page_title: Steamboats of the Mississippi
section_title: St. Louis
hierarchical_section_title: Steamboats of the Mississippi / St. Louis
caption_attribution_description: English: The Levee or Landing, St. Louis, Missouri, 1857
context_page_description: Steamboats played a major role in the 19th-century development of the Mississippi River and its tributaries by allowing the practical large-scale transport of passengers and freight both up- and down-river. Using steam power, riverboats were developed during that time which could navigate in shallow waters as well as upriver against strong currents. After the development of railroads, passenger traffic gradually switched to this faster form of transportation, but steamboats continued to serve Mississippi River commerce into the early 20th century. A small number of steamboats are used for tourist excursions into the 21st century.
context_section_description: St. Louis became an important trade center, not only for the overland route for the Oregon and California trails, but as a supply point for the Mississippi.
  Rapids north of the city made St. Louis the northernmost navigable port for many large boats. The Zebulon Pike and his sisters soon transformed St. Louis into a bustling boom town, commercial center, and inland port. By the 1830s, it was common to see more than 150 steamboats at the St. Louis levee at one time.
  Immigrants flooded into St. Louis after 1840, particularly from Germany. During Reconstruction, rural Southern blacks flooded into St. Louis as well, seeking better opportunity. By the 1850s, St. Louis had become the largest U. S. city west of Pittsburgh, and the second-largest port in the country, with a commercial tonnage exceeded only by New York. James Eads was a famed engineer who ran a shipyard and first built riverboats in the 1850s, then armed riverboats and finally the legendary bridge over the Mississippi.  His Mound City Ironworks and shipyard was famous, and featured often in  the naming of vessels.
caption: The St. Louis levee in 1857
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