MISSISSIPPI RIVER SERVES AS HIGHWAY FOR DEVELOPMENT; TRAVEL CHANGES FROM DUGOUTS TO DISEL-POWERED TOWBOATS

During the 200 years of Cape Girardeau's existence, the Mississippi River has served as a "highway of water" for transporting people and goods in and out of the city.

When Ensign Jean Girardot founded his trading post near Cape Rock, early settlers in the area used dugouts, or pirogues to travel by water or transport their furs, hides and other goods. The pirogue was nothing more than a fashioned, hollowed out tree, usually cottonwood, poplar or tulip.

Later, the flatboat and keelboat were developed. Both could carry much more cargo to New Orleans. The flatboat was simply a raft of logs lashed together with the cargo and a small tent for shelter. At New Orleans, the boats were dismantled, and the wood sold, since there was no practical way to bring them back upriver.

The arrival of the first steamboat on the Mississippi River in 1811 signaled the beginning of a transportation era in the United States that would last well into the early 1900s. It would also stimulate the greatest growth in the history of Cape Girardeau.

"Until 1817, when the first steamboat landed here, Cape Girardeau was nothing more than a small, isolated village that was only accessible with great difficulty to St. Louis," says Bob White of the Center for Regional History at Southeast Missouri State University. "Flatboats and keelboats could float south from Cape to New Orleans, but they could not make the return trip."

White says the steam packet boat, with its ability to travel up and down the river to St. Louis and Memphis and New Orleans, was important for Cape Girardeau because it opened up the small town to the outside world.

"Between 1817 and the arrival of the Frisco Railroad, shortly after the turn of the century, just about anyone and everything that came into or out of Cape Girardeau was transported by steamboat," White says. "There were no good highways during this period, only rutted wagon trails.

"The Mississippi River was a source of life and commerce to Cape Girardeau. For much of the 19th century, for anybody to go anywhere from Cape Girardeau, they traveled by steamboat."

Besides transporting people, the steam packet boats carried farm products, commodities, and finished goods and merchandise in and out of Cape Girardeau.

"Most of the old buildings along Water Street were not only retail stores, but wholesale commission houses that purchased the farmer's products and shipped them to St. Louis or Memphis or New Orleans," White says. "The packet line steamboats that operated on the Mississippi River made regular stops each week at Cape Girardeau to deliver and pick up passengers and cargo."

In his book, "Memories of Cape Girardeau and Old Man River," Lee L. Albert recalls, "The (steam)boats had a tremendous carrying capacity for all kinds of freight. The heavy freight was placed on the bottom (boiler) deck, and the lighter freight on the upper deck. It was a common sight to see the boats loaded to the guards on the lower deck, and the wagons and new buggies on the top deck."

Albert said packet boats that left Cape Girardeau returned from New Orleans each week with shipments of fresh fruits and vegetables.

White said packet boats bound for St. Louis, Memphis and New Orleans left Cape with livestock, farm products, and other cargoes, and returned with merchandise billed to the Water Street wholesale houses.

"Because of the steamboat, Cape Girardeau became an important distribution point for the inland communities in this area," he explained. "During this period, most of the merchants in Cape, and wholesale houses, received their goods and merchandise by packet boat because it was the fastest and cheapest form of transportation.

"Even when Louis Houck built his railroad to connect with the Iron Mountain at Allenville, it was still quicker and more comfortable to book passage on one of the packet boats for St. Louis than to ride a bumpy train. For those merchants whose stores were in towns away from the river, it was cheaper and faster to have their merchandise shipped to Cape Girardeau by steamboat, then delivered by horse and wagon."

White said this form of commerce and transportation continued well into the mid- and late 1920s. The Great Depression, the opening of the Frisco Railroad, and the construction of the Mississippi River bridge at Cape Girardeau eventually spelled the end of the steam packet boat era in Cape Girardeau. With the arrival of the Frisco Railroad, it was now faster and cheaper to ride the train to St. Louis, or drive, since new highways were being constructed.

Although Cape Girardeau turned its back on the river, in favor of the railroad and Highway 61, not everyone abandoned the Mississippi as a source for waterway transportation.

In the 1920s and '30s, the steam packet boat began to be replaced by the steam paddle-wheel towboat that evolved into today's powerful diesel-powered towboats. But instead of carrying passengers, towboats pushed barges that carried thousands of tons of bulk commodities, such as grain, coal, fertilizer and petroleum products at extremely low prices.

Woodrow "Woody" Rushing of Cape Girardeau, now a semi-retired towboat captain and pilot, recalls his first job in 1934 was on a steam-powered, paddle-wheel towboat that pushed barges filled with sand and gravel on the Ohio River.

"The packet boats had a real romantic look about them with all their fancy wood and iron work, but it was the towboats that moved the cargo and made money," Rushing said. "And the old steamboats were much harder to steer than the towboats."

Rushing says two Cape Girardeau men, Eddie A. Erlbacher and his brother, Robert W. Erlbacher, were pioneers in the development and use of diesel engines in towboats.

Between them, the two men built and operated a number of diesel-powered towboats at Cape Girardeau. Several of them are still in operation. They also formed a barge line to transport products on the river.

Today, the Missouri Drydock and Repair Service shipyard at Cape Girardeau is the only such facility on the Mississippi River between St. Louis and Memphis. Its sister company, Missouri Barge Lines, Inc., also operates a barge fleeting service that services the Southeast Missouri Regional Port Authority and a local grain elevator. Both the shipyard and barge line are still owned and operated by the Erlbacher family.

Although the pirogue, flatboat, keelboat, and packet steamboat have passed into history, newer steam boats, such as the Delta Queen and Mississippi Queen, continue to remind us of our Mississippi River heritage each time they dock at the Cape Girardeau waterfront.

Towboats that travel up and down the Mississippi River make frequent stops at Cape Girardeau to pick up and drop off barges loaded with cargo. The barge tows are a constant reminder that the Mississippi River remains one of the most important transportation resources to Cape Girardeau and the United States.