Panoramic watercolor painting depicts the aftermath of a fire that destroyed much of the St. Louis riverfront in 1849, showing burned out buildings, the wreckage of steamboats and damaged docks. Signed lower right "Lemasson" and inscribed lower margin "Locust St."
This type dwelling, one of many erected on Second and Third streets in the 1840s, was called a "row." The two doors on the sidewalk level of the building led to a court usually planted in flowers and trees.
This letter was written in 1849 by a forty-niner in St. Louis, one William H. Morse, to a friend back home in New England. He’s been in St. Louis for three weeks, the last stop on the frontier, as he prepares to embark on a journey westward on the overland trail, making his way to California in search of gold. He describes his 35 day trip thus far, from an unnamed town in the northeast, south
Two letters written by Samuel Rothgeb to his parents in 1847. Rothgeb was a young man just off the farm when he took up a position as a merchant and cook aboard a flatboat plying the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers at the twilight of the flatboat age. His letters chronicle storms, river trade, daily rafting life, and more.