John Caspar Wild, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons/Wikimedia image
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute.
The importance of St. Louis when looking at the history of American agriculture cannot be overstated. With railroads just beginning to be important in the late 1850s, the riverboat traffic dominated transportation and trade, and St. Louis flourished as the center, connections east along the Illinois, Ohio, Cumberland and Tennessee rivers, west along the Missouri River, and north and south along the Mississippi.
In 1845, St. Louis was connected by telegraph to the east coast. And that same year the first banks and colleges west of the Mississippi were established all near St. Louis.
That’s today’s American Agriculture History Minute. I’m Mark Oppold. Thanks for reading. I’ll see you next time.