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There are in the state 562 telegraph stations, whence messages can be sent all over the telegraph world; 2,423 miles of line and 6,000 miles of wire.

MANUFACTURING.

The following statistics of the capital employed in manufacturing industries, and the amount of production, is collated from careful estimates made in 1876, the latest at hand, although it is well known that great increase of these industries has been made since that date. These estimates showed that the state then contained 14,245 manufacturing establishments, using 1,965 steam engines, representing 58,101 horse-power, 465 water wheels, equaling 7,972 horse-power, and employing 80,000 hands. The capital employed in manufacturing was about $100,000,000; the material used in 1876 amounted to about $140,000,000; the wages paid were $40,000,000, and the products put upon the market were over $250,000,000. Outside of St. Louis the leading manufacturing counties of the state are Jackson, about $2,000,000; Buchanan, $7,000,000; St. Charles, $4,500,000; Marion, $3,500,000; Franklin, $3,000,000; Greene, $1,500,000; Cape Girardeau, $1,500,000; Platte, Boone and Lafayette, upwards of $1,000,000 each, followed by several counties nearly reaching the last sum.

The products of the different lines of manufacturing interests are, approximately, as follows:"

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Of the manufacturing in Missouri, more than three-fourths is done in St. Louis, which produced, in 1879, about $275,000,000 of manufactured articles. The city has, for some years past, ranked as the third in the United States in the amount of her manufactures, leaving a wide gap between her and Chicago and Boston, each of which cities manufactures a little more than one-half as much in amount as St. Louis, and leaves a doubt as to which of them is entitled to rank as the fourth manufacturing city.

FLOUR.-In St. Louis there are twenty-four flouring mills, having a daily productive capacity of 11,000 barrels. The total amount of flour received and manufactured by the dealers and millers of St. Louis, in

1879, was 4,154,757 barrels, of which over 3,000,000 were exported. They also made 425,963 barrels of corn meal and 28,595 barrels of hominy and grits. Of their exports, 619,103 barrels were sent to European nations and to South America.

COTTON.-There are in the city two mills, which consume from 15,000 to 20,000 bales annually. To supply the manufactured cotton goods annually sold in St. Louis will require mills of ten times the capacity of those now in operation.

PRINCIPAL CITIES.

St. Louis is the commercial metropolis not only of the state of Missouri but also of the Mississippi and Missouri valley regions of country; and the history of Missouri is to a very large extent the history of St. Louis. There is so much concerning this imperial city embodied in other parts of this work that little need be added here.

St. Louis is situated upon the west bank of the Mississippi, at an altitude of four hundred feet above the level of the sea. It is far above the highest floods that ever swell the Father of Waters. Its latitude is 38 deg., 37 min., 28 sec., north, and its longitude 90 deg., 15 min., 16 sec., west. It is twenty miles below the mouth of the Missouri, and 200 above the confluence of the Ohio. It is 744 miles below the falls of St. Anthony, and 1194 miles above New Orleans. Its location very nearly bisects the direct distance of 1,400 miles between Superior City and the Balize. It is the geographical center of a valley which embraces 1,200,000 square miles. In its course of 3,200 miles the Mississippi borders upon Missouri 470 miles. Of the 3,000 miles of the Missouri, 500 lie within the limits of our own state, and St. Louis is mistress of more than 16,500 miles of river navigation.

The Missouri Gazette, the first newspaper, was establised in 1808, by Joseph Charless, and subsequently merged in the present Missouri Republican. The town was incorporated in 1809, and a board of trustees. elected to conduct the municipal government. In 1812 the territory of Missouri was designated, and a legislative assembly authorized. The Missouri Bank was incorporated in 1814. The first steamboat arrived at the foot of Market street in the year 1815, followed soon by others. In 1819 the first steamer ascended the Missouri, and the first through boat from New Orleans arrived, having occupied twenty-seven days in the trip. In 1821 a city directory was issued. The facts stated in this volume show that the town was then an important and thriving one. In 1825 Lafayette visited the city and received a grand public ovation. This year the United States arsenal and Jefferson barracks were established.

In 1827 there were hardly a dozen German families in St. Louis, where' now there are as many thousands of them. In 1830 the population was 6,654. In 1835 the first railroad convention was held. [See page 106.] In 1837 the population was 16,187, and 184 steamboats were engaged in the commerce of the city. The decade between 1840 and 1850 saw increased advancement in all kinds of industry, and in architectural growth. We find that in 1840 there were manufactured 19,075 barrels of flour, 18,656 barrels of whisky, and 1,075 barrels of beef inspected, and other branches of business had correspondingly increased. In 1846, the now extensive Mercantile Library was founded. The close of the decade, 1849, brought upon the city the double misfortune of fire and pestilence. On May 19th, the principal business section was swept away by a conflagration originating in a steamboat at the levee; and, during the summer of the same year, the population was scourged by cholera. In 1851, the first railroad enterprise-the building of the Missouri Pacific —was inaugurated, and quickly followed by others. [See page 105.] The decennial increase of population has been as follows:

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During 1880 St. Louis received 1,703,874 barrels of flour; manufactured 2,077,625 barrels; and shipped 3,292,803 barrels. Of this amount 975,970 barrels were shipped in sacks to England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Holland, France, Belgium, Germany, Brazil, Cuba and Mexico. During the same year St. Louis shipped 11,313,879 bushels of wheat; and of this amount 5,913,272 bushels went to foreign countries via New Orleans, while the rest went eastward by rail. The receipts of corn were 22,298,077 bushels; shipments, 17,571,322 bushels, of which 9,804,392 went by barges to New Orleans for foreign ports, 3,157,684 to the south for consumption, and 4 591,944 eastward by rail or Ohio river. The receipts of cotton were 496,570 bales, and shipments 478,219 bales.

During the packing season of 1879-80, there were 927,793 hogs packed. The shipments of coffee reached $5,000,000, and that of sugar $8,500,000. The above principal items are gleaned from the commercial pantheon of statistics published in January, 1881, by the Merchants' Exchange of St. Louis.

Kansas City. In 1724 the Kansas tribe of Indians had their chief town a few miles below the mouth of the Kansas river, and M. DeBourgmont, the French commandant of this region, held a grand peace council with different tribes gathered at this place for the purpose, on July 3d of that year. This is the earliest historic record of white men in the vicinity of where Kansas City now stands. In 1808 the U. S. government established

a fort and Indian agency here, calling it Fort Osage, which was not abandoned until 1825, when the Indian title to a certain strip of country here was extinguished. In 1821 Francis G. Chouteau established a trading post on the Missouri river about three miles below the site of Kansas City, but a flood in the spring of 1826 swept away everything he had, and he then settled six miles up the Kansas river.

The original town plat of Kansas City consisted of 40 acres, and was laid out in 1839. In 1846 some additional ground was laid off, and a public sale of lots netted $7,000, averaging $200 per lot.

The first charter was procured in the winter of 1852-3, and in the spring of 1853 was organized the first municipal government. The first established newspaper made its appearance in 1854, with the title of the "Kansas City Enterprise," now known as the "Kansas City Journal." During the years 1855-6-7, the border troubles very visibly affected the prosperity of the city, so that business in those years did not exceed, all told, the sum of $2,000,000; but at the close of the struggle, in 1857, business began to revive, and it was then stated, in the St. Louis "Intelligencer," that she had the largest trade of any city of her size in the world. This may be distinguished as the great steamboat era. It was estimated that, in the year 1857, one hundred and twenty-five boats discharged at the Kansas City levee over twenty-five million pounds of merchandise. In May of this year, also, the steamboats were employed to carry the United States mail, and in 1858 the first telegraph pole in Jackson county was erected.

The first bank established in Kansas City was a branch of the Mechanics' Bank, of St. Louis, organized May 1, 1859, and the second was a branch of the Union Bank, organized in July of the same year. The first jobbing dry goods house opened in July, 1857. The first city loan for local improvement was made in 1855, amounting to $10,000, all taken at home, and expended in improving and widening the levee; and, in 1858, another loan of $100,000 for street improvements. Only in the matter of railroads was Kansas City seriously affected by the panic of 1857; government moneys, immigration over the border, and the New Mexican trade tiding her safely over the sea of financial excitement and prostration. She had also become, even as early as the year 1854, a noted mart for the purchase and sale of live stock, the immense freighting across the plains inviting trade in this direction, and in the annual reviews of the papers it is said that, in 1857, the receipts for that year, in mules and cattle, were estimated at $200,000, and also that, in 1858, about 20,000 head of stock cattle were driven here from Texas and the Indian territory. In 1857 over six hundred freighting wagons left Kansas City with loads for Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The principal railroads centering at Kansas City are, the Hannibal &

St. Joseph railroad, the Kansas Pacific railroad, the Kansas City, Lawrence & Southern railroad, the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Gulf railroad, the Chicago & Alton railroad, the Atchison & Nebraska railroad, the Kansas City, St. Joseph & Council Bluffs railroad, the Missouri Pacific railway, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railway, the Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific railway, the Atchison, Topeka & Sante Fe railroad, the Kansas City & Eastern railroad, (narrow gauge). The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroad has extended its road to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and to Guyamas, on the Pacific coast; to San Francisco, California, and is building to the City of Mexico.

The elevator storage capacity in the city January 1, 1881, was 1,500,000 bushels. In 1879 about 1,600 new buildings were erected, costing $1,500,000. The U. S. postoffice and custom house building cost $200,000. The union depot building cost $300,000. The Kansas City stock yards rank as second only to those of Chicago in the extent and completeness of their facilities for the cattle trade.

The population of Kansas City, by U. S. census in June, 1880, was 62,977 Taxable wealth, $13,378,950. Cost of new buildings erected during the year 1880, $2,200,000*

St. Joseph. In 1803 Joseph Robidon, a French fur trader, located here, and continued to occupy his place and trade with the Indians for 33 years. Up to 1843 the place contained only two log cabins, and a small flouring mill on Black Snake creek. In June, 1843, Mr. Robidoux received his title from the government to 160 acres of land, and laid out the city, which was called St. Joseph in his honor, and not, as is commonly supposed, in honor of the Saint Joseph of the church calendar. January 1, 1846, the town had 600 inhabitants, having been incorporated as a village February 26, 1845, with Joseph Robidoux as president of the board of trustees. The first city charter was obtained February 22, 1851, but it has been many times amended. The population was: In 1850, 3,460; in 1860, 8,932; in 1870, 19,625; in 1880, 32,461.

St. Joseph is situated on the east bank of the Missouri, 545 miles from its mouth, 2,000 miles from the great falls, nearly 1,300 miles below the mouth of the Yellowstone, 310 miles from St. Louis by railroad, with which it is connected by three different lines, and 565 miles from St. Louis by river; but it is only 180 miles on an air line from the Mississippi river. The latitude of St. Joseph is 39 degrees 47 minutes north, and the same parallel passes through Indianapolis, and within less than four miles of Denver, Colorado, Springfield, Illinois, and the famous Mason and Dixon's line, separating Maryland and Pennsylvania, reaching the Atlantic coast half way from Cape May to New York City, and the Pacific, two degrees

*These statistics are gathered mostly from the able annual reports of W. H. Miller, Esq., who has been secretary of the Kansas City Board of Trade continuously since 1873.

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