Excerpt from The Story of Old St. Louis This volume is the result of an effort to present the interesting story of the adventurous lives led by the inhabitants of St. Louis in early times, in a form accessible to all, and in a book of size convenient for use. This story has been told before in bulky volumes that may be found upon the shelves of reference rooms in our libraries, but our people know little of the wonderful life of our early pioneers. Few of our children are acquainted with the heroic history of our forefathers in the Mississippi Valley. They can tell of the struggles and accomplishments of the colonists on the Atlantic seaboard, but they have heard little of the greater struggles by which our own section of the United States was wrested from the wilderness. The epic story of this life of our pioneers is about to be presented in dramatic form in the "Pageant and Masque of St. Louis," for the purpose of arousing our people to pride in the glorious past and to unison of effort in the early accomplishment of yet greater things in the future. This prose story of old days in St. Louis is issued in furtherance of that purpose. That the people may appreciate and enjoy the drama, it is necessary they should know the facts of our history, and something of the kind of people who made St. Louis, what manner of life they lived, how they appeared, what forces they encountered and overcame. To give such basis for the enjoyment of the "Pageant and Masque" is the purpose of this volume. No credit for original research is made by him who has prepared it. He has selected freely, from whatever source was found available, the narratives of events deemed suitable to the purpose. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.