The streets of the old town were all quite narrow; it was thought that such streets could be more easily defended. And there they are, cramped and narrow to this day. But in time the land above and west of the village was laid out in town lots, and the chief promoters of this enterprise, Judge Lucas and Colonel Chouteau, built their dwelling-houses far back from the river and the old town, the former at the corner of Seventh and Chestnut Streets, the latter at the corner of Sixth and Olive Streets. In 1809, the year in which St. Louis was incorporated as a town, Fort Belle Fontaine became the headquarters of the Department of Upper Louisiana. It was several miles north of the village, on a high bluff, overlooking the Mississippi. The land for this fort was secured by treaty from the Sac and Fox Indians. On it was a great spring of pure water capable of supplying a thousand men; hence the name of the fort, Belle Fontaine. St. Louis was early called the Gateway of the West. In 1817 the first steamboat tied up to her levee.[2] This was the beginning of an imperial trade. Streams of commerce now began to flow into her markets from the great continental rivers, from the upper Mississippi, the Illinois, the Missouri, the Ohio, the lower Mississippi with its far-reaching affluents; and, through the Gulf of Mexico, even from the cities of the Atlantic seaboard. For many years her chief trade had been in the pelts and furs of wild animals; but now this lucrative traffic was greatly augmented. For forty years the annual value of it alone was between two and three hundred thousand dollars, while commerce in all agricultural products and in manufactured goods was constantly swelling in volume. Still it is worthy of note that deerskins were an article of barter, and furs were currency in St. Louis, from the days of Laclede until Missouri became a State in 1821; and a year later, even before St. Louis had five thousand inhabitants, it was chartered as a city. When under Spanish control, it was strictly Roman Catholic. In 1862 I met at a wedding in St. Louis a lady almost a hundred years old. She was still in excellent health. Her intellect was clear and vigorous. As she took my arm to go to the wedding supper, she archly remarked, “Your wife will not be jealous when she learns how old I am.” Yet, when we were seated at the table, after some moments of absolute silence on her part, into which I did not venture to intrude, she said, “I do believe that God has forgotten me.” I looked at her with mingled astonishment and curiosity and said, “Why so?” She replied, “All the friends of my early life are gone and I am left alone.” She now became reminiscent and added, “I lived here when St. Louis belonged to Spain. And just as for many years no free negro has been permitted to enter this city without a pass, so for years, in my early life, no Protestant could enter it without a written permit from the Spanish authorities.”