About the time the first ferry was established in Atchison, a number of Salt Lake freighters selected the town as a starting and outfitting point and from that time until 1866, Atchison was the eastern terminus of many of the leading overland mail and freighting routes. It was the natural location for communication with the West, as it was twelve miles further west in Kansas than any other point on the Missouri river. Freight and passengers were brought to the Atchison levee, at the foot of Commercial street, by a regular line of Packets plying between St. Louis and St. Joseph. It required eight days to make the round trip, and in the very early days, as many or four to six boats landed here in the busy season. During the winter months traffic on the river was practically suspended, on account of the ice. These boats carried as many as 400 passengers, the fare from St. Louis to St. Joseph ranging from $10.00 to $15.00, which included meals and state rooms. The cooking was said to have been very fine, and the passengers always enjoyed the best that money could buy. In addition to passengers, these boats carried from 500 to 600 tons of freight, and the rates were as high as $2.50 per cwt. on merchandise that would not cost to exceed fifteen cents per cwt. in these days. The crew consisted of 80 to 100 men, and the value of these boats was estimated to be about $45,000.00 each. The river then, as now, was filled with sandbars and it required the greatest experience to pilot a boat safely to its destination, and as a result, experienced pilots would command monthly salaries ranging from $250.00 to $500.00. Each boat carried two pilots. A. B. Symns, for many years a successful wholesale grocery merchant in Atchison, E. K. Blair, the miller, and George W. Bowman, who also subsequently engaged in the grocery business, were employees on several of the steamboats that landed at Atchison. Stories of gambling and revelries, by day and by night, are not uncommon, and it is said it was not an unusual sight to see as many as ten games of poker going on in the main cabins on every trip, in which real money and not mere chips were used. Among the famous boats on the river in the early days were the “Hesperian,” which burned near Atchison in 1859; the “Converse,” “Kate Kinney,” “Fort Aubrey,” “Morning Star,” “John D. Perry,” “Sioux City,” “Omaha,” “Carrier,” and the “James H. Lucas,” which made the record run from St. Louis to St. Joseph, encompassing the trip in fifty-nine hours and twenty-two minutes, were among the well known boats that docked at the Atchison levee from time to time. The leading wharfmaster of the steamboat days was Mike Finney, who was the father of Atchison’s present mayor (1915). James H. Garside succeeded him and remained in the position until steamboat days had passed. Had the Missouri river been the beneficiary of the bounty of the Government, as the railroads were in that day, it would still be a