The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-12-28
THE MIssIssIriIs oRAyEr.AmD.
Bend in Which steambasts Costing
 Millions Have Been Wrecked.


 A Bend in Which steamboat. Costing Millions Have Been Wrecked. From the St. Louis G.obe-Drmocratl
 'The recent discovery of sunkep raft by Mayor waibr.dge in the chan nel of the river above the Chain of Rocks" said Street Commissioner M. J. Murphy yesterday. twill bring to minds Of many of our steamboat men the disasters thht befeil the marine craft of this city in that portion of the river now included in the harbor of St. Louis. The charter harbor Of the city includes that stretch of the Mlssissip- pi river between the mouth of the Mis- souri and the mouth of the, Meramec. That portion of the harbor under the care and control Of the wharf and har- Dor commissioner lies between the Chain of Rocks and the Rives des Peres. From the upper mouth of the Missouri to the foot of North Market street there are now lying under the
 
 boats and barges. Many of these steamboats were the largest, best equipped and speediest that ever walked the navigable waterways of the country. They were in reality ma rine palaces. such as this generation has not seen.
 "Sawyers Bend was the fatal locali- ty where nearly all these splendid craft foundered and settled under the shift ing sands of the treacherous channel. Among the boats that were lost many now living will recall the following: York State, Southerner Mary Blain, Highland Mary, Grace Darling. Ale gheny, Federal Arch, c. Buln, Tuba, Baltimore, John B. Carson. Philadel- phia, Edinburg, Challenge, Moderator, Nebraska, Sioux City White Cloud, Omaha, New Admiral. Geneva, War saw, Empire City. Governor Sharkey, Submarine No. 13. Saranac No. ?, War Eagle, Ben Johnson, Gerard B. Allen, Fanny Scott, Henry Adkins, Columbia, Silver Bow, R. J. Lockwood, Wild Duck, Nile, Victoria, Champion, Blue Lodge, Calhoun, Alma, Central City, Raven, Salvor, J. W. Garrett, Hudson, Beaver, John P. Keiser, Pacific, Lulu Worth, Cornelia and Badger State.
 "The above were sunk between the years 1855 and 1888. In addition to these there were twenty barges lost north of Bissell's Point, within the same year. No record was kept of the sawyer or cut lumber rafts that were lost south of Alton, but 1t has been es- timated that the aggregate value was over one million dollars. Only two of the above-named boats. the Calhoun and Alma, were raised. The bones of all the others lie many feet beneath the sands, petrifying under the action! of the waters. The actual loss in marine property to the merchants of St. Louis by the sinking of these boats was over five million dollars. It Is sad com mentary upon the action ofs congress in its failure to provide adequate means for the removal of the cause of these disasters, and the general policy of making only dribbling appropriations for river and harbor improvements, that after 1860 few, if any, of these ma rine palaces were replaced with others. Many of the owners in the loss If this property lost not only all they had, but also lost courage because of the in creasing dangers to the marine com merce of the immediate harbor of St. Louis. l "To add to the pathetic story of these disasters, many of them fatal to life, it. might be stated in passing that during the period named above fiftNfve splen-i did steamers were destroyed by fire within the charter harbor Of the city, The hulls of many of them lie just out. side of the present water line, and" form the retaining ddke for the granite wharf. Many of the grandfathers and grandmothers of to-day will remember with varying emotions their bridaE trips on the James Howard, the Levia-j than, the Bismarck, the Grand Repub-t lie, the Carrie V. Kountz, and others equally as grand. It will be noted above that used the term the upper mouth of the Missouri I did this ad-i vised1y, because of the fact that with- in the past forty years that river, where 1t empties into the Mississippi, has changed its location four. or five times, and it's present mouth is several miles south of the one that existed a few years ago. Opposite these various mouths, and for one mile southward, many of the disasters named above oc- cured. The outpouring of the Missou-