In the 1850s, St. Louis, Missouri was one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States, with a population of around 77,000 people that included large immigrant communities from Germany, Ireland, and Italy, as well as a significant African American population of both free and enslaved people. Sitting along the Mississippi River and serving as a gateway to the Oregon and Santa Fe trails, the city was a powerhouse of trade, steamboat traffic, and heavy industry — and a flashpoint for the era’s deepest political divisions over slavery. The rare photographs and illustrations below offer a direct look at St. Louis during that turbulent decade.
Fire was not the only cause of disaster along the riverfront, for spring thaws took their toll, too. This scene shows some of the damage that resulted from ice breaking up in 1856. Note the throng attracted to the levee. Ice was a deadly menace to the wooden-hulled steamboats, locking them to the shore and then crumpling them into splintered wrecks when it thawed and began to break.
The streets were completely covered in water and makeshift planks provided a safe walking platform for people to cross from boats to the semi-submerged buildings. Two people can be seen assessing the flood damage from the rooftop of the tallest building on the left of the photograph, while others on the right stand safely on the deck of a steamboat.
Ummm…there were no automobiles lining the streets in 1857!