St. Joseph, Missouri: How the West was won!

By Bob Ford Special to

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Everybody knows the first half of Horace Greeley’s famous quote but not many remember the second, “Go West young man … and when you get there don’t forget to check out St. Jo!”

Why St. Joseph, Missouri, because much of the West was won right here. In 1861, St. Jo was the epicenter of transportation, commerce and communication for everything headed West, with tentacles of all three touching years earlier and later. This City was the place to be.

I like to say, “if you have lineage in the West, chances are you can trace your family history to someone who risked it all, heading out on a wagon train, so you could enjoy the life you are living.”

Transportation

No other American city saw more movement west in the mid-1800s than St. Jo. Throngs of steamboats would traverse the treacherous Missouri River offloading their passengers and goods needed to settle the frontier.

Later, this was the place where you could get on a train in New York City, make your way to St. Joseph, sign-on to a wagon train and head out on one of the many trails for a new life.

In the expansion decades, hundreds of thousands of pioneers set out from this area in what many know as the largest peaceful migration of humans in the history of mankind.

Wagon trains, railroads, steamboats, stagecoaches and carriages all converged and left from the city carrying the masses west.

An amended quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson made it clear, “Hitch your wagon to a star … and head out on the California Trail from St. Jo.”

Commerce

St. Joseph was the launching pad for all points West. Joining a wagon train, you had to outfit yourself for the 130-day or so journey. Jo Town was the right place at the right time to sell you everything you needed. Millions and millions of dollars were made, as everyone bought goods from handkerchiefs to oxen for the trek.

Entrepreneurs smart enough to realize the built-in need for equipment and necessities made St. Joseph their home. The opulence and lifestyle from the era can still be seen through the architecture and living history of the city, which cherishes and displays its past with many assorted museums featuring this unique place.

Farmers, soldiers, Native Americans, merchants, slaves, millionaires, settlers, bushwhackers, dandies, prospectors and painted ladies all mixed with one another in this dusty and glorious, “wide open town.”

Communication

In the mid-19th century the United States was in turmoil. Threats of secession and war dominated politics. As the country struggled with how to deal with the question of slavery, timely information was critical.

East coast telegraphs only went so far, the rail systems were being built, yet the West was being developed at a furious pace.

California, “you’ve got mail … compliments of the Pony Express!”

The advent of St. Jo’s Pony Express helped fill the information void between politics in the East and expansion of the West. Mail was an essential element in providing the critical information needed by all in those chaotic times.

St. Joseph, Missouri is a city that has a history like no other in the United States, with grandeur and excess St. Jo wasn’t a boom town, it was a boom city.

Robert Frost and a few others had first drafts that got it right, “Two roads converged in a yellow wood … I took St. Jo’s famous parkways, there less traveled.”

“Where we love is St. Jo, our feet may leave but not our hearts,” an adjusted thought from Oliver Wendall Holmes.

“Life is like a box of chocolates … but I’d prefer a handful of Cherry Mashes!” That’s what Forrest Gump was about to say before the bus pulled up.

“Yes, with London fog around me, and bustling to and fro, I am frettering to be across the sea, in Lovers Lane, St. Jo.”

Eugene Field … didn’t have to touch that one.

And finally, the entire line from St. Joseph’s favorite son, heard by millions nightly, “and that’s the way it is … around the world and in my hometown,” Walter Cronkite Jr.

Enjoy St. Jo,…explore!