SAINT LOUIS, MISSOURI: Where the American West Began

Auguste Chouteau, in 1817, saw the first steamboat, the Pike, moor at the city landing. Because of his death in 1829 he missed the event, three-years later, of the side-wheeler Yellowstone's departure from Saint Louis as it made the first successful steamboat voyage all the way up the Missouri River to Fort Union. It was now assured that this mighty river, said to be as "uncertain as the state of a woman's mind," was navigable as far as the mouth of the Yellowstone River.

From Saint Louis the American fur trade expanded under the direction of Auguste Chouteau and men like him. In time, other names would be associated with Missouri and take their place in history. On the wilder side would be Jesse and Frank James as well as Martha "Calamity" Jane Canary. Moses Austin came to Missouri in 1797. Arriving from Ireland, Robert Campbell of the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade Company made Saint Louis his home also. His home, Lucas Place, can be viewed at: The Historic Houses Museum at: http://stlouis.missouri.org/501c/house-m...

From the east, north, and south, pioneers crossed Missouri and moved westward across the "Great American Desert" to settle the Far West. Later in the eighteen hundreds it was realized that the vast area between Missouri and the Rocky Mountains was not a desert but a seemingly endless prairie where farms and ranches and towns would flourish. It was then that the strong backs of Americans began to make this area home.

To read more about Saint Louis History on the Internet go to:

http://www.nps.gov/jeff/history.htm

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The major printed sources for this article are: The Founding Family of St. Louis by Mary B. Cunningham and Jeanne C. Blyth. The American Fur Trade of the Far West-Volume I by Hiram Martin Chittenden. The Fur Trade on the Upper Missouri 1840-1865 by John E. Sunder.

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