The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1894-05-26
VANISHED RIVER TOWNS.
Changes Caused by New Methods of Tran
pOrtation ON the MinayssiDui.

Changes Caused by New Methods OF Trans.
Portation on the Mississippi.
1t is the fashion to talk about the
decadence of the steamboat business
on the Mississippi. These degenerate
days, when the business is confined to
a few RATS of logs or lumber. q short
line packet or two, and one boat a
week either way between st. Louis
and st. Paul. give occasion for plenty
of invidious comparisons with the old
days of palatial steamers and lows off
five big barges of freight, besides the
loads on the boats themselves. Of full
cabin lists and fast time, Of swell pas
sengers and big profits.
But the decay of the river traffic is
not confined to the. loss of the boats
and the decrease in their number and
tonnage. On shore all along the river
arc evidences that these days are diff
ferent from those when the steamboat
man was the monarch Of all men. They
are found with melancholy frequency
in the dead and dying towns along the
river, not to mention those other places
that were once prominent shipping
points, of which hardly a memory now
remains.
There r dozen of such places.
They were built up by the steamboat
traffic in times when railroads were
deemed nothing more than remote pos
abilities. They grew and prospered.
They ted the steamers and the steam
srs fostered them. Inland towns had
but small chance beside them, and
were looked upon with contempt as
places far in the backwoods. hopeless
ly remote from the channels Of com
msrce and communication and forever
doomed to small things.
Well, within the the memory Of men
who are now active on the river. Port
Louisa, Louisa county. some distance
below M~uscatine, was q great grain.
shipping point. Half Q dozen big ware
houses stood there, and there were
dwellings, and there was a mill and
possibly another industry or 90. The
place had the promise of growth and
increase. 1t was the place where the
wheat and rye and oats and barley and
potatoes Of thousands Of acres of rich
Iowa and Mississippi river bottom
oho Aoouu Rboohko Oh khC P8CACtS
and barges for the markets of st.
Louis, Memphis and New Orleans. To
day there is not a stick or stone ito re
mind the stranger that men die
active and profitable business.
there not many years ago
Till within a few years the
brick chimneys Of the mil
stood near the river bank, and ap
preaching to II every year a,
the soft earth cut and crumbled int<
the water with the floods. At last the
very site has been absorbed, by thu
Mississippi, and has gone down Il
McKenzie's engineers to work ant
worry over. Forty miles or SO down
the river, thirty years ago, stood Eas
Burlington. The Chicago, Burlington
& Quincy did not cross the river Their,
until 1859. and there was "a prosperoui
town opposite the Iowa town Of tina
name. It had two hundred yards O
levee better than Davenport aver had
and it is there to-day. It is buried un
der a sandbar that chokes the channe
in front of Burlington for half IL
width, the melancholy remains Of tw,
or three tow-heads and bars abov,
there in former years. all removed b.
the change Of currents resulting from
the construction of dams across som
of the chutes above.
Six miles below there, on the nlinoi
side, in q Choquoquon chute, in forme
years stood another lot of warehouse
similar to those of Port Louisa. Tn
farmers of Henderson and Hancocl
counties, Illinois, used to haul thei
grain and other products to them Their
to await the coming of the boats in tn
spring. 1t used to be a race for tn
honor Of being the first to enter thi
chute and tap those warehouses. TIL
first boat there was sure of a load {
the guards, and more than that sh
could not carry. Now there is not
fragment of warehouse or a suggestio
that there ever was one there.-Daver
port Democrat.