The Caucasian. (Shreveport, La.) 1900-192?, 1901-07-28

TYPICAL MISSISSIPPI RIVER PACKET.
ed little Is said about any other part of
the great river than that which lies be-
tween st. Louis and Pittsburg on the
north and New Orleans on the south
the lower Mississippi and the Ohio.
The old residenters in the towns on the
banks Of the upper Mississippi and the
Missouri. as far north as st. Paul on
the former and Yankton on the latter,
resent this neglect of what to them
and to many other lovers of the pictur-
esque past were the halcyon fields of
old time steamboatdom.
The country tributary to the Missouri
was still comparatively unsettled when
steamboating was at its zenith. and the
Missouri's turbid waters never knew
the extent of their loss when the rail-
ways rushed across the land and Cob
bled up the traffic that Heretofore had
been dependent upon boating, but new
ertheless the writer has looked upon
busy scenes at landings along the Big
Muddy where now the freightboat
rarely touches and the passenger steam
er never Council Bluffs, Jefferson
City, Leavenworth and st. Joe are now
tied to the rest of the world by iron
bands, and the long. deep whistle of
the high pressure stern wheeler is only
memory. Kansas City in those days
was only a bank of red mud and a
score of rolling hills.
But the upper Mississippi, the beauti-
full, winding, broad ribBSh of pure,
sweet water. with high banks covered
with refulgent forests and beaches dot
ted here and there by cities and towns,
to 1t the invasion of the railways that
parallel 1t on both sides in many In
stances was a terrible blow. There are
old river rats In this town and at other
points on the river who will tell you in
all seriousness that the grand old
stream shrunk back In dismay at the
first unearthly shrieking Of the invad-
ing robber locomotive and. that 1t has
never been so broad, so clear and so
cheerful since. OF course the twentieth
century business man smiles at this bit
of sentiment and ships bis goods and
takes passage to st. Louis by rail.
There are those among the thinking
business men who say that steamboat
ing need not have been so hard hit by
the railways. They express the opinion
that the boatmen gave up too easily,
that much could have been saved had
more spirit and enterprise been shown,
and among men of this kind ] find con-
siderable enthusiasm over the prospect
of a revival Of steamboating. They say
that there will be capital In abundance
and enterprise behind the industry
when it is rejuvenated, that modern
business methods will occupy the places
that old fogyism and good fellowship
held In the old days and that while
there will not be so much that is pic
turesque there viii be stability.
So the busy. bustling days may come
again. when the wharfs at Burlington,
Quincy. Keokuk. Hannibal Louisiana,
Alton and a score or more OF other
towns between st. Paul and ST. Louis
will be piled high with goods awaiting
the arrival of the freight steamer, and
men, women and children in holiday at
tire will trip gayly up the gangplanks
Of magnificent passenger boats. But
Gilgal and its somber old warehouse
are gone. lost, as is the key to the mys-
terry Of which John Hay wrote about
the old landing. and the once familiar
whistles of the Lucy Bertram. the Tom
Jasper and the Molly McPike are ST.
fenced forever. and tie grizzly old rheu-
matte wharf rat refuses to be consoled
by promises Of revived. modernized
steamb0ating. RAY BUcHL NAN.