History

"But the most important improvement along the line of transportation that took place during this period was the steamboat. On August 2, 1817, a steamboat named "Zebulon M. Pike" landed at St. Louis, to the great amazement of the inhabitants, who crowded the banks to see the novel sight.1 Nothing like it had ever been seen there before. Another steamboat, called the "Constitution," came in October, but it was not till 1819 that anyone would venture to ascend the Missouri in such a vessel. However, in that year the "Independence" made a trip from St. Louis to Franklin and Chariton and returned in twenty-one days, and thus established the fact that steamboat navigation was not an impossibility on the Missouri. The importance and significance of this new mode of transportation were fully appreciated by the people of Missouri at that time. Travel by water had heretofore been very slow and far from comfortable, especially in going up the streams. It required weeks and sometimes months to make the trip from New Orleans to St. Louis." (Source: A History of Missouri, Eugene Morrow Violette, p. 95)

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