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The St. Louis Fire of 1849 was a devastating fire that occurred on May 17, 1849 and destroyed a significant part of St. Louis, Missouri and many of the steamboats using the Mississippi River and Missouri River. [1] Captain Thomas B. Targee was killed while trying to blast a fire break. [1] Targee Street was named for him.
In the spring of 1849, the population of St. Louis was about 63,000 with a western boundary of the city extending to 11th Street. The city was about three quarters of a mile in width and had about three miles of riverfront filled with steamboats and other river craft. St. Louis, located near the junction of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, was the last major city where travelers could get supplies before they headed west. Here travelers bought supplies and switched steamboats before going up the Missouri River to Omaha, Nebraska or other trail heads for the Oregon and California trails west. At the time of this fire, the city was also experiencing a cholera epidemic which would end up killing about 10% of the population (over 4,500). The town was booming as people came in from around the U.S. and abroad and bought supplies before heading overland to participate in the California Gold Rush.
On May 17, 1849 at 9:00 p.m. a fire alarm sounded in St. Louis. The paddle wheeled steamboat White Cloud on the river at the foot of Cherry Street was on fire. The volunteer fire department with nine hand engines and hose reel wagons promptly responded. The moorings holding White Cloud burned through and the burning steamboat drifted slowly down the Mississippi River, setting 22 other steam boats and several flatboats and barges on fire. [1]
The flames leaped from the burning steamboats to buildings on the shore and was soon burning everything on the waterfront levee for four blocks. The fire extended to Main Street westward and crossing Olive Street. It completely gutted the three blocks between Olive and 2nd Street and went as far south as Market Street. It then ignited a large copper shop three blocks away and burned out two more city blocks.
The volunteer firemen, after laboring for eight hours, were nearly completely demoralized and exhausted. The entire business district of the city appeared doomed unless something was done. Six businesses in front of the fire were loaded with kegs of black powder and blown up in succession. Captain Thomas B. Targee of Missouri Company No. 5 died while he was spreading powder into Phillips Music store, the last store chosen to be blown up.
This fire was the largest and most destructive fire St. Louis has ever experienced. When the fire was finally contained after 11 hours, 430 buildings were destroyed, 23 steamboats along with over a dozen other boats were lost, and three people had died including a fire captain. [1] As a result of these fires, a new building code required new structures to be built of stone or brick and an extensive new water and sewage system was started. [1]
The Oregon Trail was a 2,170-mile (3,490 km) east–west, large-wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail in North America that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon Territory. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail crossed what is now the states of Kansas, Nebraska, and Wyoming. The western half crossed the current states of Idaho and Oregon.
A steamboat is a boat that is propelled primarily by steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels. The term steamboat is used to refer to small steam-powered vessels working on lakes, rivers, and in short-sea shipping. The development of the steamboat led to the larger steamship, which is a seaworthy and often ocean-going ship.
Sultana was a commercial side-wheel steamboat which exploded and sank on the Mississippi River on April 27, 1865, killing 1,164 people in what remains the worst maritime disaster in United States history.
The Powder River Expedition of 1865 also known as the Powder River War or Powder River Invasion, was a large and far-flung military operation of the United States Army against the Lakota Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indians in Montana Territory and Dakota Territory. Although soldiers destroyed one Arapaho village and established Fort Connor to protect gold miners on the Bozeman Trail, the expedition is considered a failure because it failed to defeat or intimidate the Indians.
The St. Louis Arsenal is a large complex of federal military weapons and ammunition storage buildings operated by the United States Air Force in St. Louis, Missouri. During the American Civil War, the St. Louis arsenal's contents were transferred to Illinois by Union Captain Nathaniel Lyon, an act that helped fuel tension between secessionists and those citizens loyal to the Federal government.
The Anchor Line was a steamboat company that operated a fleet of boats on the Mississippi River between St. Louis, Missouri, and New Orleans, Louisiana, between 1859 and 1898, when it went out of business. It was one of the most well-known, if not successful, pools of steamboats formed on the lower Mississippi River in the decades following the American Civil War.
Transportation in Omaha, Nebraska, includes most major modes, such as pedestrian, bicycle, automobile, bus, train and airplane. While early transportation consisted of ferries, stagecoaches, steamboats, street railroads, and railroads, the city's transportation systems have evolved to include the Interstate Highway System, parklike boulevards and a variety of bicycle and pedestrian trails. The historic head of several important emigrant trails and the First transcontinental railroad, its center as a national transportation hub earned Omaha the nickname "Gate City of the West" as early as the 1860s.
The Saluda was a paddle steamer that operated on the Missouri River in the early 1850s. The ship exploded near Lexington, Missouri in 1852, killing over 100 people, making it one of the worst disasters in Missouri River history.
Joseph Throckmorton was an American steamboat builder and captain during the 19th century. He was born in Monmouth County, New Jersey, and first worked in a mercantile business. His first steamboat was Red Rover, purchased on the Ohio River around 1830. In 1832 he built and skippered the steamboat Warrior. The vessel and Captain Throckmorton played a key role in the decisive battle of the 1832 Black Hawk War. Following the war, he built and owned several more steamboats, and worked for a short time as an insurance representative in St. Louis. Throckmorton died in December 1872 while employed by the United States government.
Steamboats on the Columbia River system were wrecked for many reasons, including striking rocks or logs ("snags"), fire, boiler explosion, or puncture or crushing by ice. Sometimes boats could be salvaged, and sometimes not.
Daniel G. Taylor was the 17th mayor of St. Louis, Missouri, serving from 1861 to 1863.
The St. Louis Fire Department provides emergency medical services, fire cause determination, fire prevention, fire suppression, hazardous materials mitigation, and rescue services to the city of St. Louis, Missouri. The department is also the second oldest professional and fully paid fire department in the United States. The STLFD is responsible for 66.6 square miles (172 km2) and has a population of approximately 294,890 with a daytime population of over 2 million.
The historic 2,170-mile (3,490 km) Oregon Trail connected various towns along the Missouri River to Oregon's Willamette Valley. It was used during the 19th century by Great Plains pioneers who were seeking fertile land in the West and North.
The history of St. Louis, Missouri from 1804 to 1865 included the creation of St. Louis as the territorial capital of the Louisiana Territory, a brief period of growth until the Panic of 1819 and subsequent depression, rapid diversification of industry after the introduction of the steamboat and the return of prosperity, and rising tensions about the issues of immigration and slavery. St. Louis also played a role in the American Civil War.
Grant Prince Marsh was a riverboat pilot and captain who was noted for his many piloting exploits on the upper Missouri River and the Yellowstone River in the Western United States from 1862 until 1882. He began working as a cabin boy in 1856, eventually becoming a captain, pilot, and owner in a career lasting over sixty years. During that time, he achieved an outstanding record and reputation as a steamboat captain, serving on more than 22 vessels. His piloting exploits became legendary and modern historians have referred to him as "possibly the greatest steamboat man ever", "possibly the greatest [steamboat pilot] ever", "possibly the finest riverboat pilot who ever lived", and "the greatest steamboat master and pilot on both the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers".
Far West was a shallow draft sternwheel steamboat plying the upper Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers in the Dakota and Montana Territories, in the years from 1870 to 1883. By being involved in historic events in the Indian Wars of the western frontier, the Far West became an iconic symbol of the shallow draft steamboat plying the upper Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers in the era before railroads dominated transport in these areas.
Calvin Case of St. Louis, Missouri.
Joseph Marie LaBarge was an American steamboat captain, most notably of the steamboats Yellowstone, and Emilie, that saw service on the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, bringing fur traders, miners, goods and supplies up and down these rivers to their destinations. During much of his career LaBarge was in the employ of the American Fur Company, a giant in the fur trading business, before building his own steamboat, the Emilie, to become an independent riverman. During his career he exceeded several existing speed and distance records for steamboats on the Missouri River. Passengers aboard his vessels sometimes included notable people, including Abraham Lincoln. LaBarge routinely offered his steamboat services gratis to Jesuit missionaries throughout his career.
Joseph Marie LaBarge, Senior was a Canadian frontiersman, trapper and fur trader, and the father of famed riverboat captain Joseph LaBarge. He journeyed to the United States in 1808, traveling many miles from Quebec in a birch-bark canoe across the Great Lakes and over rivers to Saint Louis. LaBarge later served and was wounded twice in the War of 1812. He lived a varied life in St. Louis, Missouri.
Chestnut Valley was an African American section of St. Louis centered on Market Street, Targee Street, and Chestnut Street. It existed from the late 19th century serving steamship workers plying their trade on the Mississippi on into the 20th century. These were segregated eras. Chestnut Valley was a font of ragtime music development with Tom Turpin's Rosbud Café from 1900 to 1906 succeeding venues and later his brother Charles H. Turpin's Booker T. Washington Theatre. Mill Creek Valley, home to Scott Joplin and Josephine Baker, was adjacent. Union Station was nearby.
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