iowa and Wisconsin, which when we
stood here aforetime rere not. They
have come into the world since that dav.
And these forty or fifty magnificent
steamers; most Of them are owned here
now. They do not belong to Pittsburgh,
and Cincinnati and Louisville. No city
IN the West or South, save New Orleans,
(and she doubtful since her decline in
trade) can show such fleet. We pass
down the levee mile or so to Market
street. Wherei is the old market, and the
dllapidated tenements that surrounded it !?
Gone, all gone; and in their stead, the
massive five story block, erected by the
city last year, and ad jacent mercantile pal
aces, crowded on and back above each
other' up street, till the eye is panied
with contemplating the noble, towering
structures. This aforesaid ''city block"
"a piece of architecture that would do
credit to New or London-is one of
the fruits of the Wing city administra-
'ion-the Kennett MISUNDERSTANDING
edand carried out by Luther M. Kennett
the De Witt Clinton of this Western Me-
tropolis. The highest compliment we
can pay tothe intelligence, patriotism and
energy of the people of St. Louis is to
reiterate the fact, that they have elected
Luther NJ. Kennett mayor for the third
time.
We will pass into Main street. Plenty
of active, driving business away down
beyond us, below Market; but we will
60 up. Here we come to Chestnut, next
Pine, next Olive, next Locust, next Vine,
next Washington Avenue, (be careful
that awful monster, the eur Company"
don't open its jaws and devour you as YOU
cross here-better keep the lower side, J
next Green street squares
Wen stop for breath here under the shade
Of friend Thayer's awning. He adver-
tlses in the Minnesotian, and we can
make ourselves at home. Business still
'on'i'iueS several squares higher up; but
you have seen enough to convince you
that there is some mercantile capital and
activity in st. Louis. Does Cincinnati.
or any other city, West or South-does
New York scarcely herself, open to dry
goods customers SO extensive jobbing
establishment as that of Doan, King &
Co., which we just passed? Four sto-
ries, with fifty or sixty feet front 1--WE
have mislaid our figures, but are near the
mark, } and one hundred deep, filled with
goods of every quality, and from every
land where the hand of the artisan plies
the shuttle. And then the hundreds of
other establishments in the same line of
business, all along these seven squares,
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