Robert Fulton's steamboat revolutionized river commerce in the United States and provided an enormous spur to the economic development of the nation. His design was particularly well adapted to America's broad and relatively placid rivers. Paddle wheels were unusable on canals, where the disturbance they created threatened erosion of earthen walls. However, first on heavily traveled routes up the Hudson River and across Long Island Sound, then on rivers along the Atlantic coast, steam-powered boats reduced travel time, cut costs, and increased reliability for passengers and cargo alike.

The invention had even greater impact in the West, as steamboats opened the extensive Mississippi-Ohio-Missouri river system to profitable commerce. Previously, goods from the Ohio country could be rafted down to New Orleans and the raft broken up and sold for lumber, but the return voyage was nearly impossible, and a long slog overland difficult for crews walking back home, much less carrying cargo. Two innovations adapted steamboats to conquer the entire Mississippi River system. Reducing the draft of the boats to nine to twelve inches permitted moving up the Missouri River into Montana and navigating the Red River into the Southwest. High-pressure (Oliver) Evans-type engines were lighter in weight and produced four times as much horsepower as Fulton's Boulton and Watt engine. Fulton had avoided high-pressure engines, thinking they were too likely to explode and start fires--a problem that plagued Mississippi steamboats competing to provide the fastest service. No passenger or crew member was hurt or killed while on any of Fulton's boats.

Moving cargo by water was always cheaper than hauling goods by land. Steamboats held off the challenge of railroads until after the Civil War, boasting ever more luxurious passenger accommodations and setting records racing against each other on the Mississippi. The enormous expansion of farming and industrial development of the central United States was made possible by Fulton's invention.

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