Robert Gudmestad

Thanks for having me.

I'm excited to be here.

The first steamboat, first commercially used steamboat, was Robert Fulton's steamboat in New York.

Right.

And most Americans lived close to the Atlantic seaboard.

And transportation was via river.

It was via really bad roads as well.

It was almost quicker to go from, say, Philadelphia to England than it was to go from Philadelphia to, you know, 300 miles inland because the roads were terrible.

Now, the steam engine revolutionizes that.

It revolutionizes travel in the United States and worldwide.

And especially you can go up river, what they considered at the time, a fast pace.

Now, we wouldn't consider it fast today.

But back then, they would talk about steamboats shooting off like an arrow.

You know, we're talking maybe 25 miles an hour is their top speed.

But going up river and what Americans saw as conquering time and space became the real thing.

way that steamboats altered the economy and the culture of the United States.

It is.

And one of the backers of the first successful steamboat on the Mississippi River was Robert Livingston.

And he was one of the people who actually negotiated the Louisiana Purchase.

And I don't think it's coincidental that he saw the economic potential in the area between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River and even west of the Mississippi River.