Cities in the United States Near Rivers

The United States never used to have roads, highways, trains, or airplanes. There was once a time where the only means of travel as the United States was expanding, was by water. This forced many major cities to be built near water, so that they were closer to resources.

http://www.johnweeks.com/river_mississippi/

As you can see if you were to look at a combination of the previous map and this map of the Mississippi River, there are a lot of cities located along that one river. This is because, transporting goods back when new cities were starting up, was easiest and fastest by water. The Mississippi River connects cities from the the East Coast, Central and North Central America to Southern America, so many cities made sure to start up close enough to the Mississippi River to take advantage of the resources.

One of these cities being Memphis Tennessee.

http://www.crestcore.com/



Memphis is located right on the Mississippi river, and began growing as a city due to it's location along the river. They could bring in more supplies because of the Mississippi. From the East Coast, and Central America, Memphis could bring in many different supplies to help their growing city.