Louisville, 1780-1892 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1892 Excerpt: ... dwell upon the advantages that inure to the manufacturing and trade center that occupies, as does Louisville, a conspicuous position upon the bank of one of these broad and noble streams. All that low rates of transportation by water can be counted for in commercial affairs, are secured and assured to Louisville inseparably and forever. Until the inventive ingenuity of man has devised some more puissant, and a cheaper mode, of conveying passengers and freight from one part of the country to another than obtains at the present day, the steamboats, that ply the rivers mentioned and their tributaries, will act as regulators of carrying-rates and exert a salutary influence upon the commerce of the territory through which they flow. Since the advent of the Louisville and Portland Canal, referred to in a former chapter, boats have uninterrupted passageway from Pittsburgh to New Orleans, and, in fact, access to all the navigable rivers between the Allegheny and Rocky mountains. While the volume of trade upon the Ohio and other rivers is not as heavy now as in the palmy days of steamboating, yet, there is a large carrying trade done, enough to warrant the keeping in commission of hundreds of craft which afford a low rate of freight and act as a safety-valve to the business public, upon many of the railroads with which they come in competition. To all points up the Ohio to Cincinnati, boats run daily, where they connect for up-river points; for the Kentucky and Kanawha rivers twice a week, and daily down stream for Evansville and Cairo. Packets to Memphis run semi-weekly and connect, as do the boats for Cairo, with boats on the Tennessee, the Cumberland and Green rivers. Through boats to New Orleans and intermediate points run weekly, and the facilities for expediti..