The Marion daily mirror. (Marion, Ohio) 1892-1912, 1909-09-20
FROM KEELBOAT
TO AEROPLANE
A Century Of Progress to be
illustrated.
ACtLEDRATlON OF GREAT NOTE
st. Louis Plans Weeks Fes
tivities.
Contrasts Between Now and Gem
tury Ago VIII he Marked - Dates
for the Celebration October 3rd TO
9th Inclusive.

AS features OF the Saint Louis Cen
fennlal week, October Sd TO 9th thi
year, 'aeroplanes and airshlps circlIn,
above the city may seem less strang,
than the ancient keelboat shown IL
the historic pageants with which tn,
city celebrates the hundredth year o.
Its first incorporation In 1909. 1t will
crowd the week with pageants. show
Ing such contrasts ms that between
the keelboat and the airship. in tn,
hope that II can suggest through
them to the eye I'm panoramas ot
progress something of the difference
between the world as 1t was wher
saint Louis was the outpost of civ.
ilizatlon In the far West and the
world In which II Is central among
The great cities OF the United States
with modern conveniences" London
and Paris had not thought of as pos
sible r1SO9.
AS one feature after another OF
this kind In these pageants presents
such sharp contrasts of idea, the
city Will use it's own experience in
rageants. added to that gained from
the revival OF historic pageants In
England to define the meaning OF
Its hundred years OF incorporated
life. 1t does not expect to do more
than suggest the changes of the sim
gle century of its own municipal his
tory. Nearly a full generation ago,
II was the first city north of New Or
leans to Introduce the historic pag-
cant, as in fact II has been the first
American city. TO develop II up to the
point beyond which It is now passing
I'm Its English revival. It's Centennial
rageants, as they are perfected by
this experience. and made striking in
their spectacular illustrations of the
most striking facts OF progress, may
be expected to do all that can be
done to aid the imagination. But aft
er all, the imagination Is likely to
break down in the attempt to bridge
over the gap between the meaning of
an airshlp crossing the Mississippi at
Saint Louis this year and what the
ancient keelboats of 1909 meant, as
they landed at the root of Walnut
street. where the town was founded
in 1854 by the pioneers who had pad
died and cordelled their bateau pain
fnly up the river from New Orleans
under Laclede as he advanced in the
bold attempt to control the fur trade
of half a continent with his handful
OF men.
The distance in point Of change in
the way things are done is almost i'm
pGssable for the mind. In point Of
fact in Saint Louis 1t is only matter
of the third generation between keel
boat and aeroplane. In 1907 the first
airship on record as crossing the
Mississippi river crossed = It at Saint
Louis during the International con-
test of that year when. with Captain
Thomas Baldwin, Lincoln Beachey
and others contesting the honors. of
the air in diriglble balloons, young
Cromwell Dixon. of Columbus, Ohio.
few across the Mississippi in his
''skycicle," after clrcling over Saint
Louis. This made the record on
which the first dirigible airship has
already crossed the Mississippi at
Saint Louis, but II was not consid-
cred at the time, because the Miss
issippi was not thought of in that
connection as the dividing line be-
tween the United States of the Eigh.
teenth Century and the United States
Of the Twentieth. 1t Ia something to
remember now as part of the record
to which belongs the history made
by the first locomotive crossing the
Mississippi at ST. Louis in 1852 to
complete the work of the st. Louis
Argonauts of 1S49. crossing to ths
Pacific in their "prairie schooners.'
If we suppose aeroplanes and air.
ships circling in the air above the
st. Louis keelboat landing of hun
dred years ago, as they will circle
this October, we may imagine, II we
can, how they will appear to the
man whose grandfathers not only
navigated the river in keelboats, but
lay fiat behind the goods the boats
were loaded with, while they were
being shot at by Indians along the
banks. The airships are certain to
be watched by the grandsons of a
considerable number of people who
reached Saint Louis first in keelboats,
at time when there was a good
chance of being shot at from the
banks. Among the surviving de-
scendants of DIR. Antoine Saugrain, a
grandson who is not yet an old man,
a. hardly likely to miss the spectacle
of the airships and TO have i'm mind,
perhaps. the recollection OF the still
more exciting spectacle of his
grandfathers keelboat, running the
gauntlet of Indian rifle fire from the
banks OF the Ohio on the way West
from Pittsburg. AS the FIRST scien-
fist OF the Mississippi Valley" DR..
Saugrain reached Saint Louis in 1900
from Gallipolis, Ohio. There he was
already o. hero among frontiersmen,
because he had made one of the
most desperate fights for his scalp
of the many made when the keelboat
down the Ohio was the CHIEF means
of connection between the business OF
AtlanNc coast cities and that of the
Mississippi Valley. If adventures
are to the adventurous always, the
Saint Louis keelboat offered them to
those who demanded the spice of