European-American agricultural settlement had a noticeable effect on the Missouri’s hydraulic regime.  During the steamboat era, roustabouts felled the valley’s forests to provide fuel for the hundreds of steamers that worked the river.  The loss of lowland timber caused the Missouri to rise higher, faster, and more frequently than it had in the years before the advent of steamboat traffic on the river.

Valley farmers also contributed to deforestation.  They knocked down the Missouri’s wooded fringes to acquire timber for log cabins, fence posts, roofing shingles, crude furniture, containers, and tool handles.  Settlers burned kindling in cooking and heating fires.  Not coincidentally, the most voluminous Missouri River floods in the nineteenth century occurred during the busiest years of the steamboat era.  Floods passed down the valley in 1844, 1857, 1858, 1862, 1867, 1872, 1874, 1875, 1878, and 1881.  Unknown to valley residents, or at least not acknowledged by them, they had to large extent brought down the floodwaters upon themselves. Continue Reading »