Bristol news. [volume] (Bristol, Va. & Tenn.) 1867-189?, 1874-06-30
The st. Louis of To-day,

| Looking down upon the st. Louis of
| to-day, from the high roof Ofthe superb
| teIuple which the Missourians have
| built to the mercurial god of insurance,
one can hardly believe that tile vast
metropolis spread out before him rep
| resents the growth of only three-quar-
| tiers of century. The town seems as
| old as london. The smoke from the
| Illinois coal has tinged the walls q Ven
cradle brown, and the grouping of
| buildings is as picturesque and varied
as that of continental city. From
/ the water side, on ridge after ridge,
rise acres Of solidly built houses, vast
manufactures, magazines OfcOmmerce,
| long avenues bordered with splendid
residences a labyrinth of railways be-
| wilders the eye; and the clang of ma
| chinery and the whirl of a myriad
wagon wheels rise to the ear. The le-
wee is thrOnged with busy and uncouth
| laborers dozens of white steamers are
shriekiug their notes of arrival and de-
parture the ferries are choked with
traffic; gigantic and grOtesque scram-
bic for the almost limitIess West be-
y0nd is spread out before the vision.
The town has leaped into new life
ton, its manufactures and its ara BIZ
ton, until it stands so fully abreast OF
its wonderful neighbor, Chicago, that
the traditional acerbity of the recipro-
cal criticism for which both cities have
so long been famous is latterly much
enhanced. The city, which now
stretches twelve miles along the ridges,
branching from the watershed be-
tween the Missouri, the Meramac and
the Mississippi rivers, thanked by roll
ing prairies richly studded with groves
and vineyards; which has many rail-
road lines pointed TO its central deDOts,
and a mile and half Of steam boats at
its levee, thousand miles from the
sea whose population has increased
from 5000, in 1885, to 100000 in 1873
which has a banking capital of nine
teen millions; which receives hun
dreds of thousands of tons of iron ere
monthly, has bridged the Father OF
Waters, and talks of controlling the
cotton trude Of Arkansas and Texas
is but little like the St, Louis of the
days when Col. StOddard had his head
quarters in rude cottage, and the Uni
ted States, in his person, had just
adopted the infant city. In those days
the houses were nearly all built of hewn
logs, set upon end, and covered with
cOarsely shingled roofs. The town eX-
tended along the line of what are now
known as Main and Second streets;
little south of the square called the
Place d'Armes. Fort St. Charles was
held by tiny garrison, aud in the old
stone TOW or which the Spaniards had
builE, debtors aud criminals were con-
fined together. French customs and
French gaiety prevailed there were
two dimindtive taveTns, whose Tafters
nightly rang to the tales of haiIbreadth
escapes told by the boatmen of the Mis-
sissippi. The Chouteaus, the Lisas,
and the Labbadies were the principal
merchants; French and English
schools f0urished; peltry, lead and
whiskey were used for currency. and
negroes were to be purchased for them;
the semi Indian garb of the trapper
was seen at every street corner, and
thousands of furs, stripped from the
buffalo and the beaver, were exported
to New Orleans. The mineral wealth
lying within a hundred miles of St.
Louis had hardly been dreamed of;
the cOlonists were too busy killing In
dams and keeping order in the town,
to think of iron, lead. coal or zinc
E'dUard King, IN Scri6ner'S for Jtly.