To my knowledge, Karo was never produced in Cairo and has nothing to do with Cairo’s funky smell.
Cairo, GEORGIA. Post #7
Interesting link, elelle. Most pithy to the OP in that article seems to be the following:
Hard to argue with this logic. However, it does not take into account completely undeveloped areas, where there may be no other means of transportation than rivers. Such a city was Marietta, at the junction of the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers. Became the de facto capital of the Northwest Territory and a “major city” by the standards of that wilderness area, very much in the spirit of the OP.
This reminded me of a sign I saw upriver of Cincinnati, downriver of Marietta, in Gallipolis:
*For example right across the Ohio is Wickliffe Kentucky which sits hundreds of feet above the river on a bluff. *
Of course, Wickliffe didn’t exactly become a thriving metropolis, either, despite the paper mills which give the entire area its distinctive odor.
Another problem with Cairo is that there’s really no good way out of there. Once you get past the flood plain, you’re immediately into hills and forests – not the most hospitable area to build a railroad. So instead of having one great port, it made more sense to have three small ones: Cairo, Wickliffe and Charleston, MO.
Navigatable is the key term.
Little rivers like the Des Moines which forms the very SE corner of Iowa at Keokuk and flows into the Mississippi were navigatable during certain times of the year.
Steamers even made it as far inland as Des Moines.
The draft of some of those steamers was only 3 feet.
Even on the Mississippi river itself there were rock bars that stopped navigation during low water. One such place was north of Keokuk at Montrose.
QUOTE
tomndebb
Actually, I’m not sure that the premise of the OP is correct. Certainly Pittsburgh and Albany represent major cities on confluences and I guess we could claim St. Louis for the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers (although their actual confluence is more than 15 miles from downtown St. Louis which would have made it over a day’s travel away prior to the steamboat–and still a several hour trip for an upbound boat in the early days of steam).
I have some difficulty with the “Gateway” claim for the exact reason you mentioned.
More importantly, the fall line was a source of power. Major cities dot the fall line all along inland from the east coast–and the fall line comes to the coast at New York City.
For what it’s worth, Binghamton NY sits at the confluence of the Susquehanna and Chenango Rivers.
More precisely, the Tri-City area of Binghamton, Elmira, and Johnson City. I lived there for a while.
The area was home to the shoe company that gave us Enna Jetticks (the streets are named after the members of the Johnson family), and leter of IBM and General Electric, although that’s changed. Most of the time, it ain’t a mighty confluence (I had to lie down in the river to get it up to my neck), but if the flood control walls are any indication, the river on occasion could get pretty high.
I think you meant Endicott - not Elmira.
Dang, you’re right. Although Elmira’s nearby.
Endicott=-Johnson shoes.
I remember the vestigal remains of a dam and the ruins of the locks on the Des Moines River at Bonaparte IA in the early thirties.
My how the strams have deteriorated since my grandmother left Chenago Forks. She used to spin yarns about how she and her friends would picnic along the banks of the beautiful Chenago. Are you saying my grandmother exaggerated?
Yep They are still there. Certainly not the way you remember them but their whereabouts is obvious.
We are forgetting that long before the steam boat Barges, keel boats, batteau, pirogue, kentucky broadhorn and Mackinaw’s hauled freight up and down these rivers.Some barges were 20 feet wide and 100 feet long. They had sails and were rowed by as many as 50 men.
St Louis was a town long before the steam boat.
And?
St. Louis is more than a day’s journey by canoe from the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri. (St. Louis might have been a good place to portage from the Mississippi to the Missouri while avoiding the Missouri delta, but I do not know whether that played a role in the founding and growth of the town.)
So where does your datum fit into the discussion?
The discussion was drifting toward steamboats is all.
Just a little knit.
It made more sense than a discussion of the Po valley.
This country was settled much differently than anything in Europe.
A lso it seems to me that a better method of entering the missouri would be to enter it from upstream. That way you wouldn’t have to fight currents from 2 rivers for so long.I can easily see why St Louis would be the distribution point for goods coming down the missouri headed south but not goods or people going up the Missouri or western goods bound for any northern states.