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Steamboats on the upper Missouri 1862 to 1887

NOTE: This text: Suggests that the steamboat business on the upper Missouri declined drastically, with the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad (May 10, 1869), which allowed freight to be shipped by rail to Corrine, Utah and then hauled by wagon train to the western mining towns in Montana. This route called the Corrine-Virginia City Road, or the Salt Lake= Montana Trail seriously cut into the steamboat freight traffic, until 1859 when a new trade developed to Canada via the "Whoop Up" Trail, which caused Fort Benton to make a remarkable comeback. (page 36 to 40).

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Prior to the 1860's steamboats brought supplies and passengers to the upper Missouri for the fur trade and buffalo robe trade. However, after 1862 and 1863, gold discoveries in the western Montana Territories (Alder Gulch at Virginia City, Last Chance Gulch at Helena, Confederate Gulch at Diamond City, Grasshopper Gulch at Bannock) so increased the demands for freight, that steamboat traffic on the upper Missouri suddenly offered the chance of huge profits. Steamboats were the one reliable method of transporting goods (particularly the heavy bulky goods demanded by the expanding mining industry) and passengers from the down river Missouri ports to Ft. Benton, Montana, at the head of navigation on the Missouri. Five sixths of the gold mined in the Montana Territory was brought out by steamboats, and a single cargo of gold would often exceed one hundred thousand dollars. Ft. Benton was suddenly propelled into a trading and rendezvous center of great commercial importance. Steamboat arrivals at Ft. Benton went from about 6 a year in 1865 to 31 in 1866 and 39 in 1867, transporting 8,000 tons of goods and 10,000 passengers each year.

A riverboat took about 2 months to go upriver from St. Louis to the head of navigation at Ft. Benton, a distance of some 2600 river miles. Freight was then forwarded on by a relatively short overland journey (200 miles) to the heart of the mining districts. The down river trip by steamboat, with the help of the swift current, was much swifter, and could be made in 2 to 4 weeks.

A riverboat could pay for itself in one round trip from St. Louis to Ft. Benton, hauling supplies and passengers up to the mining camps and bringing down passengers and gold. One steamboat once hauled a cargo valued at $1,250,000.00 in gold and gold dust from Fort Benton, Montana. This was considered "the most valuable cargo of treasure ever transported on the Missouri."

The upper Missouri was a term usually given to the last 1300 miles from Ft. Randall(a military post on the southern border of the Dakota Territory) to Ft. Benton traversed the remote plains and breaks along the Missouri River. Along this route there were no ports, only a few military posts which were often attacked by Indians. The upper Missouri presented a severe challenge to a river pilot who had to contend with shifting channels, low water during the “dry season”, swift rapids, rocks, snags, and occasional marauding bands of Indians. Wood hawks cut and sold wood on the river banks, but if no such source was available, the boat would pull over and all the passengers and crew would pitch in to "wood up".

A boat coming upriver from St. Louis left just after the ice went out, and tried to catch the high water in May, June and early July on the upper Missouri from the melting Rocky Mountain snow pack. Heavy draft boats from the lower Missouri, tempted by the potential of huge profits, often came to grief on the upper Missouri, if the river became too low for these boats after the spring floods had subsided. Light draft riverboats, designed for the upper Missouri could operate throughout the summer. Some of these light draft riverboats could make two round trips from St. Louis to Ft. Benton in a season, but this was the exception and not the rule. Boats that remained up the Missouri, late in the year, ran the risk of being caught in ice and damaged or sunk when the Montana winter set in.

There were also opportunities for steamboats doing work under contract to the U.S. Army, including bringing supplies to forts, and supporting surveys or military expeditions, on the Missouri River and also on the Yellowstone River.

The completion of the Northern Pacific Railroad up the Yellowstone in 1882, and the Great Northern Railroad crossing Montana north of the Missouri in 1887 spelled the end of riverboat steamer traffic.

Sources

Texts

• Hanson, Joseph Mills,"The Conquest of the Missouri, Being the Story of the Life and Exploits of Captain Grant Marsh", (Chicago, A.C. McClurg & Co. 1909). A biography of Grant Marsh, this book is also a history of steamboats on the Missouri. Available online at Internet Archive
• Lass, William E., "Navigating the Missouri/ Steamboating on Nature’s Highway, 1819-1935", (University of Oklahoma Press,2007).
• Lepley, John G, "Packets to Paradise Steamboating to Fort Benton", (River & Plains Society, 2001)
• Overholser, Joel, "Fort Benton World’s Innermost Port", (River & Plains Society, 1987),
• Corbin, Corbin, "The Life And Times of the Steamboat Red Cloud: Or How Merchants, Mounties, And the Missouri Transformed the West", (Texas A&M University Press, 2006)
• Chittenden, Hiram Martin, "History Of Early Steamboat Navigation On The Missouri River: Life And Adventures Of Joseph La Barge" (Francis P. Harper, New York, 1903) ISBN-10: 1163235393, ISBN-10: 1163235393, as an e-book, on line.
• O'Neil, Paul, The Rivermen, The Old West Series, (Time-Life Books, 1974),

Articles

• Gerber, Max E., The Steamboat and Indians of the Upper Missouri, South Dakota History Quarterly, Spring 1974, Volume 4, No.2., pp 139-160.
• Nichols, Ralph E. "Steamboat Navigation on the Missouri River", Department of History Collections - South Dakota, Volume XXVI, South Dakota State Historical Society, 1952, pp 183-220.
• Oviatt, Alton B., "Steamboat Traffic on the Upper Missouri River, 1859-1869", The Pacific Northwest Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 2 (Apr., 1949), pp. 93-105, Published by: University of Washington

Websites

• the Mullen Project

External Links

• Steamboat Postal History of Dakota Territory