Browse content similar to St Louis to Jefferson City, Missouri. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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I have crossed the Atlantic to ride the railroads of North America with | 0:00:03 | 0:00:07 | |
my reliable Appletons' guide. | 0:00:07 | 0:00:09 | |
Published in the late 19th century, Appletons' general guide to | 0:00:12 | 0:00:17 | |
North America will direct me to all that's novel. | 0:00:17 | 0:00:20 | |
Beautiful... | 0:00:20 | 0:00:22 | |
memorable... | 0:00:22 | 0:00:23 | |
and striking... | 0:00:23 | 0:00:25 | |
in the United States. | 0:00:25 | 0:00:26 | |
INDISTINCT SHOUTING | 0:00:26 | 0:00:28 | |
As I journey across this vast continent, | 0:00:28 | 0:00:30 | |
I'll discover how pioneers and cowboys conquered the West... | 0:00:30 | 0:00:36 | |
and how the railroads tied this nation together, | 0:00:36 | 0:00:39 | |
helping to create the global superstate of today. | 0:00:39 | 0:00:42 | |
Morning, sir. Ticket, please. | 0:01:18 | 0:01:20 | |
I'm getting off at Washington, Missouri. | 0:01:20 | 0:01:22 | |
Washington, Missouri, all right. Got you covered. Have a good trip. | 0:01:22 | 0:01:25 | |
-Thank you very much. -Thank you. | 0:01:25 | 0:01:28 | |
I'm continuing my journey west across the United States. | 0:01:33 | 0:01:36 | |
These tracks were used by European settlers in the 19th century. | 0:01:36 | 0:01:41 | |
I'll investigate how they imported their way of life | 0:01:41 | 0:01:44 | |
into the New World, reinvented their traditions, | 0:01:44 | 0:01:47 | |
and made the lawless penitent. | 0:01:47 | 0:01:49 | |
My journey began in St Louis, Missouri, the gateway to the West. | 0:01:55 | 0:01:59 | |
Following the route of the pioneers, | 0:01:59 | 0:02:01 | |
I'll visit Kansas City and Dodge City. | 0:02:01 | 0:02:05 | |
I'll encounter a surprising British legacy in Colorado Springs | 0:02:05 | 0:02:10 | |
before turning south to experience the Hispanic culture of Albuquerque, New Mexico. | 0:02:10 | 0:02:16 | |
My journey will end in Arizona, | 0:02:16 | 0:02:18 | |
at the dazzling natural wonder of the Grand Canyon. | 0:02:18 | 0:02:22 | |
Today I'm heading west, | 0:02:24 | 0:02:25 | |
starting at the birthplace of a rural icon in Washington, Missouri, | 0:02:25 | 0:02:30 | |
moving on to the very German Hermann, | 0:02:30 | 0:02:33 | |
and ending up in the state capital of Missouri, Jefferson City. | 0:02:33 | 0:02:38 | |
On this journey, I try my hand on a pipe production line... | 0:02:38 | 0:02:42 | |
We're on a roll now. | 0:02:42 | 0:02:43 | |
A little bit of finger in that one. | 0:02:45 | 0:02:47 | |
..discover where the outlaws of the American frontier were brought to justice... | 0:02:47 | 0:02:52 | |
And what they did is they hauled you all the way back to | 0:02:52 | 0:02:55 | |
Jefferson City, Missouri. | 0:02:55 | 0:02:56 | |
That's what caused us to have a population of over 5,000 people. | 0:02:56 | 0:03:00 | |
..and enjoy the many traditions of the Midwest's German settlers. | 0:03:00 | 0:03:05 | |
Eins, zwei, drei. | 0:03:05 | 0:03:10 | |
-Zicke, zacke, zicke, zacke. -ALL: -Hoi, hoi, hoi! | 0:03:10 | 0:03:14 | |
My first stop will be Washington, Missouri, | 0:03:32 | 0:03:35 | |
which Appletons' tells me is a prosperous and handsome town. | 0:03:35 | 0:03:39 | |
I want to discover how the Europeans encountering an American crop found | 0:03:39 | 0:03:44 | |
a corny way of fulfilling their pipe dreams. | 0:03:44 | 0:03:47 | |
I'm travelling on the tracks of the very first railroad to operate west | 0:03:53 | 0:03:56 | |
of the Mississippi, the Pacific Railroad. | 0:03:56 | 0:03:59 | |
Following the course of the Missouri River, | 0:03:59 | 0:04:01 | |
it was built to connect early immigrant settlements and to promote | 0:04:01 | 0:04:06 | |
further colonisation. | 0:04:06 | 0:04:07 | |
-Thank you very much. -You're welcome. -Bye-bye now. | 0:04:07 | 0:04:10 | |
The railroad arrived in Washington, Missouri, | 0:04:15 | 0:04:17 | |
in 1855 and helped to make this town the world capital of a very | 0:04:17 | 0:04:23 | |
particular product. | 0:04:23 | 0:04:24 | |
I'm visiting the Missouri Meerschaum company to meet Marilyn Lanning. | 0:04:32 | 0:04:36 | |
-Hello, Marilyn. -Hello, Michael. | 0:04:38 | 0:04:40 | |
-Welcome. -Thank you very much. | 0:04:40 | 0:04:42 | |
-Wonderful historic building. -Oh, thank you. | 0:04:42 | 0:04:44 | |
This is actually the original building that we built in the | 0:04:44 | 0:04:48 | |
1880s and it was built specifically for the corn cob pipe factory. | 0:04:48 | 0:04:54 | |
In the 19th century, pipe smoking was widespread and in the rural Midwest, | 0:04:59 | 0:05:04 | |
where there was an abundance of corn, | 0:05:04 | 0:05:06 | |
farmers whittled pipes from their own crops. | 0:05:06 | 0:05:09 | |
In 1869, Dutch immigrant woodworker Henry Tibbe started to make pipes | 0:05:11 | 0:05:16 | |
for sale and, within a decade, went into mass production. | 0:05:16 | 0:05:20 | |
Marilyn, how does the process of making a corncob pipe begin? | 0:05:23 | 0:05:28 | |
Well, once the cobs get to the factory, Michael, | 0:05:28 | 0:05:30 | |
they're separated into size. | 0:05:30 | 0:05:33 | |
Then they're cut on the saw into lengths for the size pipe | 0:05:33 | 0:05:36 | |
that they're making. | 0:05:36 | 0:05:37 | |
Then they come over here to Robert and he drills the tobacco holes | 0:05:37 | 0:05:42 | |
in the centre. | 0:05:42 | 0:05:43 | |
Then after that, they'll go over and they'll be shaped by Nathan. | 0:05:43 | 0:05:48 | |
There's a cutter head that shapes some of them. | 0:05:48 | 0:05:50 | |
So, some of this roughness on the outside is going to come off. | 0:05:50 | 0:05:53 | |
It will. Then the plaster is applied to the outside of the cob and this | 0:05:53 | 0:05:57 | |
was the part of the process that was patented by Henry Tibbe back in the 1870s. | 0:05:57 | 0:06:02 | |
And that's what made his pipes stand out from all the other local manufacturers. | 0:06:02 | 0:06:07 | |
Why would you want to cover the bowl in plaster of Paris? | 0:06:07 | 0:06:11 | |
Well, because it would give it a smoother appearance and maybe make | 0:06:11 | 0:06:16 | |
the pipe last a little longer and there were those people who thought | 0:06:16 | 0:06:19 | |
smoking a corncob pipe was a little bit hickish, | 0:06:19 | 0:06:22 | |
so it would kind of make them feel like they were a little more | 0:06:22 | 0:06:25 | |
aristocratic, perhaps, | 0:06:25 | 0:06:27 | |
if they were smoking something that didn't quite look as rural. | 0:06:27 | 0:06:31 | |
-Hi. -Hello. | 0:06:33 | 0:06:35 | |
Wow! You do those fast. | 0:06:35 | 0:06:37 | |
What have you got in the bowl there? | 0:06:37 | 0:06:39 | |
It's a white plaster. | 0:06:39 | 0:06:40 | |
It's almost the same type of plaster you'd use on a household wall. | 0:06:40 | 0:06:44 | |
Right. | 0:06:44 | 0:06:46 | |
Here's a cob that's natural. See how you've got all these holes? | 0:06:46 | 0:06:49 | |
-Yes. -It fills them holes in to make it smooth, | 0:06:49 | 0:06:53 | |
then you sand them down and then you put the plaster in the second time. | 0:06:53 | 0:06:58 | |
And then sand it again, by the time it comes out here, | 0:06:58 | 0:07:01 | |
it's slick as glass. | 0:07:01 | 0:07:02 | |
Lovely. You keep going because I don't want your plaster to dry there. | 0:07:02 | 0:07:06 | |
Yeah, plaster will harden up on me. | 0:07:06 | 0:07:08 | |
In this factory, they produce, pack and ship about 5,000 pipes a | 0:07:15 | 0:07:19 | |
day for the home market and abroad. | 0:07:19 | 0:07:22 | |
May I ask you what you're doing? What part of the process is that? | 0:07:25 | 0:07:29 | |
This is the little black feral on the stem. | 0:07:29 | 0:07:33 | |
I'm putting this on the stem and then they'll put the bit into it. | 0:07:33 | 0:07:37 | |
Have you any idea how many of those you can do maybe in a day? | 0:07:37 | 0:07:40 | |
Probably a couple of thousand in an hour... | 0:07:40 | 0:07:43 | |
-In an hour? -In an hour. -Really? | 0:07:43 | 0:07:45 | |
There's couple of thousand in a tub and I can do a tub in a | 0:07:45 | 0:07:49 | |
-couple of hours. -Wow! | 0:07:49 | 0:07:51 | |
Do you mind if I have a little go at that? | 0:07:51 | 0:07:53 | |
-Show me how to do it. -This... | 0:07:55 | 0:07:57 | |
I set it in there and line it up and hit it once to get it started. | 0:07:57 | 0:08:02 | |
Then I hit it the second time to level it out. | 0:08:02 | 0:08:06 | |
-Two taps. -Yes. I always do two taps because the first one, | 0:08:06 | 0:08:11 | |
I'm afraid it's not really level, so with the second one, | 0:08:11 | 0:08:14 | |
-it levels it out more. -Well... | 0:08:14 | 0:08:16 | |
One end is thinner than the other. | 0:08:19 | 0:08:20 | |
It's narrower, yeah. | 0:08:20 | 0:08:22 | |
So I pop that over the ring... | 0:08:22 | 0:08:23 | |
One tap and another tap for luck. | 0:08:24 | 0:08:27 | |
-Yes. -That looks good. | 0:08:27 | 0:08:29 | |
We're on a roll now. A little bit of finger in that one. | 0:08:29 | 0:08:33 | |
Yeah. You'll soon be able to do 1,000. | 0:08:33 | 0:08:36 | |
Two taps and away to a pipe dream. | 0:08:40 | 0:08:43 | |
Excellent. | 0:08:43 | 0:08:44 | |
Manufactured just metres from the railroad station, | 0:08:53 | 0:08:57 | |
Henry Tibbe's pipes were exported across the country and the world. | 0:08:57 | 0:09:01 | |
Pipe connoisseurs Joe and Jim are aficionados of this icon of the Midwest. | 0:09:01 | 0:09:06 | |
The pipe you're holding now, is that a special pipe for you? | 0:09:10 | 0:09:13 | |
It's one that I use quite often. | 0:09:13 | 0:09:15 | |
We like to hunt and fish here in the Midwest and squirrel hunting happens | 0:09:15 | 0:09:19 | |
to be one of our hobbies. | 0:09:19 | 0:09:21 | |
-Squirrel? -Squirrel. | 0:09:21 | 0:09:22 | |
Yes, relative to the rat, yes. | 0:09:22 | 0:09:24 | |
Tree rats, actually. | 0:09:25 | 0:09:27 | |
But we consider them a food source here. | 0:09:27 | 0:09:29 | |
And my wife cooks a fantastic squirrel in gravy | 0:09:29 | 0:09:33 | |
and squirrel hunting is done where you go out into the woods | 0:09:33 | 0:09:37 | |
before sun up, sit under a tree, usually in the fall, | 0:09:37 | 0:09:40 | |
and it's kind of frosty and you light it up, it warms your hand. | 0:09:40 | 0:09:43 | |
Keeps your trigger finger warm. | 0:09:43 | 0:09:46 | |
Who have been famous pipe smokers in American history? | 0:09:46 | 0:09:50 | |
Well, General MacArthur, I would say. | 0:09:50 | 0:09:52 | |
He's right up there. | 0:09:52 | 0:09:53 | |
He had his long-stemmed pipe designed down here for him. | 0:09:54 | 0:10:00 | |
And they say he used to take it when he was giving orders and he'd | 0:10:00 | 0:10:04 | |
use it to point. But he had a long bowl where he could probably be able | 0:10:04 | 0:10:08 | |
to smoke it for a couple plus hours without refilling. | 0:10:08 | 0:10:12 | |
I guess he was a busy man. | 0:10:12 | 0:10:14 | |
Throughout the 19th century, | 0:10:26 | 0:10:28 | |
European immigration to the United States gathered pace, | 0:10:28 | 0:10:32 | |
as groups from Europe fled troubles at home and were attracted to the | 0:10:32 | 0:10:36 | |
potential of America's new lands. | 0:10:36 | 0:10:39 | |
My next stop will be Hermann, Missouri, founded in 1836 | 0:10:39 | 0:10:43 | |
by the German settlement society to be a city that was German in every particular. | 0:10:43 | 0:10:49 | |
And you don't have to be here for long to discover that they | 0:10:49 | 0:10:53 | |
certainly achieved that. | 0:10:53 | 0:10:54 | |
In an area of hills and river valleys, the early German settlers | 0:10:58 | 0:11:02 | |
began cultivating a crop that reminded them of home. | 0:11:02 | 0:11:07 | |
I'm meeting Jon Held, whose winery was established in 1847. | 0:11:07 | 0:11:12 | |
John, you have spectacular views here down over the Missouri River | 0:11:14 | 0:11:20 | |
and I must say, they are quite reminiscent of what you might see in | 0:11:20 | 0:11:23 | |
the Rhine in Germany. Is there some connection? | 0:11:23 | 0:11:26 | |
Oh, you bet. The early settlers to Hermann selected this area because | 0:11:26 | 0:11:30 | |
it reminded them of home. | 0:11:30 | 0:11:31 | |
When did the cultivation of vines first start here? | 0:11:31 | 0:11:34 | |
Right about the time the city or the town of Hermann was founded. | 0:11:34 | 0:11:39 | |
And then it increased in production, hitting its peak around 1878, | 0:11:39 | 0:11:43 | |
but by that timeframe, there were over 60 wineries | 0:11:43 | 0:11:47 | |
in and around the town of Hermann. | 0:11:47 | 0:11:49 | |
I am afraid to say that I had not thought of Missouri as being | 0:11:49 | 0:11:52 | |
particularly a wine-producing area. | 0:11:52 | 0:11:54 | |
We tend to think of California. | 0:11:54 | 0:11:56 | |
How important was Missouri in its heyday? | 0:11:57 | 0:11:59 | |
During the peak in the 1870s, it was actually... | 0:11:59 | 0:12:03 | |
for one year, the largest producing state in the nation. | 0:12:03 | 0:12:07 | |
Is that so? Are you very aware of your Germans? | 0:12:07 | 0:12:09 | |
Absolutely. Living in Hermann, with the strong German heritage, | 0:12:09 | 0:12:13 | |
as well as the wine, the German cuisine, very strong German identity. | 0:12:13 | 0:12:18 | |
-What about the language? -Oh, the language died out with World War I. | 0:12:18 | 0:12:22 | |
An example, the town that my parents grew up in was called Potsdam. | 0:12:22 | 0:12:26 | |
But the day the US entered World War I, they changed the name | 0:12:26 | 0:12:30 | |
to Pershing, in honour of General Pershing. | 0:12:30 | 0:12:32 | |
The Feds really took a dim view of this town and they were | 0:12:32 | 0:12:37 | |
scrutinising for German sympathisers. | 0:12:37 | 0:12:40 | |
And that really killed that language out. | 0:12:40 | 0:12:43 | |
My grandparents spoke it in their home as children but then it stopped. | 0:12:43 | 0:12:48 | |
-Did that have an impact on wine growing? -It helped kill it. | 0:12:48 | 0:12:51 | |
Because they were looked so carefully at by the Feds, | 0:12:51 | 0:12:55 | |
they didn't attempt to do any sacramental wines, | 0:12:55 | 0:12:58 | |
which a lot of wineries in California were able to survive | 0:12:58 | 0:13:01 | |
prohibition by making communion wine or sacramental wine. | 0:13:01 | 0:13:05 | |
But with the German... | 0:13:05 | 0:13:06 | |
Anti-German sentiment here, they didn't attempt that. | 0:13:06 | 0:13:09 | |
-May we move on to the vineyard? -Oh, absolutely. -Thank you. | 0:13:09 | 0:13:12 | |
The railroads initially boosted the Missouri wine industry, | 0:13:16 | 0:13:20 | |
transporting its product across America, | 0:13:20 | 0:13:23 | |
but when the first transcontinental railroad reached California in 1869, | 0:13:23 | 0:13:28 | |
the West Coast wines offered formidable competition. | 0:13:28 | 0:13:32 | |
Where does this grape come from? | 0:13:34 | 0:13:36 | |
The predominant species is Vitus aestivalis, | 0:13:36 | 0:13:39 | |
which is a Native American grape. | 0:13:39 | 0:13:41 | |
So very well adapted to this climate. | 0:13:41 | 0:13:44 | |
-Are you having a good year? -Oh, it's a great year. | 0:13:44 | 0:13:46 | |
It's a really warm season, adequate rainfall. | 0:13:46 | 0:13:50 | |
I think these are going to ripen into a really great vintage. | 0:13:50 | 0:13:52 | |
I think I'm going to ripen in this heat. | 0:13:52 | 0:13:54 | |
The heritage may be of the Rhine Valley, | 0:13:56 | 0:13:59 | |
but the grape varieties and the resulting wines are very different | 0:13:59 | 0:14:03 | |
from their European counterparts. | 0:14:03 | 0:14:05 | |
Not least because I've been expecting a German wine to be white. | 0:14:05 | 0:14:09 | |
So, this is a bit of a surprise, isn't it? | 0:14:09 | 0:14:11 | |
Because this wine is not in any way German, right? | 0:14:11 | 0:14:16 | |
Not at all. This is our top wine. | 0:14:16 | 0:14:18 | |
It's done in a traditional big red dry style, | 0:14:18 | 0:14:22 | |
not what you think of as a Germanic-style wine. | 0:14:22 | 0:14:26 | |
Very nice. | 0:14:26 | 0:14:27 | |
-Redcurrant? -Definitely. | 0:14:27 | 0:14:29 | |
-Spicy? -Very spicy. | 0:14:29 | 0:14:31 | |
Particularly from this vineyard site. | 0:14:31 | 0:14:32 | |
We get a lot of spicy character. | 0:14:32 | 0:14:35 | |
-How do we say around here...? -Prost. -Prost! | 0:14:35 | 0:14:37 | |
The population of Hermann today is still predominantly of German descent. | 0:14:44 | 0:14:49 | |
Traditions of the mother country are very much in evidence at the local | 0:14:49 | 0:14:53 | |
sausage shop, run by Mike Sloan. | 0:14:53 | 0:14:55 | |
So, Mike, what is this that I have here? | 0:15:00 | 0:15:01 | |
So that sausage is a bratwurst, it's the bacon, potato, cheddar bratwurst. | 0:15:01 | 0:15:06 | |
So, it's pork, seasoned spices and bacon, added cheddar, | 0:15:06 | 0:15:10 | |
added potatoes. So, what that means is it's a meal. | 0:15:10 | 0:15:13 | |
It's a meal all by itself. | 0:15:13 | 0:15:15 | |
-Oh, my goodness. -All the major food groups are represented right there | 0:15:15 | 0:15:18 | |
-in that sausage. -That is a very, very good sausage. | 0:15:18 | 0:15:20 | |
So, there must be huge demand for German sausages here. | 0:15:20 | 0:15:23 | |
We make 46 different flavours of sausage and bratwurst. | 0:15:23 | 0:15:27 | |
Are you a native of Hermann? | 0:15:29 | 0:15:30 | |
Yes, I am. I've lived here all my life. | 0:15:30 | 0:15:32 | |
-71 years. -Have you any idea, you know, what proportion of this town | 0:15:32 | 0:15:36 | |
is German today, would call itself German? | 0:15:36 | 0:15:39 | |
40, 50 years ago, it was close to 100%. | 0:15:39 | 0:15:42 | |
Now, we have some people coming out from St Louis, | 0:15:42 | 0:15:45 | |
but I'd still say 80%. | 0:15:45 | 0:15:47 | |
What are the customs that you maintain? | 0:15:47 | 0:15:49 | |
Well, we have our May Festival, our Maifest, | 0:15:50 | 0:15:53 | |
we have the sausage festival, the Wurstfest. | 0:15:53 | 0:15:56 | |
We have Oktoberfest, October Festival. | 0:15:56 | 0:15:58 | |
Excuse me, is there any month you don't have a Fest? | 0:15:58 | 0:16:02 | |
A couple of months, yes. | 0:16:02 | 0:16:03 | |
And at the heart of any self-respecting German festival is | 0:16:06 | 0:16:11 | |
beer and a singsong. | 0:16:11 | 0:16:13 | |
# Mein Vater war ein Wandersmann | 0:16:13 | 0:16:17 | |
# Und mir steckt's auch im Blut | 0:16:17 | 0:16:20 | |
# Drum wandr' ich flott, so lang ich kann | 0:16:20 | 0:16:24 | |
# Und schwenke meinen Hut... # | 0:16:24 | 0:16:27 | |
Here we go! | 0:16:27 | 0:16:29 | |
# Faleri, falera, faleri | 0:16:29 | 0:16:35 | |
# Falera ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha | 0:16:35 | 0:16:38 | |
# Faleri, falera | 0:16:38 | 0:16:41 | |
# Und schwenke meinen Hut. # | 0:16:41 | 0:16:44 | |
Eins, zwei, drei. | 0:16:48 | 0:16:51 | |
Zicke, zacke, zicke, zacke. Hoi, hoi, hoi! | 0:16:53 | 0:16:57 | |
-Zicke, zacke, zicke, zacke. -ALL: Hoi, hoi, hoi! | 0:16:57 | 0:17:01 | |
It's a new day and I'm continuing westwards on the | 0:17:18 | 0:17:21 | |
Amtrak River Runner Route. | 0:17:21 | 0:17:23 | |
-Guys? May I join you for a second? -Sure. | 0:17:30 | 0:17:32 | |
Thank you very much. | 0:17:33 | 0:17:34 | |
It's very nice to see a family using the train. | 0:17:36 | 0:17:38 | |
-Where are you headed for? -We're going from St Louis to Kansas City. | 0:17:38 | 0:17:42 | |
-Do you like using the train? -Absolutely. | 0:17:42 | 0:17:44 | |
It's clean, it's comfortable, you meet nice people. | 0:17:44 | 0:17:47 | |
-It's the best way to travel. -Wow! | 0:17:47 | 0:17:49 | |
You sound like an advertisement for the railroads. | 0:17:49 | 0:17:52 | |
Actually, many Americans seem to be railroad averse. | 0:17:52 | 0:17:54 | |
They just get in their car. | 0:17:54 | 0:17:56 | |
I think if you grew up in the north-east, it's a different story. | 0:17:56 | 0:18:00 | |
I think your statement is correct for other parts of the country. | 0:18:00 | 0:18:03 | |
The Midwest, particularly, but the East Coast, that's a way of life. | 0:18:03 | 0:18:06 | |
Yeah. That's true, that's true. And do you know this route? | 0:18:06 | 0:18:10 | |
Have you travelled it before? I'm just enjoying the views of the | 0:18:10 | 0:18:13 | |
-Missouri River so much, aren't you? -Very scenic, very nice. | 0:18:13 | 0:18:16 | |
My next stop is Jefferson City, | 0:18:23 | 0:18:25 | |
which Appletons' tells me is the capital of the state of Missouri. | 0:18:25 | 0:18:29 | |
Beautifully situated on high bluffs which overlook the Missouri River. | 0:18:29 | 0:18:34 | |
Named after Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence. | 0:18:34 | 0:18:39 | |
Third president of the United States. | 0:18:39 | 0:18:41 | |
The man who made the Louisiana purchase from Napoleon of France | 0:18:41 | 0:18:45 | |
and who set out the grid pattern for the settlement of the American West. | 0:18:45 | 0:18:49 | |
Ladies and gentlemen, we're arriving in Jefferson City. | 0:18:52 | 0:18:55 | |
Please gather your belongings, make your way to the exit doors. | 0:18:55 | 0:18:57 | |
Jefferson City, now arriving. | 0:18:57 | 0:19:00 | |
All right, folks. Be very careful here. Watch your step. | 0:19:06 | 0:19:09 | |
Thank you very much. | 0:19:09 | 0:19:10 | |
Located on the river between St Louis and Kansas City, | 0:19:15 | 0:19:19 | |
Jefferson City began as a midway trading post. | 0:19:19 | 0:19:23 | |
It's the capital of Missouri, but by no means the state's biggest city. | 0:19:23 | 0:19:28 | |
With a population of just over 40,000, it has a quiet, small-town feel. | 0:19:30 | 0:19:36 | |
Every state in the union has a capital city and a centre of government, | 0:19:39 | 0:19:44 | |
generally known as the capital, and in nearly every case, | 0:19:44 | 0:19:47 | |
dominated by a dome. | 0:19:47 | 0:19:49 | |
This one in Jefferson City, Missouri, has a sort of grey austere | 0:19:49 | 0:19:54 | |
elegance about it. | 0:19:54 | 0:19:55 | |
Inside, I'm hoping to find something a little earthier. | 0:19:55 | 0:19:58 | |
My Appletons' gives the reader detailed descriptions of American | 0:20:10 | 0:20:15 | |
towns and cities but in the days before guidebooks, | 0:20:15 | 0:20:18 | |
people in the east struggled to get an image of the new western lands. | 0:20:18 | 0:20:24 | |
I'm here to meet art historian Joan Stack | 0:20:24 | 0:20:27 | |
to find out about a famous frontier painter and Missouri | 0:20:27 | 0:20:30 | |
politician, George Caleb Bingham. | 0:20:30 | 0:20:33 | |
Why is George Caleb Bingham significant? | 0:20:35 | 0:20:38 | |
Well, he was an early artist who painted the West and he didn't just | 0:20:38 | 0:20:42 | |
paint Native Americans and buffalo, | 0:20:42 | 0:20:44 | |
he painted the people who worked in the West. | 0:20:44 | 0:20:48 | |
And when people saw these images in the east, | 0:20:48 | 0:20:51 | |
they began to really realise, perhaps, the potential of the West. | 0:20:51 | 0:20:55 | |
Painting primarily in the 1840s and 50s, Bingham was the first artist to | 0:20:57 | 0:21:02 | |
bring realistic images of the West into the drawing rooms of the rich | 0:21:02 | 0:21:07 | |
and influential in New York. | 0:21:07 | 0:21:09 | |
Well, not what I expected as images of the Wild West. | 0:21:11 | 0:21:15 | |
Tell me about this image. | 0:21:15 | 0:21:16 | |
This is the picture that made George Caleb Bingham famous. | 0:21:16 | 0:21:20 | |
And the picture was called The Jolly Flatboatman. | 0:21:20 | 0:21:23 | |
The interesting thing is that you see the type of person that was in | 0:21:23 | 0:21:28 | |
Missouri at that time. | 0:21:28 | 0:21:30 | |
We see a kind of a group of young immigrants, Young Americans, | 0:21:30 | 0:21:36 | |
who represent the potential of the United States. | 0:21:36 | 0:21:39 | |
And then this would be an oil painting of his, would it? | 0:21:39 | 0:21:42 | |
Yes. This is a painting called Watching The Cargo, painted in 1849, | 0:21:42 | 0:21:48 | |
that was displayed in New York. | 0:21:48 | 0:21:49 | |
It appears at first to be this beautiful landscape with this | 0:21:49 | 0:21:53 | |
beautiful evening sky, but if you look closely, | 0:21:53 | 0:21:56 | |
you'll see there is a wrecked steamboat in the painting, | 0:21:56 | 0:22:00 | |
so they're protecting the commercial goods because the river is dangerous. | 0:22:00 | 0:22:06 | |
And Bingham was a member of the Whig party, | 0:22:06 | 0:22:09 | |
which supported the idea of improving the rivers, | 0:22:09 | 0:22:13 | |
of making them more safe to navigate. | 0:22:13 | 0:22:17 | |
How different is Bingham's art from what other people are painting in | 0:22:17 | 0:22:20 | |
-the West? -Well, most of the artists who are painting the West are taking | 0:22:20 | 0:22:23 | |
advantage of the romanticism around the Native Americans, | 0:22:23 | 0:22:27 | |
the exotic animals like the buffalo, but to many people, | 0:22:27 | 0:22:31 | |
that is the West that is disappearing. | 0:22:31 | 0:22:35 | |
There was also a West that was growing and those are the river | 0:22:35 | 0:22:39 | |
men, those are the people that are working the rivers, | 0:22:39 | 0:22:41 | |
making America a united country, uniting the East with the West, | 0:22:41 | 0:22:47 | |
creating this commercial world, this economic world, | 0:22:47 | 0:22:51 | |
that had a great deal of potential. | 0:22:51 | 0:22:52 | |
Remaining in Jefferson City, and led by my guidebook, | 0:23:01 | 0:23:05 | |
I find myself outside the imposing walls of an enormous fortified building. | 0:23:05 | 0:23:11 | |
Jefferson City's State penitentiary, says Appletons', | 0:23:13 | 0:23:17 | |
is massive and spacious. | 0:23:17 | 0:23:19 | |
Evidently, so it is. | 0:23:19 | 0:23:21 | |
I'm just asking myself why such a small town would need such a huge jail. | 0:23:21 | 0:23:27 | |
This intimidating structure was opened in 1836 and was operational | 0:23:34 | 0:23:41 | |
for 168 years, until it closed in 2004. | 0:23:41 | 0:23:44 | |
I'm meeting Mike Gruce, a former warden. | 0:23:46 | 0:23:49 | |
Mike, the interior of the prison confirms its size. | 0:23:52 | 0:23:56 | |
Why so big in Jefferson City? | 0:23:56 | 0:23:59 | |
This prison should've housed around 1,000 inmates - | 0:23:59 | 0:24:02 | |
that's what a state our size would have housed. | 0:24:02 | 0:24:05 | |
But what happened is we're located at the stepping off point to the frontier. | 0:24:05 | 0:24:09 | |
We were the furthest west prison in the United States for a | 0:24:09 | 0:24:12 | |
number of years. Those people going west, they're concerned about not | 0:24:12 | 0:24:15 | |
being killed by an Indian or eaten by a bear. | 0:24:15 | 0:24:18 | |
Not building a prison. | 0:24:18 | 0:24:20 | |
And if you are a person that went west, let's say on a wagon train, | 0:24:20 | 0:24:23 | |
and you ended up in Colorado and you robbed your mining partner out there | 0:24:23 | 0:24:26 | |
or something, what did they do with you? | 0:24:26 | 0:24:28 | |
There were no prisons. | 0:24:28 | 0:24:30 | |
What they did is actually hauled you all the way back to Jefferson City, Missouri. | 0:24:30 | 0:24:34 | |
That's what caused us to have a population of over 5,000 people | 0:24:34 | 0:24:38 | |
here at this prison. | 0:24:38 | 0:24:39 | |
As the last bastion of law, this prison serve the entire | 0:24:41 | 0:24:45 | |
Wild West and serious and violent criminals from beyond the frontier | 0:24:45 | 0:24:50 | |
were brought here by local sheriffs or bounty hunters. | 0:24:50 | 0:24:55 | |
Must have been pretty crowded. | 0:24:59 | 0:25:00 | |
It was certainly crowded and with six people per cell, | 0:25:00 | 0:25:03 | |
you have to consider in those days there was no plumbing, | 0:25:03 | 0:25:06 | |
there was no electricity, there was no heat. | 0:25:06 | 0:25:08 | |
And in this particular case as well, they didn't even give them a bed. | 0:25:08 | 0:25:11 | |
They simply gave them a straw-filled mattress and they slept on the floor. | 0:25:11 | 0:25:16 | |
What was the daily routine of the prisoner? | 0:25:16 | 0:25:19 | |
The primary job was building the prison. | 0:25:19 | 0:25:21 | |
Each of those millions of rock it took to build these buildings in | 0:25:21 | 0:25:25 | |
this wall, each of those have been cut out off the ground by an | 0:25:25 | 0:25:28 | |
inmate and hand shaped. | 0:25:28 | 0:25:30 | |
So this was a massive construction project to build their own prison. | 0:25:30 | 0:25:35 | |
The regime was harsh - silence at all times, solitary confinement during | 0:25:35 | 0:25:40 | |
the evening, and hard labour during the day. | 0:25:40 | 0:25:44 | |
The large, cheap workforce was readily exploited by local businesses. | 0:25:44 | 0:25:49 | |
They were put to work manufacturing things that were needed by the | 0:25:55 | 0:25:59 | |
people in Missouri and the people settling in the West. | 0:25:59 | 0:26:02 | |
We supplied a large portion of the harness for horses that pulled those | 0:26:02 | 0:26:07 | |
wagons west, in Westward expansion. | 0:26:07 | 0:26:09 | |
We found the records for saddle trees, | 0:26:09 | 0:26:11 | |
which is the piece under a Western saddle. | 0:26:11 | 0:26:13 | |
We were producing 60,000 of those a year here. | 0:26:13 | 0:26:16 | |
So a significant portion of what the settlers in the early West needed | 0:26:16 | 0:26:20 | |
were made here at this prison. | 0:26:20 | 0:26:22 | |
How were the raw materials imported into the prison? | 0:26:22 | 0:26:24 | |
How was the product exported? | 0:26:24 | 0:26:27 | |
In the early years, it was brought in on a wagon behind a team of | 0:26:27 | 0:26:30 | |
horses or mules. But that wasn't sufficient. | 0:26:30 | 0:26:32 | |
With 5,000 people, you need a lot of raw materials. | 0:26:32 | 0:26:35 | |
And what happened here is eventually we had to bring it in by train and | 0:26:35 | 0:26:39 | |
they put a rail spur actually into the prison that they hauled in the | 0:26:39 | 0:26:42 | |
leather goods and the steel and the items that we needed for manufacture. | 0:26:42 | 0:26:46 | |
Whilst the inmates made goods for the Pioneers, the railroads forged | 0:26:54 | 0:27:00 | |
West, carving out routes for trade and new settlement. | 0:27:00 | 0:27:03 | |
While migrants clung to cherished customs, in these harsh new lands, | 0:27:04 | 0:27:09 | |
they had to adapt and work hard. | 0:27:09 | 0:27:12 | |
German settlers were attracted to Missouri because it reminded them of | 0:27:15 | 0:27:20 | |
the Rhine and today there is still a German community enjoying sausages. | 0:27:20 | 0:27:26 | |
But the wine they produce is not German. | 0:27:26 | 0:27:29 | |
It's made from an indigenous American grape, and that could be a metaphor - | 0:27:29 | 0:27:34 | |
no matter how much those of European origin value their traditions, | 0:27:34 | 0:27:40 | |
they've been thoroughly absorbed into the American mosaic. | 0:27:40 | 0:27:44 | |
Next time, I'll discover the hidden pleasures of 19th-century railroad workers... | 0:27:46 | 0:27:51 | |
One of the St Louis newspapers referred to the city | 0:27:51 | 0:27:54 | |
as the Sodom and Gomorrah of the Midwest. | 0:27:54 | 0:27:58 | |
..confront the brutal hardships faced by the early pioneers... | 0:27:58 | 0:28:02 | |
400,000 people made that journey. | 0:28:02 | 0:28:06 | |
They claim at least 9% died along the way. | 0:28:06 | 0:28:09 | |
..and find out with freight on the rails it's all about size. | 0:28:09 | 0:28:13 | |
So let's say the average length of a car is 20 yards, | 0:28:13 | 0:28:16 | |
you've got 100 cars, that is more than a mile. | 0:28:16 | 0:28:19 |