Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1902-08-26
HISTORIC RIVER,

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HISTORIC RIVER.
MISSOURI HAS LONG STORY OF
SCENIC AND HISTORIC GRAND
EUR.
The possible abandonment of the
Mississippi river in the neal future. SO
far as regards appropriations for it's
Improvement by congress-, is a humili-
alton for that stream which nobody
could have dreamed of in the earlier
days, says the St. Louis Globe Demo-
GRAFT. This is one Of the worlds great
est waterways, physically, s~cenically
and historically. Measured from it's
source in the Rocky mountains down
to the mouth Of the lower Mississippi
and this is called by some g%eograph-
ers, the man stream, with the upper
Mississippi as the af1uent-the distance
is about 1900 miles. The Missouri
itself, reckoning it from it's rise at the
continental divide to it's entrance into
the Mississippi, has a length of about
$500 miles. It is about 300 miles
longer than the Mississippi. of which
it is the largest afluent. Of the 1,2OO,-
600 square miles in the waterways of
the Mississippi Wnd its tributaries. the
Missouri, its principal branch. contrib
utes $4,000. In the high-water stage
of the spring and early summer the
Missouri is navigable for light draught
steamboats, up to Fort Benton, in Mon
tana, a distance Of 300 miles.
When Joliet and Marquette on their
journey fror Canada by way, of the
Great Lakes and the Fox and Wiscon-
sin rivers, went down the Mississippi
in l7G3 to- the mouth of the Arkansas,
they were surprised and alarmed when
passing the Missouri. The torrent Of
yellow mud which they saw at a GER
tain point on the west side of the main
stream surging across the smooth blue
surface Of the Mississippi carried with
it, in the few minutes which they
viewed it, enough trees to stock a small
forest. When its current made their
canoes dance and whirl like dry twigs
in a mountain brook Markuette- said:
1 never saw anything more terrific
The old missionary remarked that he
would return there some day and go
by way of that river to Asia. The
Missouri may be said to have a con-
%tinuous history from that day, two and
a third centuries ago, to this. More
over, there is a chance that it's annals
began even earlier than that time.
Coronado. the Spanish conquistadore
from Mexico, chasing Quivira's golden
myth, was in Kansas more than a cen
tuly before Marquette and Joliet went
down the Mississippi and SOM of the
antlquarians have figured that he
either reached the Missouri or came
very close to it. sf@
Thus, when Lewis and Clark, about
100 years ago: were working their row.
boats up against the Missouri's turbu-
lent and %tortuous current that river
had much more than a century of a
background of history behind it. In
the days of the French domination
prospecting and exploring parties were
up that river as far as the mouth of
the Kansas as early as 1905. The
Verendryes were on its upper waters,
in the present state Of Montana, in
1743. The Otoes, Sioux, Omahas. Man
dams and Aricarees, whom Jefferson's
first explorers say when on their way
across the continent. were not alto
| gether u~nacquainted with white men at
that time. From 1907. when Manuel
Lisa, of the Missouri Fur company,
went up the big river to the mouth of
the Yellowstone. and then assembled
stream to the confluence of the Big
Horn, where he erected the first trading
post on the upper waters and the first
house in the present Montana. onward
until long after the end Of the fur
trades great days, the Missouri was
the scene of much activity. In 1919
the first steamboats, to enter that river,
the independence and the Western En-
gineer, went several hundred miles,.
The American Fur company,s Yell
lowstone steamed as far as the com
pany's post at Fort Pierce in the pres
ent South Dakota, in 1929. After
ward. in the days Of the early settlers
in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and the
Dakotas, and from that time until long
after the completion Of Cakes Ames'
and H~untington's Pacific railroads. the
Missouri swarmed with steamboats,.
but the glory Of the great river has de-
parted. The railroads have taken
away it's business, and its picturesque
ness and romance have passed into
history. How the steamboat men OF
thirty. forty or fifty years ago. the resi-