Lesson Plans for Grades K-12

recommended for GRADES 9-12

Developing a Gateway to the West: A Chicago Success Story
Kevin Clary (South Stokes High School – Walnut Cove, NC)
Richard Mertz (Oak Park/River Forest High School – Oak Park, IL)

Notes on the Core Map

Colton’s Railroad and Military Map of the United States, Mexico, The West Indies, etc. New York: J.H. Colton, 1862. Newberry Library Call number: map G1081.18

Throughout history the relative prominence of cities has been in a constant state of flux. The analysis of why some cities rise and fall while others are able to maintain their prominence raises some very interesting questions. An examination of the 1850’s rivalry between Chicago and St. Louis provides valuable insight into the question of city building.

In 1808, Albert Gallatin, the Secretary of Treasury, went before Congress and issued a plan for the nation’s economic development. His goal was to develop “good roads and canals [to] shorten distances, facilitate commercial and personal intercourse, and [uniting] by a still more intimate community of interests, the most remote quarters of the United States” (Meinig, The Shaping of America, Vol. 2, p. 311).

As a result of physical geography and early capital improvements, the city of St. Louis began its climb to prominence in the decades after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. St. Louis’ importance is defined by its location near the confluence of the Missouri and the Mississippi rivers, which allowed it to serve as a market for Midwest farmers. In 1840, St. Louis had a population of 16,469 and was ranked as the 24th largest city. The zenith of St. Louis was in 1870 when it had a population of 310,864 and was ranked the 4th largest city in the Nation. Colton’s Western Tourist and Emigrant’s Guide of 1854 described St. Louis as “one of the most important places in the West. The union is its tributary and already its trade amounts to nearly one-half of the foreign commerce in value. About 1000 flatboats arrive here annually and steamboats with about 500,000 tons. … No city could be better located for an extensive commerce … year by year its importance is increasing.”

Chicago’s origins and growth were also tied to transportation. The city’s location at the southwestern point of Lake Michigan provided access from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River Valley. However, the importance of its position along the lake was not truly realized until the creation of the Erie Canal in 1828. Chicago was now connected to New York City and its rich ports through the Great Lakes. Chicago’s rise continued with the completion of the Illinois and Michigan Canal in 1848, which connected the Mississippi to the Northeast. As a result, Chicago grew rapidly. In 1840, Chicago had a population of merely 4,470 and was ranked 92nd in the nation. In 1870, the population had increased to 298,977 and its rank was 5th, one place behind St. Louis. Finally, in 1880, Chicago overtook St. Louis as the most populated western city with a population of 503,185, ranked the 4th in the United States.

But it was more than water that explains Chicago’s rise to prominence in the 1880s. In fact, because of the need to connect Oregon and the territory newly acquired from Mexico with the East, a struggle to be the eastern terminus of the transcontinental railroad developed between Chicago and St. Louis. To the victor went the spoils of economic and social growth. In the end, Chicago won the fight, cementing its place as the gateway city to the West. Colton’s Railroad and Military Map of 1862 provides insight into why Chicago won the fight. The core map depicts the Nation on the eve of the transcontinental railroads connecting the newly acquired western territory with the East and the Old Northwest. In fact, the map depicts several potential routes for the transcontinental railroad. The map also shows the country’s move from using nature’s geography (rivers and streams) for transportation to using technology (canals and railroads) to manipulate nature’s topography and provide a more efficient means of transportation. This transformation had significant effects on the country’s economy as well as the demographics of the nation.

The map also shows that not all states or regions of the Nation had equally embraced this transportation revolution. It is clear from the core map that the North and Old Northwest had built canals and railroads more energetically than the South.

One can see that Illinois’ commitment to railroads was much greater than Missouri’s. At first, railroads were merely portage roads, existing to connect areas of the country to waterways. However, as time passed, railroads began to bypass waterways altogether; thereby decreasing the importance of internal waterways. By 1862, Illinois had over 2100 miles of rail while Missouri had only 800 miles of rail. The map shows that the railroads in Illinois had made the commitment to cross the Mississippi river by building bridges at Rock Island in 1855, at Clinton 1858, and at Quincy in 1868. On the other hand, St. Louis and its business leaders who were still maintaining the importance of water transportation. In fact as late as 1869, St. Louis businesses were still arguing that “at least 10,000 miles of navigable rivers bear commerce in the interest of St. Louis. No inland place of the continent holds so favored a position. It is a great point of radiation” (Logan Uriah Davis, quoted in Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis, p. 299). This sentiment was so popular that the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce declared war on the building of bridges across the Mississippi:

A half dozen bridges in rapid current and change channel of this river, would render navigation extremely hazardous, if not impracticable; and the current position of St. Louis, which is now the pride and boast of her citizens, would be counted among the things that were. The City has been and must necessarily remain dependent upon her rivers for the bulk of her trade, and it well becomes her to watch with a jealous eye all attempts to encroach there upon (Cronon, p. 299).

Since the new rail trunk lines had the general effect of decreasing the importance of waterways, in the end St. Louis’s commitment to water contributed to its fall from western prominence.

In addition to providing information on transportation, the map also illustrated the political and sectional crisis of its time. To show the sectional developments the map uses colors to distinguish between the various sectional alliances. The map uses pink to represent Free/Union States, blue to represent Slave/Confederate States and yellow to represent Slave/Border States. With the secession of the Southern States, the Free States now had an opportunity to advance their economic vision of the nation. Since it was in a free state, Congress looked favorably on Chicago and named it as the eastern terminus of the first transcontinental railroad. In addition to showing sectional alliances, the map shows the Union’s deployment of a naval blockade at New Orleans, which added to the determination that Chicago would be the gateway city. “We in the North can but faintly realize the desolation and misery of the war in Missouri and St. Louis. The blockade of the river reduced the whole business of the city to about one-third its former amount” (Atlantic Monthly, June 1867; qoted in Cronon, p. 301). While it is true that St. Louis would regain its former trade, the die was cast against it since farmers from Iowa and Wisconsin had made arrangements to transport their goods through Chicago via rail during the war that they maintained after it.

Albert Gallatin’s 1808 vision of a commercially connected nation was achieved by 1880. Since that time, Gallatin’s vision has not been abandoned or completed, but continually improved upon through the development of highways and air travel.