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When we left off last time, St. Louis had witnessed the safe return of the Lewis and Clark Expedition from their journey to the Pacific Ocean. In September 1806 the small town was surprised to see the men again as many had assumed the worst of their long absence. Though the local citizenry hosted a celebration for the Corps of Discovery it would be years before a flood of Americans would follow in their footsteps. Even though the city had a long history (it was founded in 1764 by the French), St. Louis had only been part of the United States for three years.

Two events during the winter of 1811-12 disrupted life in the quiet river town. The first was a bit of a geologic rarity, an intraplate earthquake. Dubbed the New Madrid Earthquake, it was actually a series of large tremblors that shook the entire Mississippi River Valley. Rated at magnitude 8 these quakes and their aftershocks devastated the region: whole islands disappeared, huge holes appeared in the earth, rivers were re-aligned, and the roiling, churning water of the Mississippi seemed to run backwards. Attesting to the strength of these quakes, church bells rang in Boston and chimneys fell down in Maine. Thankfully, the area was sparsely populated; though boats capsized, entire towns were destroyed, and a number of people were killed, there wasn’t a catastrophic loss of life.

The other earth-shattering event was the arrival of the first steamboat on the Mississippi River. The New Orleans left Pittsburgh in September of 1811 and traveled down the Ohio River to its confluence with the Mighty Miss. Somehow the boat successfully navigated storms, snags, floods, low water, and the New Madrid earthquakes. Against all odds the New Orleans arrived safely in its namesake city in January of 1812. Not surprisingly, the passengers were relieved to have survived their nightmarish journey. Though it would be five years before the first steamboat docked in St. Louis, the age of the steamboat had begun and no town along the river would ever be the same.

During the 1820s the population of St. Louis and the surrounding area doubled as steamboats made travel easier for Americans. People eager for a new beginning flooded into the territory. In 1821 Missouri was finally admitted to the Union as a state. It had been a contentious struggle for Missouri to reach statehood since the question of slavery had divided the country into free states and slaveholding states. The admission of one more state would upset the precarious balance, so under the Missouri Compromise Missouri was admitted as a slave state while Maine entered as a free state. The legal maneuvering did little to resolve the question of slavery, which continued to simmer as a divisive issue.

In 1826 the Jefferson Barracks Military Post was established south of St. Louis to provide protection for the inhabitants of the new state. At the time life at the military outpost was relatively uneventful. Though now of historical relevance, it was merely a small matter of business when a surgeon at the outpost, a Major John Emerson, purchased a slave by the name of Dred Scott in 1832.

St. Louis continued to thrive as Americans who continued to flood west were joined in the 1840s and 50s by German and Irish immigrants. Many of these foreign-born residents were highly skilled craftsmen, notably in the trades of beer brewing and brick-making. Some settled in St. Louis fulfilling the needs of the rapidly growing city: bricks to build houses for the people, beer to quench their thirst. The location of St. Louis along the Mississippi River meant easy access to beer’s most crucial ingredients, grain and water. One of those German brewers was Eberhard Anheuser (a name you might recognize) who eventually took over ownership of the Bavarian Brewery Company.

In 1843 Jefferson Barracks welcomed a new group of recruits, including an undistinguished young West Point graduate by the name of Ulysses S. Grant. Grant broke up the monotony of his days at the post with visits to the family home of a West Point friend. Though Grant had been raised in an abolitionist family he enjoyed spending time at White Haven, the Dent family plantation. Situated in the Little Dixie area of Missouri, the plantation’s holdings consisted of close to a thousand acres and over thirty slaves; Colonel Dent considered himself a southern gentleman. In 1844 the frequency of Grant’s visits increased after he met Colonel Dent’s daughter, Julia.

1844 was a big year in St. Louis and other riverside communities as the Missouri and Upper Mississippi Rivers poured over their banks. By volume the Great Flood of 1844 was the largest deluge on record with 1,300,000 cubic feet per second flowing past St. Louis. Citizens upset by the devastation wrought by the raging water demanded that the incorrigible Mississippi be tamed; it was the first such request, but not the last.

By 1846 St. Louis residents had returned to their daily lives when two slaves, Dred Scott and his wife Harriet, sued for their freedom at what is now known as the Old St. Louis County Courthouse. The lawsuit, which eventually took over eleven years to resolve, disrupted lives and pitted neighbor against neighbor. Though Missouri had been admitted as a slave state many of the new immigrant residents of St. Louis were abolitionists. The premise of the case was that since his owner, John Emerson, had moved Dred (and later his wife Harriet) from a slave state to a free state they were entitled to their freedom. Their suit had legal precedence as slaves had been freed on the same basis in other states. Unfortunately, the Scotts’ case was murkier since they didn’t file their suit in a free state.

During the time period that the Scott lawsuit was winding its way through the courts Grant married Julia at White Haven. Their wedding received the blessing of neither set of parents; Grant’s folks were aghast that he had married into a slave owning family and Julia’s father doubted Grant’s ability to earn a living. Somehow the couple found common ground in their relationship, even as family, friends, and the nation were increasingly at odds with each other over the slavery issue.

In 1850 after numerous delays the lawsuit was decided. At the courthouse where slaves had once been sold on the front steps, the Scott family was declared free. The widow Emerson, stunned by such a huge loss of “personal property,” appealed the court’s decision. Two years later the Missouri Supreme Court (which also heard cases in the Old Courthouse) overturned the lower court’s decision. In 1853 Scott appealed to the federal court. I think it safe to presume that slaveholding families, such as the Dent’s, kept a close eye on the Scott case. Slaves were quite valuable, at that time an able-bodied male could fetch over $1,000.

By the 1850s St. Louis had grown into the eighth largest city in the country and the torrent of incoming settlers showed no sign of stopping. In 1854 Grant began farming at White Haven. In an effort to provide for his young family he worked out in the fields with the Dent family slaves (much to the horror of neighbors). Meanwhile, the Scott case worked its way up to the United States Supreme Court. The court’s decision in 1857 rocked the nation with the ruling that slaves were personal property, that imported Africans and their descendants were not—and could never be—citizens, and therefore the Constitution did not apply to them and further, that as non-citizens, they had no access to the court system. The decision polarized the nation.

Though the Scott family was finally emancipated by Dred’s original owner on May 26, 1857 it did little to calm the country down. Sadly, Dred’s hard won freedom was short-lived as he succumbed to tuberculosis on November 7, 1858. 1858 was the same year that Grant acquired his first and only slave. The slave is thought to be a gift from his father-in-law, as Grant had hardly two nickels to his name. The next year, after Grant moved his family to Illinois (a free state), he set the slave free. There is evidence that Grant had desired to free his slave earlier but Missouri law required the posting of a substantial bond that Grant could ill afford. Though Grant’s in-laws were slave owners at the outbreak of the Civil War his decision was easy; the Union had to be preserved. The South had no legal right to secede.

The nation, Missouri, St. Louis, and the Dent family were all divided in their loyalties, as were many others during the War Between the States. Towns along the river changed dramatically. For the first time in fifty years the bustling waterfront of St. Louis was empty as few steamboats ventured up the contested waters of the Mississippi. Though much subdued, life carried on for residents. In 1861 the daughters of Eberhard Anheuser, the successful brewery owner, Lilly and Anna married the Busch brothers, Adolphus and Ulrich in a double ceremony.

After the war ended in 1865 the reunited country did not have time to celebrate. Like other cities across the country St. Louis had to restart commerce and replant fields (this time without slaves). Though many wounds took generations to heal St. Louis rebounded with a flourish. Railroads took the place of steamboats, reducing travel time and expanding access throughout the nation. As goods and people flowed across the country, a new age of interstate commerce was embraced. In 1876 Adolphus Busch, a partner at his father-in-law’s brewery, introduced a new lager crafted to suit the taste of all Americans. As Budweiser poured across the country it soon became a national favorite. A few years later the brewery changed names one last time, and Anheuser-Busch was born.

In 1882 another flood inundated the Mississippi River Valley, though lucky for the residents of St. Louis they escaped the worst of the damage. Unlike previous floods this one, “The Chocolate Tide” as Mark Twain called it, wreaked havoc on a large population. In an area that had not yet fully recovered from the aftermath of the war, roughly 100,000 people were left homeless. Mark Twain was on the river during the deluge, aboard a relief boat as a journalist for the Times-Democrat. His reports of the devastation are sobering, the suffering of the people in the inundated region is hard to fathom. On a lighter note, Twain recounted a conversation he had while in St. Louis. “What is a person to do here when he wants a drink of water? Drink this slush?” “Can’t you drink it?” “I could if I had some water to wash it with.” Even in non-flood times the water of the Mississippi was filled with silt and sediment leading some to charmingly describe it as “too thin to plow, and too thick to drink.”

By the turn of the century St. Louis had grown into the fourth largest city in the nation. It was fitting that the metropolis hosted the 1904 World’s Fair. Officially titled the Louisiana Purchase Exposition the fair sprawled across Forest Park and spilled over onto neighboring land. Over 1,500 buildings were built to house the representatives and cultural and technological exhibits of sixty-three participating nations. As one of the most successful fairs the Saint Louis World’s Fair attracted a torrent of visitors (over 19 million) during its seven-month run.

Continuing the cycle the next big event in the story of St. Louis was yep, you guessed it another flood. This time the raging waters encountered a large population dwelling in lowland areas thought to be protected by levees. Over 27,000 square miles were under thirty feet of water for almost eight months, 246 people died and 700,000 people were left homeless. The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 still rates as the most destructive deluge in U.S. history.

1927 ushered in a new type of flood to St. Louis, this one on U.S. Highway 66. More familiarly known as Route 66 it was one of the first U.S. Highways in the country. The road connected Chicago to Los Angeles and soon became a heavily traveled thoroughfare. It ran right through downtown St. Louis until the late 1930s when a bypass route crossed the Mississippi River via the Chain of Rocks Bridge north of town. It was a precursor of the tide of automobile traffic to come, as four interstates now pass through the area (I-44, I-55, I-64, and I-70). Various kinds of floods have altered the landscape of St. Louis over the centuries—no doubt they will continue to do so in the future.

Photos: Explore our photographs for St Louis, Missouri.

Dates: We stayed in St Louis, Missouri from 09/13/09 to 09/26/09.