Ohio & Mississippi Railroad

The Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois legislatures passed acts chartering the Ohio & Mississippi Railroad in 1848, 1849, and 1851, respectively, to connect the industrial cities of St. Louis and Cincinnati and to stimulate economic growth in all three states. The eastern division of the railroad connected Vincennes, Indiana, on the Wabash River, to Cincinnati. The western division of the railroad connected Illinoistown (East St. Louis), Illinois, across the Mississippi River from St. Louis to Vincennes. Cincinnati was connected to Baltimore on the Marietta & Cincinnati Railroad, and the completion of the Ohio & Mississippi Railroad ultimately connected St. Louis to Baltimore on the Atlantic coast. Construction of the entire 341 miles of the railroad concluded on August 15, 1857, at a cost of nearly $20 million.

L. U. Reavis, The Railway and River Systems of the City of St. Louis (St. Louis: Woodward, Tiernan & Hale, 1879), 112; Taylor & Crooks, Sketch Book of Saint Louis (St. Louis: George Knapp, 1858), 127; Wm. Prescott Smith, The Book of the Great Railway Celebrations of 1857 (New York: D. Appleton, 1858), 101, 103; J. Thomas Scharf, History of Saint Louis City and County (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1883), 2:1179; Wyatt Winton Belcher, The Economic Rivalry between St. Louis and Chicago, 1850-1880 (New York: AMS Press, 1968), 93.