Show A T P iMi Kim law itzoe 0 a y r S MIGHTY ind progress the world has seen in alie past beara are strikingly in the centennial celebration pt the ficor loh ot st louis picturesque pageants with everything in the was of the spectacular which is ffrost likely to stir the imagination of the spectator arto the flork ot the past through con with the present feature the weeks program tl e greater pirt of abo history ot early st louis 1 really moro fit for the unwritten american epic poem thair it Is for mere prose its work as a frontier own in the first halt ot the nineteenth century made it the mid continental city of the united states jn the second halt its pioneer trade routes are now the great routes of steam transportation between the rio grande and the canadian border and be tween the mississippi and the pacific it established the first water routes from the headwaters of the ohio to the mouth of the missouri and of the illinois opening the first water connection for steam transportation between the onlo and the upper mississippi and missouri developing the ohio river states on loth sides of that stream every state now on the map west of the was penetrated by its business pioneers ohp first centers of trade the whole west Is interested with st louis in celebrating this great event because in founding the first great city of the trans mississippi west the pioneers made the western beginnings now in acores of other western cities and in actual thou sands of other incorporated towns which it they are not already great are not unduly modest la their expectations of becoming so TBS 1 tation to a thousand majors of american cities to participate in the festivities shows that st louis fully appreciates its position as tho pioneer city of tho great west As there were less than houses including outhouses out houses and barns in the st louis which ancor borated ib 1809 it could not have had much over people the town was already the chief seat of the western fur trade with its trading stations pushed to the headwaters of the arkansas and far cowards the sources of the missouri ana the yel doing business wholly by barter with no money in hand in sight or in alon with resources represented almost wholly by the spirit of its pt ople with the ax and and blacksmiths sledge as its implements with the one horse cart the keelboat and canoa as its atlon facilities the little town when it incorporated already looked on its work as that of opening up the united states tf the future to the rocky mountains and beyond them to the pa cefic in it had lost Merl weather lewis but t still hid his companion explorer william flirk to for the spirit of the american and french mal era of destiny who thou ht little moru of starting a thousand miles into the un known west from st louis than the average st louisan now thinks of starling for the pacific coast in a sleeping car I 1 rom a village of inhabitants to the fourth city in the united states with a of three quarters of a million la a wonderful accle ement but it sinks into when compared with the giant strides of the past cen tury jn tho world of science the arts aind very beld of endeavor which maus for a higher and better civilization it la a severe strain on the imagination to at to bridge over the gap between the meaning of an alamp crossing iho mississippi river at st bouts louts alls icar and what the ancient keel boats of 1809 meant as they landed at the foot of walnut street where the town was founded in by the pioneers who had paddled and cor belled thur bateaux painfully up the river from I 1 ew orleans under laclede as be advanced in the bold attempt to control the fur trade of halt a with his handful of men the keelboat then was no more out of date than the airship is now it was the best modern boat in 1809 which could be equipped by the caal tal of st louis of new orleans or of philadel abla because ot it philadelphia and st louis commanded Lomm the east and west movement of busi ness as that north and adouth was commanded by new orleans and st louis as soon as their first fleets of were regularly organized it helped to make great history even if t did have to be pulled up stream by a rope dragged by men on the bank thin distance in point of change in the way hang are done Is almost impassable for the yke WO OLIV STREET TODAY or By CLEDE floh me a m mind in point of vs fact in st louis it Is only a matter of the third generation between keelboat and aeroplane in 1907 the first airship on record as crossing the elpel river crossed it at st louis dur ing ahe at contests ot that year it Is something to remember now as part of the record to which belongs tha his tory of the first locomotive crossing the mississippi abst louis in to complete the work of the st louis argonauts ot 1849 crossing to the pacific in their pral rie schooners ners if we suppose aero planes and airships circling in the air above the st bouli keelboat landing of a hundred years ago we may imagine it we can how they appear to the men whose grandfathers not only navigated the river in keelboats keel boats but lay flat behind the goods the boats were loaded with while they ft era being shot at by indiana along the banks it Is almost it not quite as hard now to imag ine what the world meant before the age of etcar as it Is to think out what will be its mean ing in the ige 0 the perfected airship and aero plane every contrast possible in the st louis week of pageants Is a challenge to look backward and forward in the attempt to fand out what a hundred years already mean ai tre first success in the attempt to find what it is to mean shortly tor this generation and for tho of this generation in 2009 the makers of the centennial week program were keenly alive to the opportunities tor spectacular effat suggested by the most striking of the worlds progress the events buch as balloon races aeroplane and darl gahle balloon contests suggest the future possibilities bili ties of transportation in contrast with those ot ISO foi comparison with automobiles and the bateni bate ni of La cledes day with its ennst its cordele and its sweeps Is an feature of the water pageant which includes crafts of all abo kinds which now ply tho waters of the mississippi the veiled prophets pageant page int unique and picturesque Is another tea ture which is full of interest the edu rational cat ional parade the parade representing 3 of at louis industries the procession of a thou sand mayors and tho other events which find a place on the program all suggest that as a great week for st louig its centennial week Is still greater as it belongs to a hundred years of history mal ing for the continental united states the city of st louis was founded by alerre leclede in 1764 the territory west of the mississippi river was then in possession of WRIGHT orile WIGHT biance laded landed at the toot of what la now market street organized the village and resided there for 11 1 1 ears he named the new site st louis fp honor of loula XV the reigning of france the territory was transferred by france to spain by secret treaty in 1762 but it not announced in the new village until october 1764 in spain the sovereignty to france and on april 30 france sold all the territory west of the mississippi river known as the louisiana purchase to the united states for 15 napoleon remarking this accession of territory strengthens fore er the power of the united states with less thin a thousand inhabitants when the whole country had not quite seven and a quarter million in 1809 st louis emerged from the era of the keelboat and pirogue to pioneer the i steamboat on western biyers loading its first sc W steamboat in it had more than doubled its population of 1810 in 1820 from in 1820 two decades of gave it in 1840 about that time it began its great transcontinental work with the prairie schooner reinforcing the steamboat in pv crand transit with the trans continental conti rental overland movement to oregon aa well as california growing in tt had 77 people and was its work as the first pioneer of railroads to the after bringing the first locomotive west of the mississippi in it more than doubled its population in that decade reach ing in with the foundations of the states now west of the river already laid along its first trade routes in it advanced in the next two decides to people chicago was passing tt in population then without being able to take from it ilg historical place as the first great city of the west the pioneer and founder of the west of the present since 1880 it has doubled its population onse more advancing from to over U its present rate of increase responsive spon sive to that of the mississippi valley st louis li doubling business in a little over 10 years its bank clearings increased from in 1869 to 3 in 1908 its tonnage of dise received and forwarded was tons for the first six months of this year its bank resources reported june 23 1909 at more than double the total of the tenth year back such figures illustrate much more than local progress they are mid continental before they become local in the sense that the people of the whole area between the allegheny and rocky mountains are now exerting new energies and new forces of growth unforeseen even aa late as 10 ears ago As the percentages of this growth are of course greatest west of the aher st I 1 auls has almost made itself over in 15 years in growing up to the new growth 0 the country since it began work for the worlds tair tho louisiana purchase it has learned to on itself in the last decade of the nineteenth century as old st louis in looking back to the older st louis of 1809 it can boast ahat as a frontier outpost it led the nr ogress of the continental united states in looking tor ward in its centennial year it can see that the greatest results of the history it has made are only tho beginnings of greater results which belong to the immediate future of tho continental united states choso whoso progress makes the frontier town 0 1809 the city of 1909 |