ST. LOUIS • In the burst of westward growth during the 19th century, it seemed that almost every town with a printing press was declaring itself the next Alexandria, Rome or Paris.
Logan Uriah Reavis, publisher of the St. Louis Daily Press, was this city’s most exuberant tub-thumper in the boom years after the Civil War. He called St. Louis “the Babylon of the New World ... on the banks of the great Mississippi.”
His newspaper didn’t last, but he was the champion of a movement to relocate the nation’s capital from Washington to the Mississippi valley, which he called “the great vitalizing heart of the Republic.” Reavis claimed to know the perfect spot and recommended dismantling the White House and newly completed Capitol for reassembly in St. Louis.
Henry T. Blow, a prominent local businessman, offered to donate 500 acres in the Carondelet area for a transplanted federal government. A St. Louis congressman filed legislation to move the capitol.
People are also reading…
It wasn’t just a local stunt. The concept gained support in many states as the population center shifted westward. It fit with the yearning for a fresh start at nationhood after the war’s carnage. Even Joseph Medill, an owner of the Chicago Tribune, endorsed making St. Louis the capital. The two cities were railroad rivals, with Chicago already in the lead, but Medill thought having the White House down the road would be good for business.
On Oct. 21, 1869, delegates from 17 states gathered in the St. Louis Mercantile Library, at Broadway and Locust Street, for the National Capital Removal Convention. Lee R. Shryock, president of the St. Louis Board of Trade, welcomed the 90 delegates by assuring them the cause, not the location, was paramount.
“St. Louis and Missouri have no ax to grind,” Shryock told the 90 delegates. “The capital should be removed from the border and placed in the center, or as near it as possible, so that all can feel that they have a common interest in a common country.”
The St. Louis Daily Democrat noted “promiscuous speech-making” during the two-day convention, which was longer on sentiment than consensus. For all the demurrals, St. Louis wanted to become the capital. Ominously, Pennsylvania was the only Eastern state to show up.
Conventioneers adjourned to a banquet at the Southern Hotel, where the fare included oysters and broiled quail. St. Louis treated delegates to a river excursion aboard the Belle of Alton.
Reavis hammered away with a book, “St. Louis, The Future Great City of the World.” The convention reconvened a year later in Cincinnati, again without resolution. Eastern political interests cemented their opposition by erecting more government buildings in Washington, and it remained the capital.
Reavis died in St. Louis in 1889.
Read more stories from Tim O'Neil's Look Back series.
Read more stories from Tim O'Neil's Look Back series.

