1829: The River Opens to Steamboats

It is difficult to imagine the Illinois River valley in 1825. There are no roads to transport freight overland, just trails in which stagecoaches and wagons become mired in hub-deep mud. Until the railroads appear, the river is the only significant means of transport.

Travel down the Illinois River via keelboats, flatboats, and barges is slow in 1825. Flatboats are unwieldy and are broken up for lumber after they arrive at their destination. All three utilize steering oars for power (Latrobe 1871). This slow, cumbersome travel on the Illinois River is about to change.

In 1807, Robert Fulton designs the Clermont, the first successful boat utilizing steam power (see Figure 3). Soon after, steamboats are used successfully in the East, but no one knows whether they can be used in western rivers. In 1811, Nicholas Roosevelt determines to find out, constructs the steamboat New Orleans, and travels the length of the Ohio River and down the Natchez to Natchez, thus proving the viability of the steamboat on western rivers. On the journey, he encounters the Chickasaw Indians who help chop wood for the steam engine. They refer to the steamboat as “Penelore” or “fire Canoe”, considering it an evil omen (Latrobe 1871). Soon, there is heavy steamboat traffic on the Mississippi River from St. Louis to Galena.

Figure 3: Fulton’s “The Clermont” (Fulton County High School)

In December 1829, the steamboat Liberty makes the first journey up the Illinois River to Peoria. By 1833, four steamboats are running on the Illinois River: Exchange, Utility, Peoria, and Friendship. In 1839, one steamboat captain claims his steamboat carried 10,000 passengers in 58 trips from St. Louis to Peru, a distance of 225 miles (ESLARP 1999). The expansion of steamboat travel continues, and by 1851, according to the Drown’s Directory, 59 steamboats arrive in Peoria; a year later the number leaps to 1,236.

The introduction of the steamboat on the Illinois River has significant consequences for both air and water quality. One of the first businesses along the river provides loggers to supply wood for the boilers of the steamboats (CTAP 1997) from forests adjacent to the river. The loss of forest cover and increased soil erosion are among the consequences of this activity. The burning of wood or coal in the steam engines discharges soot and other airborne pollutants, some of which settle into the river and change the ambient water quality. The wake of the steamboats also erodes the banks and increases the turbidity of the river.

The most significant indirect impact of the advent of the steamboat, however, is the ability to transport people efficiently into the region, leading to rapid increases in population and changes in land use that are detrimental to the river. In Peoria, immigration begins to occur in 1834 as people from the “older States” seek homes among “the broad acres of the Prairie State, and commerce on the river attained such magnitude as to warrant enlarged transportation facilities” (Johnson and Johnson 1880).