Читать книгу St. Louis - The Fourth City, Volume 2 - Walter Barlow Stevens - Страница 6

Those old-time workers may have been a little too conservative, sometimes timid, – "old fogies," you would call them nowadays, – but they were scrupulously honest in their dealings, strict constructionists in their regard for contracts, men of untarnished integrity in meeting their engagements, and it is to their practice and example that the present high commercial credit of St. Louis, both at home and abroad, is greatly due. However strong and promising the present may be, I cannot, as your oldest member, say a better word than this, – that we should hold fast to the early traditions of the Chamber of Commerce, and maintain that high regard for honorable dealings which has characterized the past, so that to be a recognized member of the St. Louis Merchants' Exchange may always and everywhere be a passport to respect and confidence. Consider through what trials and difficulties we have thus far advanced. No city has suffered greater reverses by fire, pestilence and flood, by financial crises, by internal dissensions and civil war; and yet we have passed through all, chiefly by the sturdy strength and steadfastness of our business men. – Wayman Crow, 1875.

More flippantly than accurately, a writer on the colonial commerce of the settlement said a St. Louis merchant in 1790 was "a man who, in the corner of his cabin, had a large chest which contained a few pounds of powder and shot, a few knives and hatchets, a little red paint, two or three rifles, some hunting shirts of buckskin, a few tin cups and iron pots, and perhaps a little tea, coffee, sugar and spice."

Bills of exchange which passed from hand to hand in the colonial period were not always based upon shaved deerskins and other furs, although that kind of circulating medium was most common. Occasionally financial transactions took a form of which the following is an illustration:

"Bon pour six livre de Barbue, a St. Louis, ce 25Sbre, 1799. –

"ANTOINE ROY."

Turned into English this French copy of an original paper which meant value would read:

"Good for six pounds of catfish, at St. Louis, the 25th September, 1799. –

"ANTOINE ROY."

St. Louis was a fine fish market in the days of the fur traders. Catfish, buffalo fish and the more delicate silver fish were caught and marketed by residents of the settlement who followed that as a business. Antoine Roy dealt in fish and issued orders on himself as the equivalent of money.

In 1805 was made what may be considered the first review of the trade and commerce of St. Louis. It was prepared by Antoine Soulard, who held the office of surveyor of Upper Louisiana. It was dated "At St. Louis of the Illinois, March, 1805." Mr. Soulard's report showed the year's trade at St. Louis amounted to $77,971. The items were skins, hides, tallow and fat and bears' grease. The largest item was dressed deer skins, of which St. Louis handled 96,000, valued at $28,000. The next item of trade was beaver pelts, of which St. Louis handled 12,000 pounds, valued at $14,737. Mr. Soulard said:

This table, which is made as correct as possible on an average of fifteen years, gives the amount of $77,971. The goods carried up the Missouri and exchanged for this peltry would amount to $61,250, reckoning the charges to be a one-fourth part of the worth of the articles. From this it follows that the trade favors an annual profit of $16,721 or a profit of 27 per cent.

Mr. Soulard proceeds with an argument intending to show the possibilities of improving St. Louis' trade and commerce. He says:

If the Missouri trade, badly regulated and without encouragement, gives annually such a profit there can be no doubt of its increase if encouraged by the government. It must be observed that the prices fixed in the table are those current at the Illinois. If the London prices were taken and deducted from the charges the profits would appear much greater. If the Missouri river of the savages and having but a single branch of trade favors such great returns in proportion to the capital employed in it, what might we not expect from investment by companies with large funds aided by a numerous population and devoting themselves to other kinds of traffic? Some of these, I am bold to say, may be undertaken with a certainty of success when we consider the riches offered by its banks of which in this note I have endeavored to sketch an outline.

Antoine Soulard had been surveyor of Upper Louisiana for several years and had' traveled about considerably. He was greatly impressed with "The Incalculable Riches Along the Banks of the Missouri." As early as March, 1805, he enumerated the kinds of wood and the uses to which they might be put. He spoke of the knowledge which the Indians had of trees and of forest plants, and, in the course of his statements, he said:

They derive from certain plants with great care and system that product which renders them insensible to the most vehement fire. I have seen them take hold of red-hot irons and burning coals without suffering any inconvenience.

In 1816 the prices on staple articles of the market which prevailed in St. Louis were as follows:

Beef, on foot, per cwt $ 4.00 Flour, horse-mill, S. fine, per cwt. $ 6.00

Butter, per lb $ 0.25 Wheat, per bu $ 1.00

Bees wax, per lb $ 0.25 Rye, per bu $0.62 ½

Candles, per lb $ 0.25 Barley, per bu $ 0.75

Cheese, per lb $ 0.25 Corn, per bu $ 0.37

Cheese, common, per lb $0.12 ½ Oats, per bu $ 0.37

Boards, none in market $ 0.00 Gunpowder, per lb $ 1.00

Cider, none in market $ 0.00 Hams, per lb $ 0.12

Coffee, per lb $ 0.50 Hides, per piece $ 2.75

Cotton, per lb $ 0.40 Hogs' lard, per lb $ 0.12

Cotton yarn, No. 10 $ 1.25 Bears' lard, per gal $ 1.50

Feathers, per lb $ 0.50 Honey, per gal $ 1.00

The price of a load of wood on the little carts was "six bits" or seventy-five cents. The Americans started and preserved a tradition that one of these honest vendors of wood was offered a dollar for his load and that he cried 'out "Seex beets! seex beets! No more, no less!"

The first regular bookstore was opened on Main street by Daniel Hough and Thomas Essex about 1820. Mr. Hough was from New Hampshire, educated at Dartmouth. In 1820 St. Louis was importing goods, annually valued at "upwards of $2,000,000." The Indian trade was considered to be worth $600,000.

"Heavy groceries" constituted a distinct branch of the trade of St. Louis for many years. The Colliers, the Lacklands, the Glasgows were dealers in heavy groceries. They would be called importers now. They brought to St. Louis sugar by the boat load, coffee, tea and a few other staples in enormous quantities, selling them at small margin as desired by jobbers. The business experience of Henry Von Phul, who lived to be the oldest merchant in St. Louis and died in his 91st year, dated back to the first decade of the century, when he was employed by James Hart at Lexington, Ky. Mr. Hart was the brother-in-law of Henry Clay, and the son of the man for whom Thomas H. Benton was named. Young Von Phul began his commercial career by taking charge of keel boats loaded with flour, lead and provisions. He floated down stream, stopping at the principal towns on the Mississippi river, trading his products for cotton. He continued this until he reached New Orleans, where he sold the cotton and other products that had not been traded, as well as the keel boats. He then returned on horseback to Lexington, where he made up another shipment and repeated the voyage and the trading. This was the business Mr. Von Phul followed until he came to St. Louis in 1811. The head of the Von Phul family was born in Philadelphia. His mother was a Graff, coming from Lancaster. Henry Von Phul arrived in St. Louis to find the horsemen organizing under Colonel Nathan Boone to fight in the war against England. He joined the command. After the war of 1812 Henry Von Phul married the daughter of Doctor Antoine F. Saugrain and began his career as' a merchant on Main street. To him were born fifteen children. Through sixty-three years Henry Von Phul was a business man in St. Louis. He saw the first steamboat land. He invested in steamboats. He conducted for many years one of the largest commercial houses in the Mississippi valley. His credit was such that many western banks kept their St. Louis balances with him. In 1872, at the age of eighty-eight, Mr. Von Phul, after passing safely through crisis after crisis, was involved through endorsements of the obligations of Von Phul Brothers of New Orleans. Against the earnest advice of his counsel, this sturdy old captain of industry paid every dollar of the debts for which he was responsible legally or morally with interest at eight per cent. This action swept away what was a great fortune for those days. Two years later Henry Von Phul died almost poor, leaving a record which is part of the glory of St. Louis commercial integrity.

"Collier's luck" was a common expression in St. Louis business circles during the thirty years of one man's activities. George Collier had many and widely varied interests. He had more partners in his time, probably, than any other St. Louisan. In the selection of these associates he showed remarkable judgment. Largely for that reason everything he went into turned out well. The Colliers, John and George, were Marylanders by birth. Their father had owned a farm and had been engaged in the coasting trade, and died when the boys were young. Their mother, a woman of force, sent them to Wylie's academy, a business school of high standing in Philadelphia. John Collier came west in 1816 and George Collier followed two years later. Beginning with a small mercantile trade, they expanded their business until they were selling "heavy groceries" throughout St. Louis territory. John Collier died in 1821 and George Collier continued the store taking into partnership Peter Powell, another young man from Maryland. In 1830 George Collier retired from the store with considerable capital. He entered upon what was an entirely new field for St. Louis and upon what meant a great deal to a number of St. Louisans. Selecting young men who showed ability and energy, Mr. Collier furnished the capital for venture after venture. His favorite investments for ten or twelve years were in steamboats. But his methods were entirely original with him. Having made up his mind favorably as to the qualifications of the young man, Mr. Collier sent him around to the Ohio river to build a steamboat. The trade to be served was carefully considered. The boat was planned for that special trade. Mr. Collier supplied the credit. The silent partner remained in Pittsburg, actively superintending the construction. When the boat was completed the partner became the captain, steamed to St. Louis and entered upon the trade selected and received a share of the profits. If there were no profits; if the boat was not suited for the trade; if the plans proved to have been ill advised, Mr. Collier quickly disposed of the boat. It was one of his rules to get out of an unprofitable venture as quickly as the turn could be made. But the capitalist was seldom mistaken in his estimate of his silent partner or in his judgment of the kind of a boat that would pay on any particular river. He entered boats for transportation business in all directions from St. Louis. At times he had as many as half a score on the rivers. Men who became capitalists themselves, laid the foundation of their fortunes by operating boats in which George Collier gave them an interest. Sullivan Blood, the early president of the Boatmen's bank, John Simonds who became the partner in the private banking house of Lucas & Simonds, N. J. Eaton who resigned his commission in the United States army, and Rufus J. Lackland were among the silent partners of George Collier.

Mr. Collier bought and shipped lead in great quantities. He invested in lead mines at Galena. When Henry T. Blow was struggling with the infant white lead industry of St. Louis, Mr. Collier became the largest individual subscriber to the Collier White Lead works. For some years he carried on a banking business, having as a partner William G. Pettus. Mr. Collier and Mr. Pettus married sisters, the Misses Morrison. In 1840 Mr. Collier retired from the banking business, Mr. Pettus continuing it. Two years later he formed the firm of Collier & Morrison which launched his brother-in-law into mercantile life. In 1847 George Collier retired and the house became William M. Morrison & Co., the silent partners being the young men, Rufus J. Lackland and Alfred Chadwick. At every new business step Mr. Collier extended a helping hand to some young man. He came to be looked upon as an adviser to all financial St. Louis. The second wife of George Collier was Miss Sarah A. Bell. The two daughters of Mr. Collier married brothers Henry and Ethan Allen Hitchcock. A grandson of George Collier was elected to the St. Louis circuit bench in 1908.

When Carlos S. Greeley started a wholesale grocery in St. Louis he put in no stock of liquor. The news traveled quickly up and down the Levee and Main street, that two young men from the east were going to try this experiment. The trade generally looked on with amusement. Predictions were made that the new firm would not last. Greeley was under thirty when with Mr. Sanborn he opened the store on the Levee in 1838. The elimination of "wet groceries" wasn't altogether a novelty to Mr. Greeley. When the young man left his native New Hampshire he had about $100 made in "swapping steers" and other property which had come into his possession. He found employment in the retail grocery of Moses Pettingill at Brockport, New York. Mr. Pettingill was running a grocery without liquor and making money. Afterwards he became one of the most successful pioneer merchants of Peoria. Greeley bought out his employer and continued the policy of selling no whiskey. When he came to St. Louis he had this experience and a capital of about $5,000. His first partner was Mr. Sanborn who had been with him in the Brockport store. Mr. Gale, a Salisbury, New Hampshire, friend of Mr. Greeley, bought out Mr. Sanborn. The "dry grocery" house of Greeley & Gale made money from the beginning. It grew into one of the institutions of the city. The profits helped to build the Kansas Pacific railroad, the line from Sedalia to Warsaw, the St. Louis and Illinois railroad; they were represented in the capital of the National Bank of Commerce and the Boatmen's; they helped to establish the Belcher Sugar refinery, the St. Louis Cotton Factory, the Crystal City Plate Glass company. They contributed generously to Drury College, to Lindenwood Seminary, to the Mercantile Library, to Washington University.

The Jaccards were Swiss. Louis Jaccard came first, in 1829. His nephew Eugene Jaccard followed in 1837. The association of the name with the jewelry business in St. Louis eighty years ago began with the elder Jaccard working as a journeyman for nine dollars a week. D. Constant Jaccard, another member of the family, a cousin of Louis and Eugene, came from St. Croix to St. Louis in 1848, leaving Switzerland because of the political disturbances. He founded the house of Mermod, Jaccard & King.

It was said of Augustus F. Shapleigh, who was the father of the wholesale hardware trade of St. Louis, that he never asked an extension on a loan and never let a just bill be presented a second time for payment. The sales of the hardware jobbers of St. Louis are more than the combined sales of all the hardware jobbers of New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore.

One of the merchants who suffered in the great fire was Adolphus Meier. Three years before, Mr. Meier had come from his home in Germany and had established himself in the hardware business with his brother-in-law John C. Rust.. At six o'clock in the morning he saw the roof of his store fall in. At eight o'clock he had drawn the plans for a new store and had placed the contracts for the brick work and lumber.

The founder of the Merrell Drug company, Jacob Spencer Merrell, at the age of fifteen paid his father $150 for his time. He worked his way westward; on the Erie canal from his New York birthplace. He took deck passage on a Lake Erie boat. He cut cordwood, on what is now part of Toledo. He worked in a Lexington, Ky., grocery for ten dollars a month, hired a horse and traveled through the mountains buying furs. When he sold his furs in Cincinnati he saw a little drug factory for sale and bought it on credit. The rest was steady progress. When Mr. Merrell came to St. Louis in 1853, he had the capital to establish himself in a strong position. When the American Medical college was established, Mr. Merrell was one of the founders.

The Funkhouser family was of patriotic descent, moving from Virginia to Kentucky and then to Illinois. An ancestor v was Colonel Cross, of fame in the Revolutionary war. Robert M. Funkhouser, the head of the family in St. Louis, reached Alton in the spring of 1840 with a capital of fifty dollars. He found the town full of young men looking for openings, went down to the river and took the first boat for St. Louis. The second evening after he reached this city he went into an auction sale, which in the early years was a popular form of evening amusement. The auctioneer was selling looking glasses at what appeared to the young school teacher to be very cheap. Mr. Funkhouser bought four dozen and the next day went through the city offering looking glasses for sale at retail. He was so vigorous in his business methods that he attracted the attention of a merchant, T. R. Selms, who engaged him on the spot as clerk at a salary of $250 a year with board thrown in. Mr. Funkhouser married the daughter of his first employer, became a merchant on his own account, a bank director, a savings association director and president of the Chamber of Commerce.

When John Kennard, Sr., grew old he placed the affairs of the house in the hands of his sons. He had been a devoted and consistent Methodist all his life, but he deemed it proper that the last days should be spent in quiet preparation for the end. Once the pastor, Rev. J. H. Linn, of Centenary, spoke to him; he found that Mr. Kennard had kept in view this sentiment, that a business man should close his earthly affairs in time so that the departure might not come to him unprepared. "I have my time now," Mr. Kennard said, "at discretion. I cannot help but be employed – that is my nature and my habit. But I have full confidence in my sons; I have committed these worldly matters into their hands – wholly into their hands."

James H. Brookmire, born in the suburbs of Philadelphia, began in St. Louis as a shipping clerk, in 1855, for his uncles the Hamills who were wholesale grocers on the Levee. He was noted for the thoroughness with which he studied the business, even perfecting himself in the chemistry of the principal products sold in his trade. He invented several things which came into general use by the trade.

The Orthweins came from Wuertemberg in 1854. They lived for a time in Logan county, Illinois. Charles F. Orthwein as a boy received advice and encouragement from Abraham Lincoln. He was a clerk in a country store before coming to St. Louis, just previous to the Civil war. As early as 1866, before he was thirty years old, Charles F. Orthwein startled St. Louis by chartering a steamboat and five barges to go up the river and load with grain. He was the early advocate of moving grain in bulk down the river. His proposition, which he urged with great force, was, that the economical exportation of grain must be down the river; that railroads must turn over their grain at St. Louis for the river route. To show what could be done Mr. Orthwein shipped 12,000 bushels of wheat by way of New Orleans to New York, where it arrived in perfect condition. This was the answer to the theory that grain sent out in bulk by water would suffer from temperature and moisture. Mr. Orthwein repeated his experiments until St. Louis grain men were convinced that grain could be exported in this way without heating. But the handicap was the want of a deep channel at the mouth of the Mississippi. Then St. Louis got behind Captain Eads and pushed for the jetties. The grain export trade of St. Louis by way of New Orleans went up to 15,000,000 bushels annually about 1880. William D. Orthwein, two years younger than Charles F., joined his brother in the grain business at St. Louis in 1862. He later took up milling in addition to the handling of grain. For fourteen years the house of Orthwein Brothers, with branches in several cities, was very powerful in the grain handling of the southwest. In one period the Orthweins exported 12,000,000 bushels of corn annually to Europe.

Of old New England, stock, the parents of Frank Orville Sawyer moved west from Exeter, New Hampshire, to Cincinnati. Mr. Sawyer was educated at Woodward College, Cincinnati. He came to St. Louis before the Civil war and founded the Sawyer Paper company.

How rapidly St. Louis extended her trade is shown in a statement of business made by six dry goods houses in 1853. These houses reported:

Sales in 1845 $1,119,657

Sales in 1853 $4,074,782

In eight years their increase of annual business was $2,955,724. But this was by no means an indication of the volume of St. Louis trade in the one line. There were at that time over twenty wholesale dry goods houses in this city. In 1855 St. Louis had fifty-two houses in the wholesale grocery business, selling goods annually to the value of $22,000,000. In 1881 the number of wholesale grocery houses was the same, fifty-two, with sales, exclusive of sugar and coffee and rice, reaching $30,000,000 a year. In 1908 the business done was $69,000,000.

In 1856 a missionary went east to inform the benighted on the Atlantic seaboard about St. Louis and the west. The mission was supported by the chamber of commerce, now the merchants' exchange. The lectures which Richard Smith Elliott was to deliver, according to the resolution of the chamber of commerce, embraced "facts in regard to the physical geography, natural resources, economic relations, and progress in wealth, morals and refinement of our part of the country." To his Boston audience in the state house Mr. Elliott described St. Louis as "a city of 125,000 people, with churches, schools, hotels, steamboats, newspapers and other institutions of civilized life." He said:

Our paved and macadamized streets would more than reach from Boston to Worcester. There are eighteen miles of public street sewers. The wharf stretches one mile and a quarter on the Mississippi, is several hundred feet wide, and, during the season of navigation is crowded with the products of every clime and soil. In 1855 there were 600,000 barrels of flour manufactured in St. Louis and over 400,000 received from other places, making a million of barrels, equaling the flour trade of Philadelphia. About 140,000 bags of coffee were received in 1855, enough to make a string of coffee bags more than fifty miles in length. The hemp, tobacco, pork, lard, wheat, bale-rope, flour, coffee, sugar and salt passing through the hands of St. Louis merchants in 1855 would, allowing the actual space occupied by each article, reach in one grand line from St. Louis to Boston. In 1840 St. Louis had 16,000 people; in 1855, she had 125,000. She added in fifteen years 109,000 to her population.

The growth of distribution from St. Louis as a manufacturing and commercial center was rapid. Shipments of produce and manufactures from this port by river to places on the interior waters of the United States are given in government reports. For the year ending June 30, 1851, these local shipments were:

Flour, bbls 648,520 Whiskey, bbls 29,916

Flour, sacks 2,156 Lard, bbls 47,450

Wheat, sacks 112,600 Lard, kegs 19,730

Oats, sacks 415,624 Lard, tons 421

Barley, sacks 17,487 Beef, tcs 5,111

Pork, hhds 108 Beef, bbls 4,538

Pork, tcs 5,012 Bacon, casks 24,432

Pork, bbls 122,948 Hemp, bales: 57,160

Lard, tcs 14,290 Hides 38,490

Lead, pigs 472,438 Nails, kegs 38,776

Lead bars, lbs 78,600 Glass, boxes 6,418

Tobacco, hhds 9,210 Salt, bbls 76,753

Tobacco, boxes 5,011 Cotton yarn, bags 6,180

Refined sugar, bbls 21,892 Wrought iron

Sugar, hhds 21,905 Manufactures, tons 15,345

Sugar, bbls 11,548 Castings, tons 30,840

Molasses, bbls 40,510

In 1860 the grain dealers of St. Louis began to hold meetings and to assert that the time had come for this market to handle grain in bulk instead of confining themselves to sacks. Henry and Edgar Ames and Albert Pearce offered to build an elevator. The necessary bill for a location on the river front went through the council but was vetoed by the mayor. The innovation was opposed. Not until 1864 was consent obtained to build the first elevator at the foot of Biddle street where the electric power plant is now located. Not until the elevator got into the management of a board of which John Jackson was president and Dennis P. Slattery was the secretary did it become profitable to its owners. John Jackson was from County Down, Ireland, of Scotch-Irish parentage. He had been a successful merchant in salt and other heavy groceries before he devoted his attention to the development of the grain trade of St. Louis.

The Larimores, N. G. and J. W., brothers, were boys when their parents moved to St. Louis county from Kentucky in 1884. They were brought up on a farm of 1,000 acres which their father bought for ten and twelve dollars an acre and developed into "the model farm." As that it took the premium offered by the St. Louis Fair association in 1864 and was known far and wide. The Larimores left the model farm and came to St. Louis to enter the grain trade. In company with G. G. Schoolfield and D. H. Silver the Larimore brothers built a great warehouse at Fifth and Chouteau avenue and joined in the movement to educate St. Louis in the handling of bulk grain. The warehouse was divided into many bins. In those days the St. Louis millers wouldn't buy wheat by grade but insisted on having each carload put in a separate bin. Dealing in bulk grain was an evolution. When the Larimores began to put their profits in elevators, about 1873, tne y received a great deal of discouraging advice. They made money, bought wheat land in North Dakota by the thousands of acres in advance of the building of Hill's Great Northern and founded the town of Larimore. N. G. Larimore married the youngest daughter of Levi Ashbrook, one of the pioneer pork packers of St. Louis. J. W. Larimore married Bettie R. Carlisle, of a widely known Methodist family, long identified with the Methodist Orphans' home and other philanthropic effort.

With confidence the men who participated in the trial of bulk shipment of grain by river look for the renaissance. In their judgment the experiment was successful. It demonstrated the theory. The practice did not become permanent because of limitations on the route. With a deep and permanent channel, grain will again go by river. The secretary of the merchants' exchange, George H. Morgan, looking backward on forty-four years' experience and forward to the promise of the deep waterway, said:

At the close of the Civil war the members of the merchants' exchange took up with renewed energy the task of restoring to the commerce of the city the grain trade of the west, which had been diverted to more northern markets, and of renewing the trade relations which had previously existed with the south. In the annual report of the exchange published in 1865, the right hand of fellowship and commerce was extended to all former business acquaintances in the following words:

"And now that the strife is over, forgetting all dissensions of the past, they expend the right hand of friendship to those who so lately opposed them, and invite them to come back and renew those kind relations which before existed."

For the proper extension of the grain trade additional facilities were needed. The custom of shipping in sacks, which had hitherto prevailed, was too expensive and cumbersome, and the handling of grain in bulk, which had already been inaugurated in competing markets, was imperatively necessary if St. Louis was to compete for the grain trade of the Mississippi Valley.

To meet this need members of the exchange erected the St. Louis Grain Elevator on the levee at the foot of Ashley street, and in the fall of 1865 it opened for business and demonstrated that grain could be profitably handled in bulk.

To move the grain in bulk a barge line was formed to carry the freight to New Orleans, where a transfer elevator was built to transfer the grain from the barges to the ocean vessels.

There was some movement of bulk grain via the water route by individuals for New Orleans and for Atlantic ports, but it was found that there were doubts in the minds of shippers as to the safety of the gulf route, on account of climatic conditions, whether grain would keep in as good condition as by the more northern routes.

It was decided in the early part of 1869 that experimental shipments of grain to Europe should be made to test the question and an organization was effected under the name of the St. Louis Grain Association, with a capital stock of $100,000. The exchange in its corporate capacity took $20,000 of the stock and the balance was taken by firms and individuals. Shipments of 470,000 bushels of wheat were made to Europe during the first year and while the venture was not successful from a pecuniary point of view, the practicability and safety of the gulf route was firmly established. The export movement was slow in starting but gradually grew in favor, and in the year 1880 over 15,000,000 bushels were exported by St. Louie houses.

From this initial step the grain movement via Gulf ports has grown to large proportions, and a large portion of the grain trade of the West now moves on longitudinal lines to the Gulf ports.

In 1906 there was exported from New Orleans and Galveston 49,721,960 bushels of wheat, corn and oats.

To the Merchants' Exchange of St. Louis is due the credit of demonstrating the desirability and safety of an outlet to the markets of the world by the Gulf route, resulting in an immense saving in freight rates on the surplus products of the great west, to the great benefit of the farmer and the grain dealer.

While this movement has now ceased via St. Louis on account of the uncertainties of river navigation and other transportation conditions west of the Missouri river, it is confidently believed that when the river is so improved by the general government that a depth of not less than six feet from St. Paul to St. Louis and of not less than twelve feet from St. Louis to New Orleans is secured, and the route from the lakes to the Mississippi river is finished, via the Illinois river, the volume of traffic seeking the cheaper outlet by water routes will become very large and the pristine glory of the mighty Mississippi will be renewed.

The St. Louis Fair was much more than encouragement to agriculture. It was an annual exposition of the industries of St. Louis. It was made an occasion to stimulate thought and energies in a variety of directions for the city's good. In 1868 the Excelsior Insurance company offered a premium of $100 to be awarded at the Fair "for the best plan of construction of iron barges and vessels suited to carry grain in bulk on the Mississippi river and tributaries." Logan D. Dameron and the Fair Association each contributed the same amount toward the premium.

The year before the war closed William Marshall Senter, the son of a Lexington, Tennessee, farmer came to St. Louis to work out his theory that this city might handle a large cotton trade. He was the central figure in a very interesting trade evolution. St. Louis was handling about 30,000 bales a year. Mr. Senter, with others who joined him, formed a cotton association in 1870. In 1873 the cotton exchange was organized. J. W. Paramore joined the coterie who were bound to make St. Louis a great cotton market. He was the son of a Mansfield, Ohio, farmer, the tenth of eleven children in the family. He served in the war as colonel of the Third Ohio cavalry, for a considerable period commanding a brigade. With some experience in railroad building after the war, he came to St. Louis. A compress and warehouse were built, the largest and most convenient in the world at the time, it was said. The capacity was 500,000 bales. The plant occupied eighty acres of ground. It compressed 3,000 bales a day. The cotton handled under the stimulus given the trade by Senter, Paramore and their associates increased from about 30,000 bales a year to over 400,000 bales about 1880. To hold and develop this cotton trade of St. Louis Colonel Paramore planned a great system of narrow gauge railroads. The routes were chosen with special reference to the cotton growing sections of the southwest. The roads as planned were to cost about half as much as standard gauge and to cost for operation about one-third of the gross earnings. Turning over the management of the compress to Mr. Senter, Colonel Paramore in 1881 began to build these narrow gauge roads under the name of the Cotton Belt, starting from a landing in Missouri on the Mississippi river. He was able to show that cotton was shipped from Texas and Arkansas to Europe by way of St. Louis cheaper than by way of the gulf ports. Two conditions contributed to this result. They were reasonable transportation charges to St. Louis; economy in the handling of the staple.

When the handling of cotton reached its zenith the St. Louis Compress company had $1,250,000 capital employed. The buildings contained thirty acres of floor space to and from which a network of railroad tracks made connection. The company employed from 300 to 800 men. In 1879-80 the number of bales compressed here was 275,000.

The Factors' and Brokers' Compress company with capacity for 55,000 bales a year, with buildings and tracks at Columbus and Lafayette streets, was formed in 1874 by R. B. Whittemore, Oliver Garrison, H. M. Mandeville and others.

To grasp quickly new conditions has saved prestige to St. Louis in ways of transportation, character of industries and methods of trade. When the shipments of cotton through St. Louis were greatest the cotton factors here began to prepare for the coming localization of the compressing and warehousing. William M. Senter, James L. Sloss, J. D. Goldman, A. C. Stewart and other St. Louisans organized and put in operation the Texarkana Cotton Compress company to handle the staple which could not under the natural laws of trade be brought to this city. As the cotton receipts at St. Louis diminished under the influences of new railroads and better seaport connections, St. Louis factors established warehouses and compresses in centers of production on the most economical routes. In this way St. Louis preserved her interests in the cotton trade although the actual cotton did not come here.

The first commercial or jobbing house in the United States to incorporate was a St. Louis firm. A manufacturer promptly refused an order for $200 worth of goods from this house although the order was given on a cash basis. The manufacturer reasoned, curiously enough as it seems now, that incorporation by a mercantile house meant a purpose to avoid personal liability. The St. Louis house which pioneered the incorporation movement on the 1st of January, 1874, was the Simmons Hardware company. The experiment was considered by not a few to be suspicious; it might pave the way to dishonest failure. The truth was that incorporation was trade evolution. It meant many partners. It led to profit sharing. Perhaps no one development did more to advance the trade interests of St. Louis than the incorporation of the mercantile houses, for the Simmons idea spread rapidly to all branches of wholesale business in this center. The beginning of the Simmons Hardware company as a corporation seems humble now. The cash capital of the company was only $200,000. Some of the men who had proven their worth to the house and were at the heads of departments borrowed money to buy their stock. One of these was James E. Smith, in 1909 the president of the Business Men's League.

In a recent address Mr. E. C. Simmons drew attention to the number of men occupying high positions in St. Louis business circles, who had come up from subordinate positions as clerks or salesmen. He mentioned R. H. Stockton, J. E. Pilcher, C. D. Smiley, J. E. Smith, H. M. Meier, C. N. Markle and "as a pronounced example Saunders Norvell," who had served business apprenticeship with his house. He said:

All of these men prospered and have taken a front rank among commercial men. To these names should also be added that of my late, and always deeply lamented partner – Mr. Isaac W. Morton, who was bookkeeper and then a salesman for us before he became a partner of the firm and afterwards an officer of the corporation. I have named those gentlemen for two reasons; first, because it makes me happy to have it said that so many men profited and succeeded in such large measure by association with our house; and second, because I want to impress it on your minds that those men were all salesmen, and that their success in life is due to the fact that they were good salesmen.

Take the case of one of the gentlemen whose name I have mentioned as having prospered by reason of being connected with our house – Mr. E. H. Stockton; he was a natural born salesman of the first class; he sold a world of cutlery, chiefly pocket knives and razors, to druggists, and I never found out how he did it until after he had left us, as he never gave away his plans or methods to anybody.

It was this: He learned all about tooth brushes – how they were made, what bones for the handles – where the bristles came from, how bleached, how glued in, etc., etc., in fact all there was known about tooth brushes. Then he would go into a drug store, leaving his cutlery samples by the door, ask for the proprietor, and if in, he would say, "I want to buy a tooth brush; " then he would talk tooth brushes so intelligently that he would get the merchant interested by telling him a lot of things he didn't know before; then he would buy a tooth brush – thus putting himself in the attitude of a customer. Then his real work would begin, for he would draw from his pocket a sample razor or pocket knife, and say, "I've got something here I want to show you – you haven't anything like it, and it's a great seller," and from this he would get a start, and then bring up his samples, and end up with a fine cutlery order. This is what I call brains in salesmanship.

While E. C. Simmons, as president of the National Prosperity Association was handling, in the summer of 1908, an enormous mail from all parts of the country he opened one letter which read:

"You may be right from your standpoint, because you are a rich man and have never known what it was to want money; but we poor devils who try to climb the ladder of prosperity have a different point of view."

"The man who wrote that letter," said Mr. Simmons, with reminiscent look, "perhaps did not know that I commenced my career as poor as the proverbial Job's turkey – making the fire, sweeping out, dusting the shelves. My life has been one of intemperate hard work. For twenty-five years of my life, I worked sixteen hours a day – without one single week's intermission or vacation. Often when footsore and weary I walked long distances, because I had not the price of carfare. I opened the store at six o'clock on winter mornings and five o'clock on summer mornings, although I was only required to open at seven in winter and six in summer."

It is tradition that Edward C. Simmons, while a child in Frederick, Maryland, was never so well contented as when he had a pocket knife in his fingers. He came to St. Louis, a small boy, and went to school on Sixth street, between Locust and St. Charles. He is best remembered by his fellow students, as the youth who wanted to see and to examine every other boy's knife. Possibly he came well by the proclivity for his father, Zachariah T. Simmons, though of Pennsylvania nativity, was of descent from the land of steady habits and whittling.

In 1855, the day before New Year's, when he was sixteen years old, the high school student went into the wholesale hardware store of Childs, Pratt & Co., and asked Mr. Pratt: "Don't you want a boy?" Mr. Pratt inquired kindly: "What can you do, my lad?" "I can do as much as any boy of my age. Where shall I hang my coat?" Mr. Pratt laughed as He closed the bargain with: "Well, my boy, if you work as well as you talk we can use you. Come down the day after New Year's and go to work."

That was the beginning of E. C. Simmons' more than half century identification with the trade of St. Louis. The boy with the pocket knife was father to the man with the hardware store. The day came when Mr. Simmons startled a manufacturer so that he talked about it for years, by buying 4,000 dozen assorted pocket knives in thirty minutes.

More than his admiration for the pocket knife, more than his quickness of speech, a crisis which came in his apprenticeship had to do with the future of Edward C. Simmons as a merchant. The boy was assigned to one of the partners in the house to get out orders from the stock. One day Jake Smith came down the river from Topeka. He bought a lot of goods. When the order reached young Simmons he saw that the prices entered on the order were higher than those on the samples in the stock room. He carried the book to the man who had sold the goods and showed him the increases. "You mind your own business and get out that order. I know what I am doing," was the answer he got. The boy went home and that night he lay awake thinking about the trick and wondering if he wasn't in some way responsible for a share in it. The next morning he went to the salesman and said: "I am afraid you did not understand me. This is wrong. Don't you see you are doing a wrong, charging a man more than the marked prices?" The salesman replied: "My boy, let me teach you a lesson. This man lives in Topeka, sixty-six miles west of Kansas City. The goods go by boat to Kansas City and then have to be hauled by ox teams to Topeka. We will never see this man again and therefore we must make all we can out of him now. So run along, my boy, and finish up the order." And the boy stood still, saying, "But it's wrong. It's wrong," until the salesman threatened to have him discharged.

When the next season's trade opened, Jake Smith came down on one of the first boats after the ice went out of the Missouri. He was in a rage when he found the man who had overcharged him on the goods. The boy heard the tirade. The salesman listened quietly and said: "Jake, you are all wrong, and I am the best friend you've got. I'll prove it to you before we get through." "Well, do it," said Smith. Then the salesman said: "You were going into a new country, weren't you?" "Yes." "Into a new market where no prices had been established?" "Yes." "You knew nothing about prices, did you?" " No." "Naturally you would base your selling prices on your cost and mark your goods accordingly, wouldn't you?" "Yes." "Then I said to myself, I must help this friend to establish good high market prices. If I sell him cheap he will establish low selling prices. No, I won't do him that injury. I will charge good stiff prices and he will go to Topeka, and when he has the market so established he will come back here again and I will sell him a bill of goods so cheap that it will make his eyes water, and he can take them to Topeka and sell them at the high prices I have been the means of helping him to establish. And now I am prepared to sell you a bill of goods so cheap as to make the two average up to your satisfaction." Jake Smith shook the hand of the salesman warmly and thanked him and gave the order for another bill of goods. When the customer had gone out the salesman proceeded to give the boy a lesson on the art of selling hardware. The boy revolted, gave up his position and found employment with a new house, Wilson, Levering & Waters, just starting on Main street. His first employers failed. Six years after the Jake Smith incident, Edward C. Simmons was a partner in the business which was done on the square.

Isaac Wyman Morton's part in the trade development of St. Louis was something besides a third of a century of general activity. Mr. Morton created the first elaborate and illustrated trade catalogue issued by a St. Louis house. Eighteen months – days, evenings and holidays – he devoted to the work. There was no model to copy for Mr. Morton was entering a comparatively new field. Mr. Morton prepared the huge volume in detail, – the descriptions, the classification, the indexing and the paging. He superintended the engraving of the pictures. In those days, thirty years ago, the making of cuts had not reached the present standards. This illustrated hardware catalogue came out in 1880. It was a revolution in selling methods. The cost, $30,000, staggered some of the other stockholders of the Simmons Hardware company. But that first year the catalogue was in use the sales of the house increased over $1,000,000. Mr. Morton's industry gave to the trade what it had not had and that was a catalogue which became the model for similar publications in various lines. The author had just passed thirty years of age when he began this catalogue. He had come from his birthplace, Quincy, Illinois, to St. Louis, when he was nine years old. His parents were Massachusetts people. With Wyman Institute and Washington University education. Mr. Morton, at seventeen was successively collector, bookkeeper and teller in the Second National bank, only to conclude in 1865 that more active business life would suit him better. He became clerk, salesman, partner, "friend and companion" to Edward C. Simmons.

The founder of Cupples Station, that great aid to the commerce of St. Louis, looked back upon an object lesson at the beginning of his experience in St. Louis. When Samuel Cupples in 1851 landed at the wharf he found congestion confronting him. The wholesale grocers filled Front street with their heavy stocks. The commission merchants were in the next rank crowding Commercial alley. In Main street were the dealers in hats, shoes, boots and dry goods. And that was the business part of St. Louis. Mr. Cupples unloaded his stock of woodenware on the Levee about the foot of Locust street and set about finding a store. It seemed almost impossible to secure a place without going beyond the business limits. Along the Levee the steamboats were crowded so close that they moored at right angles with the current of the river and sometimes the boats lay two and three deep at the wharfboats. The second day after unloading his stock Mr. Cupples still in search of a storeroom went down to see that everything was safe. As he stood there looking at his freight, a man with a stick came along and stopped. He was the harbormaster.

"Who owns these buckets and tubs?" he called out in a loud tone.

Mr. Cupples mildly identified himself as the owner and explained that he was looking for a store.

"Move them away," ordered the autocrat of the St. Louis terminal of 1851. "If they are not moved by twelve o'clock tomorrow, I'll have them moved and charge you storage."

Samuel M. Dodd led a movement of the wholesale business westward from Main street to get more room. Dodd, Brown & Co. located on Fifth and St. Charles streets in 1871 when such a breaking away from the old center of jobbing trade seemed hazardous.

Cupples Station was an evolution. At Seventh and Poplar streets the city had a market house which had outlived its usefulness. The property was for sale. The house of Cupples & Co. was on Second street. "We needed a warehouse," said Samuel Cupples. "Robert and I thought the market house was in a location convenient to the railroad and would suit our purposes. We bought it. Then we bought another back of it. The idea of having warehouses with railroad tracks beside them grew on the benefits that accrued." That is the history of Cupples Station which has been worth millions of dollars to St. Louis trade in the heavy lines. The saving in the years of Cupples Station's growth held old and gained new trade territory for St. Louis. In 1911 Cupples Station had developed into a collection of nearly fifty large buildings. There were forty firms housed in these buildings. They were sharing in the advantages of the track and elevator service and were carrying on a trade of $100,000,000 a year. The main group of buildings was constructed in 1891. The forty-three buildings in 1911 represented an investment of $6,000,000. As a center of wholesale trade Cupples Station had no rival in the country.

Stability has been a marked characteristic of mercantile St. Louis. It has applied to retail as well as to wholesale trade. The structure had two cornerstones – one-price and plain-dealing. In 1849 a young Virginian journeyed through the west looking for the most promising opportunity to open a store. A boy of fifteen, he had begun as clerk in a store at Lynchburg. He had risen to be the cashier of a dry goods establishment in Richmond. Going south he had held a position in the branch office at Huntsville of a New Orleans cotton house. In company with M. V. L. McClelland, Richard M. Scruggs traveled from one city to another studying the advantages offered. An uncle of Mr. McClelland volunteered the capital to start. To the young men, St. Louis, with its 50,000 population, seemed most promising. The firm of McClelland, Scruggs & Company began business in 1850 at Fourth and St. Charles streets. The city limits were at Eighteenth street. In 1888 the business was moved to Fifth and Locust streets and in 1907 to Tenth and Olive streets.

William L. Vandervoort came into the St. Louis firm in 1860. He was a merchant by the blood. His great uncle, Peter L. Vandervoort, brought the first camel's hair shawls, four of them, to this country. He conducted the first "one-price" dry goods store in the United States. That store was where the shadow of Trinity church now falls. The first four shawls were sold to the four wealthiest ladies in New York city. The Vandervoorts were merchants a hundred years before William L. Vandervoort began at the bottom in a Baltimore store at one dollar a week and table board. A bad season cut the salary to fifty cents a week. The twelve-year-old clerk tried another store and congratulated himself on a salary of two dollars a week and full board. He swept the store at five o'clock in the morning and put up the shutters at ten o'clock at night. He carried the parcels. In 1860 Mr. Vandervoort had his choice between partnership with McClelland and Scruggs at St. Louis and one of the most responsible positions in the house of "the merchant prince of America," Alexander T. Stewart. He chose the St. Louis connection.

The great grandmothers of the generation of 1911 shopped on Market street. From the Levee to Third street was the retail district. Ubsdell, Pierson & Co., of New York, established a St. Louis dry goods store at Third and Market streets. The fire of 1849 swept the retail district. Merchants opened new stores on Fourth street. The property owners on Market street rebuilt hastily, but not well. The merchants refused to move back. Fourth street became the shopping center. The Ubsdell, Pierson & Co: branch had located temporarily on Fourth and Olive, where the Merchants-Laclede bank now is. It was removed in 1857 to Fourth between Vine and St. Charles streets, and remained there until 1880. William Barr and James Duncan were the managers. During the war Mr. Barr, Mr. Duncan and Joseph Franklin bought out the New York partners. In 1870 Mr. Duncan retired. Twenty-eight years ago, following the westward trend, the firm removed to Sixth and Olive. This was the genesis of "Barr's," an institution which within the current year will celebrate its sixtieth anniversary of continuous retail business in St. Louis.

Perhaps "the branch house" policy is the latest and most significant development in the trade evolution of St. Louis. The jobber is establishing branches and is districting his territory. This has come about largely within the past half decade. It seems to be a natural change, meaning a great deal to the future of St. Louis trade. It holds out encouragement for extension of trade territory, with this as the directing center of distribution. A retail merchant in South Dakota who came to the World's Fair in 1904 called upon E. C. Simmons. He was asked why his orders for hardware were not as large as they had been a few years before. His answer was:

"Well, when you had a strike and your business here in St. Louis was badly interrupted, I commenced buying some goods in Sioux City. I found that I got them in two or three days after giving the order instead of waiting ten days or two weeks to receive them from St. Louis or Chicago. And I also found that by ordering little lots I could do my business on less capital if I bought near home."

"But haven't we a much better assortment than Sioux City has?" urged Mr. Simmons.

"Yes," said the South Dakota merchant, "but those people have all I need."

"Are not our prices much lower?" again urged the St. Louis merchant.

"Yes," said the visitor, "but I make a rattling good profit on the goods I buy from them." And then he came back with this counter argument. "When I commenced I had $10,000 in my business, but I have since taken out half of it and bought me a nice farm home in the suburbs of our little city. I do as much business on my $5,000 by purchasing near home in little lots as I did before on $10,000 capital when I bought in St. Louis and Chicago. What argument have you to meet that?"

Mr. Simmons said he hadn't any. If the trade wouldn't come to St. Louis – St. Louis would have to go to the trade. And thereupon the Simmons Hardware company adopted the policy of establishing branch houses beyond the circuit of immediate St. Louis territory to hold and to extend the more remote districts. The policy of branch houses is not limited to one line of St. Louis trade.

On a dull summer day of 1836 twenty-five young business men organized the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce. The meeting place was the office of the Missouri Insurance company on Main street, between Olive and Pine streets. That was the center of business. The primary purpose was to agree upon certain regulations which the members would observe in their business. One of the first transactions was to adopt a tariff of commissions to be charged on sales of produce and lead, on purchases and shipments of produce, on payment of freight bills, on advances to customers, on placing insurance, and on adjustment of losses. The chamber also fixed the schedule of fees for arbitration of business disputes and the rates of service for agents of steamboats. In short, the young men determined that business in these lines should be organized. They founded what is today the oldest commercial trading organization in the United States. One of the most active of the twenty-five was George K. McGunnegle, who was at that time a member of the legislature. At the next session McGunnegle put through a bill incorporating the chamber and giving it a charter. The idea was so novel that the legislature conferred power upon the organization to do anything it pleased which was not "contrary to the laws of the land." The only other restriction imposed was that the property which might be acquired should "not exceed at any time the sum of $20,000." In the very beginning the chamber of commerce took on the character of a public spirited movement. The membership soon overflowed the insurance office. The meeting place was changed to the office of the Missouri Republican, on Main street near Pine. The next move was to the basement of the Unitarian church, on Fourth and Pine streets. The meetings were held at night. The organization was expanding. Its discussions were interesting.

Out of the chamber of commerce with its meetings to consider subjects germane to business interests of the city and out of the merchants' exchange and newsroom where papers were kept on file and to which business men resorted for conversation developed the idea "on 'change." The newspapers began to agitate this as the next step toward commercial organization in St. Louis. "We think," wrote Editor Chambers, "the idea a good one. If a certain hour is established for 'change, say twelve to one o'clock in the day, every merchant having business to do with another would know when and where he could be found." The suggestion met with such favor that in the spring of 1839 Rene Paul faced a large gathering of representative business men when he moved that Henry S. Cox be chosen chairman and William G. Pettus be made secretary of a meeting called to consider the matter. The meeting was held in the merchants' exchange and newsroom, as it had come to be known to all business St. Louis. The sense of those present expressed in the resolutions which A. B. Chambers offered was that an exchange building be erected. John D. Daggett, Rene Paul, Nathaniel Paschall, Adam B. Chambers, John B. Camden, William Glasgow and Edward Tracy were the committee of seven chosen to take charge of the movement.

The next year occurred an incident illustrative of the standard of commercial honor which characterized the commercial community of St. Louis at that time. Edward Tracy had been president of the chamber of commerce from its beginning. Becoming financially embarrassed, he tendered his resignation. The members declined to accept the resignation, there being nothing that in any way was discreditable to the president. Mr. Tracy insisted that the interests of the chamber would be best served by a change. Henry Von Phul had been the vice president of the chamber. He was chosen president by acclamation, but declined to serve. The chamber then elected Wayman Crow, who continued to hold the office until 1849.

A third of a century after he had been elected president of the chamber of commerce, Wayman Crow, in June, 1874, stood beside the cornerstone of the new chamber of commerce building on Third street. As his mind went back to the early days, to this act of Edward Tracy and to like evidences of nice sense of mercantile honor, Mr. Crow said:

But having been in business here for more than forty years, I cannot recall to mind an individual now in commercial life who was engaged in mercantile pursuits at the time of my coming. You will pardon me then, I am sure – seeing that I belong to the past more than to the present – if my thoughts revert to those early days and rest for a moment with the men who were my trusted colaborers, and with those who immediately preceded us in our work. At least you will permit me to bear witness to the high character, the commercial honor, the personal faithfulness of those who were the early founders of our prosperity, and who gave the tone and standard – not yet lost, and never, as we confidently hope, to be lost – to the daily business life of St. Louis. Those old-time workers may have been a little too conservative, sometimes timid – "old fogies" you would call them nowadays – but they were scrupulously honest in their dealings, strict constructionists in their regard for contracts, men of untarnished integrity in meeting their engagements, and it is to their practice and example that the present high commercial credit of St. Louis, both at home and abroad, is greatly due. "

The movement for an exchange building did not progress. At one time the papers had it that a lot at Third and Chestnut had been purchased and at another time that a lot on Fifth street had been secured. In 1848 the exchange rooms on Main and Olive were opened. A secretary, Edward Barry, was appointed. Papers were kept on file. Telegrams giving the state of the markets were received. The next year the merchants' exchange was formally established by the chamber of commerce. This plan meant two organizations. Members of the exchange had all privileges except voting. The chamber of commerce controlled both bodies. The 'change hour was observed from 11 a. m. to 12 a. m. The rooms were opened at that time to everybody, but only members could buy and sell.

About the time that the merchants' exchange was started, the millers were looking for a shelter. They had been for years in the habit of going to the levee in the morning, examining the sacks of grain unloaded from the boats and then waiting in the dust and mud for hours until the sellers arrived to make trades. James Waugh and T. A. Buckland were especially vigorous in complaining about the exposure from which they had suffered from trying to buy grain on the levee. A meeting was called. Rooms were rented near Locust and the levee and the millers' exchange began to do business, inviting those who had grain or any kind of produce to bring in and display their samples. Upon two pine counters, in twenty-four tin pans, began the selling of grain and flour by sample in St. Louis. And this was the inauguration of the sample method of trading on 'change for the United States. It dates back to the decade of 1840-50. The merchants' exchange, which was only two blocks away, sent an invitation to the millers' exchange to bring their flour and grain samples and do the trading there. The invitation was accepted.

In 1850-60 the commercial organization developed great strength. The chamber of commerce in 1851 was presided over by William M. Morrison. In 1852 the body sent delegates headed by Joseph Stettinius to a "commercial convention" at Baltimore.

The movement for a building took on new life in 1855. Henry T. Blow, R. J. Lackland, Charles P. Chouteau, A. L. Shapleigh and Thomas E. Tutt were made a committee to get a charter for an exchange building company. Messrs. Edward J. Gay and Robert Barth, representing owners of property on the east side of Main between Market and Walnut streets, proposed to put up a building, the second floor of which should be occupied exclusively by the merchants' exchange at a rental of $2,500 a year for ten years. This plan was carried out. A company put up the building on the site which Pierre Laclede had reserved for a plaza and which the village, town and city of St. Louis had used for a market place through several generations. The central point of the little settlement of 1764 became the commercial heart of the city in 1857. The structure was known as the chamber of commerce building. The ground floor was occupied by stores. The exchange hall was 101 feet long by 80 feet wide. From the floor to the apex of the dome was 63 feet. St. Louis had a celebrated fresco artist at that time, L. D. Pomerede, who decorated the interior of the dome with paintings representing the four quarters of the globe. This exchange hall, which was, probably, the finest commercial hall in the country of its day, was constructed under the immediate direction of Oliver A. Hart, for the St. Louis merchants' exchange company, chartered for the purpose of erecting the building.

The Civil war brought a severe test of the vitality of commercial organization in St. Louis. Over the annual election in January, 1862, the members divided. Those who withdrew held a meeting with Stephen M. Edgell as chairman and Clinton B. Fisk secretary. They called themselves "the union merchants' exchange of St. Louis." The new body took rooms in a building on Third street just south of the post-office. Within a year the union merchants' exchange was back in the possession of the old quarters on Main, between Market and Walnut streets. The new exchange organized with Henry J. Moore as president. At the next annual meeting in January, 1863, George Partridge was elected president. In March following the body incorporated. The obligation which the members of the union merchants' exchange took was the result of a movement to commit the business community to the strongest possible expression of allegiance to the government. In 1875 the name was changed from union merchants' exchange to Merchants' Exchange of St. Louis.

In 1871, under the presidency of Gerard B. Allen, the westward movement became strong. Propositions were received from James H. Lucas and others to build a new chamber of commerce at Third and Chestnut; from P. B. Gerhart to build at Third and Locust; from John A. Scudder, Catherine Ames and William H. Scudder to build at Sixth street and Washington avenue, where the destruction of the old Lindell hotel had left a vacancy. The Third and Chestnut street proposition was accepted. A canvass of the membership showed that, at the time, 773 of the business houses represented on 'change were located south of Olive street, and 492 north of Olive. The St. Louis Chamber of Commerce Association to construct the building, was formed with Rufus J. Lackland, president; Gerard B. Allen and George Knapp, vice presidents. In July, 1873, work was commenced. In June, 1874, the cornerstone was laid with masonic and military ceremonies, Web M. Samuel, president of the exchange, delivering the address.

Before the Civil war the great commercial body of St. Louis kept a good president as long as he would serve. Many years the duties were performed in succession by Edward Tracy, Wayman Crow and William Morrison. Beginning with 1862 the custom of one-term presidents was inaugurated and adhered to. The presidents and vice presidents of the Merchants' Exchange for forty-seven years constitute a roll of commercial honor:

Year. President Vice Presidents. Vice Presidents.

1862 Henry J. Moore. C. S. Greeley. A. W. Fagin.

1863 George Partridge. C. S. Greeley. A. W. Fagin.

1864 Thomas Richeson. Barton Able. C. L. Tucker.

1865 Barton Able. E. O. Stanard. H. A. Homeyer.

1866 E. O. Stanard. Alex. H. Smith. D. G. Taylor.

1867 C. L. Tucker. Edgar Ames. D. G. Taylor.

1868 John J. Roe. Geo. P. Plant. H. A. Homeyer.

1869 Geo. P. Plant. H. A. Homeyer. Nathan Cole.

1870 Wm. J. Lewis. G. G. Waggaman. H. C. Yaeger.

1871 Gerard B. Allen. E. P. Tansey. Geo. Bain.

1872 E. P. Tansey. Wm. H. Scudder. C. H. Teichmann.

1873 Wm. H Scudder. S. M. Edgell. Web M. Samuel.

1874 Web M. Samuel. L. L. Ashbrook. John F. Telle.

1875 D. P. Rowland. John P. Meyer. Wm. M. Senter.

1876 Nathan Cole. John Wahl. F. B. Davidson.

1877 John A. Scudder. N. Schaeffer. Geo. Bain.

1878 Geo. Bain. H. C. Haarstick. Craig Alexander.

1879 John Wahl. Michael McEnnis. W. J. Lemp.

1880 Alex. H. Smith. Chas. E. Slayback. J. C. Ewald.

1881 Michael McEnnis. John Jackson. A. T. Harlow.

1882 Chas. E. Slayback. Chas. F. Orthwein. Frank Galennie.

1883 J. C. Ewald. D. E. Francis. D. P. Grier.

1884 D. E. Francis. John P. Keiser. C. W. Barstow.

1885 Henry O. Haarstick. S. W. Cobb. D. P. Slattery.

1886 S. W. Cobb. Chas. H. Teichmann. J. Will Boyd.

1887 Frank Galennie. Louis Fusz. Thomas Booth.

1888 Chas. F. Orthwein. J. H. Teasdale. Chas. A. Cox.

1889 Chas. A. Cox. Hugh Rogers. Alex. Euston.

1890 John W. Kauffman. Marcus Bernheimer. G. M. Flanigan.

1891 Marcus Bernheimer. Geo. H. Plant. S. E. Francis.

1892 Isaac M. Mason. Wm. T. Anderson. Wallace Delafield.

1893 W. T. Anderson. Roger P. Annan. L. C. Doggett.

1894 A. T. Harlow/Wm. G. Boyd/Geo. H. Small. E. A. Pomeroy.

1895 Thos. Booth. C. Marquard Forster. Geo D. Barnard.

1896 C. H. Spencer. Amedee B. Cole. Clark H. Sampson.

1897 H. F. Langenberg. Chris. Sharp. Wm. P. Kennett.

1898 Chris. Sharp. Henry H. Wemse. Oscar L. Whitelaw.

1899 Wm. P. Kennett. Oscar L. Whitelaw. Daniel E. Smith.

1900 Oscar L. Whitelaw. Wm. T. Haarstick. Frank E. Kauffman.

1901 Wm. T. Haarstick. Geo. J. Tansey. T. B. Ballard.

1902 Geo. J. Tansey. T. B. Ballard. Wm A. Gardner.

1903 T. B. Ballard. Wm. A. Gardner. Charles H. Hattig.

1904 H. H. Wemse. Otto L. Teichmann. M. G. Richmond.

1905 Otto L. Teichmann. Manley G. Richmond. John E. Geraghty.

1906 Manley G. Richmond. William H. Danforth. Edward Devoy.

1907 George H. Plant. Edward Devoy. Edward E. Scharff.

1908 Edward Devoy. Edward E. Scharff. Manning W. Cochrane.

1909 Edward E. Scharff. Manning W. Cochrane. Nat. L. Moffitt.

1910 Manning W. Cochrane. Nat. L. Moffitt. C. Bernet.

1911 James W. Gamean. C. Bernet. John L. Mesmore.

A wonderful record of cheerful giving the Merchants' Exchange has made. In two generations the amounts raised by popular subscriptions on 'change for emergency relief have been nearly $1,000,000. From Portland, Maine, to San Francisco, from Chicago to Galveston, this body of St. Louis business men has extended the generous hand. To suffering fellowmen in Ireland and Germany these men of the daily mart loosened the purse strings. Flood and drought, yellow fever and fire, cyclone and earthquake, tidal wave and cloudburst – no matter what the occasion – the responses from the members of the Merchants' Exchange have come promptly and liberally. In the long and honorable history of the commercial body the contributions to benevolence were manifold.

As early as 1839, "the master-mechanics of St. Louis," as they called themselves, organized the Mechanics' Exchange. This was not a labor movement but an organization of the producing industries of the city for mutual good. The plan was formed and presented from a body composed of one representative of each branch of manufacture or skilled trade. The list of these representatives is a good index to the industries of St. Louis in 1839. It includes men who became prominent in the life of the city and whose descendants are in some instances following the same industries as developed under new conditions, in St. Louis today:

Joseph C. Laveille, carpenter. Daniel D. Page, baker,

Asa Wilgus, painter. Isaac Chadwick, plasterer.

Samuel Gaty, founder Thomas Andrews, coppersmith.

George Trask, cabinetmaker. John M. Paulding, hatter.

James Barry, chandler. James Love, blacksmith.

Joseph Laiden, chairmaker. John Young, saddler.

William Shipp, silversmith. Wooster Goodyear, cordwainer.

B. Townsend, wire and sieve maker. B. Todd, burr millstone maker.

Thomas Gambal, cooper. Francis Baborg, tanner.

S. C. Coleman, turner. N. Paschall, printer.

John G. Shelton, tailor. B. L. Turnbull, bookbinder.

Charles Coates, stonecutter. David Shepard, bricklayer.

Anthony Bennett, stonemason. L A. Letcher, brickmaker.

William Thomas, shipbuilder. Samuel Hawkins, gunsmith.

Samuel Shawk, locksmith. A. Oakford, combmaker.

N. Tiernal, wheelwright. J. B. Gerard, carriagemaker.

Moses Stout, planemaker. James Robinson, upholsterer.

J. Bemis, machinist.

In 1852 the Mechanics' and Manufacturers' Exchange and Library Association was organized. The St. Louisans who took the active part in this movement were Thornton Grimsley, Charles H. Peck, P. Wonderly, J. C. Edgar, R. Keyser and John Goodin.

In 1856 the Mechanics' Exchange with rooms on Chestnut street between Third and Fourth streets was one of the strong institutions of the city. Anthony. Ittner, Thomas Rich, A. Cook, W. Stamps, James Garvin, C. Lynch, J. Locke, James Luthy were some of the leading members. The laudable objects were "the encouragement, development and promotion of the mechanical and manufacturing interests of the city and the arbitration of all errors and misunderstandings between its members and those having business with them." The first president was N. M. Ludlow. To carry out the policy of settlement of disputes by arbitration the exchange formed a strong committee of appeal. The members of this committee were Charles H. Peck, Samuel Robbins, W. F. Cozzens, John Evill, W. G. Clark, L. D. Baker and W. H. Markham, all prominent men in the city. In 1908 Mr. Clark celebrated his ninetieth birthday at the home of his daughter, Mrs. James B. Hill.

With an address by Henry T. Blow and under Adolphus Meier as president the St. Louis Board of Trade entered upon its mission of business organization in October, 1867. The motive of the board of trade was similar to that which in later years operated through the Business Men's League to the great commercial and industrial advantage of the city. But at that time benefits of business organizations were not so well recognized. The board of trade held many meetings. It considered subjects in which the interests of St. Louis were concerned. Wayman Crow, Isidor Bush, E. C. Simmons, E. A. Hitchcock, Isaac M. Mason were among the active members in the period of the board's greatest usefulness. Chauncey I. Filley was for some time the energetic president.

The Boatmen's Exchange was an institution of such promise that in 1868 Charles P. Chouteau erected for the accommodation of the body a handsome stone front building at Levee and Vine streets, costing $80,000. The building was the most imposing architecturally on the river front.

With Gerard B. Allen as president and Thomas Richeson as vice president the St. Louis Manufacturers' Association was started in 1874. Adolphus Meier and Giles F. Filley were especially active in promoting the organization.

In 1875 Anthony Ittner, W. W. Polk, Joseph K. Bent and others chartered another Mechanics' Exchange. Fine quarters were opened in the Hunt building on Fourth street opposite the Planters' House. Mr. Bent was of Massachusetts birth. He was for forty years a contractor and builder in St. Louis, operating part of the time his own planing mill and taking some of the largest contracts in carpenter work. He did the carpenter work of the Merchants' Exchange, of Barr's, of the First Presbyterian church on Lucas place. He had the contract for the construction of the Third National bank building which was occupied by the bank up to 1908.

The St. Louis Coal Exchange was opened in 1879 for the mutual protection of shippers and dealers. The president was Alexander Hamilton and the treasurer was C. E. Gartside.

Out of a strike among the furniture workers of the city grew an organization of manufacturers which became the St. Louis Furniture Exchange. The first officers were Daniel Aude, D. S. Home and J. H. Koppelman.

The growth of St. Louis, financial, commercial and industrial, is not measured by the city's tonnage, clearings, sales and products. It goes far beyond these local returns, flattering as they are. St. Louis is financing, producing and trading in many places away from home. That is the latest evolution of business growth. Notably St. Louis has been reaching out into the southwest. The relationship has come to mean more than the holding of natural trade territory. President Breckinridge Jones, of the Mississippi Valley Trust company, at the close of 1908, in the Manufacturers' Record, pointed out what St. Louis men and St. Louis capital have been doing in the field:

In 1903, out of a total of over 5,000 miles of railroad constructed in the United States, 2,302 miles were built in the southwest; that is, in the states of Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Indian Territory and Texas. In 1904 the total railroad building in the United States amounted to 3,822.26 miles; in 1905 to 4,358.2 miles, and in 1906 to 5,623 miles, of which, in each year, at least 40 per cent was in the states above named. About the same percentage of mileage is being constructed in the southwest now. In all of this development St. Louis capital has been heavily interested. Among other recent roads made possible by St. Louis capital are the following: Arkansas Southern, running from Eldorado, Ark., to Alexandria, La., Blackwell, Enid & Southwestern, extending from Blackwell, Okla., to Vernon, Texas; Denver, Enid & Gulf running from Guthrie, Okla., to Belvidere, Kan.; St. Louis, Brownsville & Mexico, constructed from Brownsville, Texas, toward San Antonio, Texas; St. Louis, El Keno & Western, extending from Guthrie west, and Missouri & Arkansas, running from Eureka Springs, Arkansas, east.

The Mexican Central, running from El Paso through the Republic of Mexico, while not in the territory called the southwest in this article, still is in territory tributary, and should be mentioned, for St. Louis loaned quite a good deal of money to help its completion.

Along the lines of railway made possible by St. Louis capital, sites became villages, villages towns and towns cities almost before the echo of the first locomotive's whistle had died out across the plains. Indian reservations became things of the past, and fruit was grown which rivaled the products of Florida and California. The new cities, so overgrown as to be backward in the frontier dress, needed help. Water works, gas and electric lights, street railways, telephones and other such conveniences were necessary but the communities were not strong enough to stand the inaugural expense. St. Louis had faith in their future, and readily gave her assistance, taking pleasure in playing the part of an elder sister intensely interested in the welfare of the younger children.

As an indication of the volume of business St. Louis has with the southwest, the following figures are instructive: The total number of tons of freight shipped out of St. Louis in 1907 was 18,374,916; of this, 10,537,291 tons, or 57 per cent was for the southwest. The total number of tons of freight shipped into St. Louis the same year was 29,445,669; of this, 15,146,725 tons, or 51 per cent, was from the southwest.

This section has always looked to the financial institutions of St. Louis, and has never found them unwilling to do all in their power. Every bank in Arkansas keeps an account with some St. Louis bank or trust company, and this can also be said of nearly every bank in the other southwestern states. The great service that St. Louis performs with out-of-town banks, mostly located in the southwest, is shown by the fact that between January 2 and October 31 of this year, a period of ten months, the St. Louis banks and trust companies shipped $104,412,729 in currency, gold and silver to their correspondents for the purpose of handling and moving crops and for other industrial and commercial purposes. During this same period they received $67,681,979 in cash, making a total of $172,094,704, which represents what St. Louis is doing as a financial center.

In 1910 the St. Louis wholesale dry goods houses sold goods to the value of more than $70,000,000. They received and distributed the output of ninety-two factories, most of them in St. Louis or in the immediate vicinity. The marked feature in the evolution of the dry goods business of St. Louis was the increasing dependence of St. Louis houses upon the products of St. Louis factories making shirts, hose, underwear and other kinds of wearing apparel. Through this combination of productive and distributive commerce St. Louis merchants were able to obtain large government contracts in competitive bids in the New York market.

The sales of St. Louis manufacturers and jobbers of drugs in 1910 were $28,000,000, of which amount more than one-half was of local manufacture, including chemicals, patent medicines, ammonia, soaps, perfumes and toilet articles.

In distributive commerce St. Louis has higher rank than the fourth city when certain lines are considered. This is the largest dry goods market west of the Alleghanies; the largest hardwood lumber market in America; the largest horse and mule market in the world; the second largest millinery market in this country; the largest inland coffee distributing point; the largest distributor of shoes. St. Louis has the largest hardware house, the largest woodenware house, the largest drug house in the United States.