f corn, and twelve times of oats. By the 1820s, ton-mile prices dropped as low as .12, attributed in part to price deflation and the spread of turnpikes and canal systems. With the network of rails, canals, and roads established prior to the Civil War, some transportation costs were reduced to roughly .01 per ton-mile, thereby attesting to the positive effect of transportation developments on shipping costs and the price of the marketed items. (Transportation Revolution, p.132-152)
Transportation in Indiana
By the mid 1820s, there were several well defined lines of travel to Indiana's interior; however, their conditions were deplorable. With the absence of rails, canals, and pikes, individuals faced only blazed trails, bad roads, and obstructed rivers. For years, beginning in 1816, the state legislature discussed assorted schemes for internal improvement in an effort to modernize the state and to tie Indiana into the larger regional and national markets.
Rivers provided an important means of transportation and communication during the early years of life in Indiana. Their importance could be seen by the establishment of towns and villages along their banks and cutting of roads to follow their courses.
The Ohio-Mississippi river complex was the major highway of the developing West. At seasonal highwater, fleets of flatboats carried Midwestern produce down to New Orleans and other lower Mississippi markets. The Wabash River, which fed into this system, was also a main trade route to the south and provided the means by which flatboats and some steamboats navigated successfully. The White River was not a major commercial route, though more traffic occurred south of Indianapolis than north. Travel was more restricted to flatboats which carried small amounts of produce to local markets, simply because the White River was navigable. In 1831 one steamboat, the "Robert Hanna," arrived in Indianapolis with much fanfare over the navigability of the White River; however, on its return journey, it hit several sandbars and became grounded for some six weeks, thereby effectively ending steamship travel on the White River until 1865. (Dunn, Greater Indianapolis, 1:19)