STEAMBOATS A’COMIN’

A recent Pioneer Press article by Fred Melo excited my interest in seeing a suitable wharf being built below the city for tourist riverboats as part of the St. Paul development plan.

And then, the October issue of the Smithsonian magazine contains a full page ad for a major leader in river cruises – with St. Paul as its destination!

From St. Paul memoirs written in 1905: During the spring months every steamboat from down the Mississippi brought all the passengers it could accommodate to St. Paul. Five hundred was not an uncommon number and some brought as high as eight hundred persons. One report counted 22 steamboats in April 1857 tied up near Read’s Landing waiting for ice on Lake Pepin to break up so they could ferry 1,500 passengers on to St. Paul. Between April 6 and November 25, 1854, a total of 256 steamboats arrived in St. Paul. Related Articles Letters: He calls that a ‘great job’?

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If trespassing, stealing and shutting down speech is what you stand for … Tainted.

Just imagine what even a fraction of these numbers would do for St. Paul business if we had facilities to accommodate them.

Bob Porter, St. Paul