 Boat travel on the Missouri started with the wood @-@ framed canoes and bull boats of the Native Americans , which were used for thousands of years before the introduction of larger craft to the river upon colonization of the Great Plains . The first steamboat on the Missouri was the Independence , which started running between St. Louis and <unk> , Missouri around 1819 . By the 1830s , large mail and freight @-@ carrying vessels were running regularly between Kansas City and St. Louis , and many traveled even farther upstream . A handful , such as the Western Engineer and the Yellowstone , were able to make it up the river as far as eastern Montana . 
