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Nauvoo: Frontier City

Richard H. Jackson

Nauvoo, Illinois, located on the Mississippi River, was home to the Mormons from 1839 to 1846. During seven short years the Mormons developed a bustling river port city that reached an estimated population of 15,000. The Mormon development of Nauvoo was part of the unique American frontier experience, where the tilling of virgin land created the fertile farms of rural midwestern America and land speculation gave rise to the towns and cities of urban America.

Early settlement of the midwest proceeded down the Ohio River. Settlers could take the National Road that had been completed by 1818 as far as Wheeling, West Virginia, on the Ohio. Major cities developed at favorable sites, including Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Louisville. The National Road passed through Indianapolis and reached the south-central Illinois community of Vandalia by the 1830s. Growing populations led to statehood in the region's territories around the time Nauvoo was founded.

During the first three decades of the 19th century, the frontier moved southwest due to the attraction of trade down the Mississippi River to New Orleans and to the Spanish settlements around Santa Fe. New towns mirrored the southwestern advance of the frontier. When Illinois became a state in 1818, the capital was in the extreme southwest at Kaskaskia. Two years later the capital was moved to Vandalia, a more central location. In 1839, while the Mormons were platting the city Nauvoo, the capital was moved again to Springfield, near the center of the state. The north and eastward movement of Illinois's capital reflected the growth of settlement in the center and north of the state, especially in Chicago.

The growth of Chicago and other cities away from the main river transport routes began as the Erie Canal and canals connecting the Great Lakes to the Ohio allowed settlement to spread to the lowlands around the Great Lakes. Completed in 1825, the Erie Canal made possible the shipping of bulk products to the markets of the northeastern United States, while the emergence of steamboats capable of traveling up the Mississippi and its tributaries after 1815 strengthened the importance of river locations for cities. Cincinnati grew from 6,000 people in 1815 to over 12,000 by 1820. In the five years from 1826 to 1831, its population soared from 16,250 to 30,000. Other river towns did not fare so well. Cairo, Illinois, seemed to have an ideal location, but it never experienced the boom growth of Cincinnati.