Missouri is a
state
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
in the
Midwestern
The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...
region of the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. Ranking
21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee):
Iowa
Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the ...
to the north,
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
,
Kentucky
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...
and
Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
to the east,
Arkansas
Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...
to the south and
Oklahoma
Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...
,
Kansas
Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the ...
and
Nebraska
Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwe ...
to the west. In the south are the
Ozarks
The Ozarks, also known as the Ozark Mountains, Ozark Highlands or Ozark Plateau, is a physiographic region in the U.S. states of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and the extreme southeastern corner of Kansas. The Ozarks cover a significant port ...
, a forested highland, providing timber, minerals, and recreation. The
Missouri River, after which the state is named, flows through the center into the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...
, which makes up the eastern border. With more than six million residents, it is the
19th-most populous state of the country. The largest urban areas are
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
,
Kansas City
The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more ...
,
Springfield
Springfield may refer to:
* Springfield (toponym), the place name in general
Places and locations Australia
* Springfield, New South Wales (Central Coast)
* Springfield, New South Wales (Snowy Monaro Regional Council)
* Springfield, Queenslan ...
and
Columbia; the
capital
Capital may refer to:
Common uses
* Capital city, a municipality of primary status
** List of national capital cities
* Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences
* Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...
is
Jefferson City
Jefferson City, informally Jeff City, is the capital of Missouri, United States. It had a population of 43,228 at the 2020 census, ranking as the 15th most populous city in the state. It is also the county seat of Cole County and the principa ...
.
Humans have inhabited what is now Missouri for at least 12,000 years. The
Mississippian culture
The Mississippian culture was a Native Americans in the United States, Native American civilization that flourished in what is now the Midwestern United States, Midwestern, Eastern United States, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from appr ...
, which emerged at least in the ninth century, built cities and
mounds
A mound is an artificial heap or pile, especially of earth, rocks, or sand.
Mound and Mounds may also refer to:
Places
* Mound, Louisiana, United States
* Mound, Minnesota, United States
* Mound, Texas, United States
* Mound, West Virginia
* Moun ...
before declining in the 14th century. When
European
European, or Europeans, or Europeneans, may refer to:
In general
* ''European'', an adjective referring to something of, from, or related to Europe
** Ethnic groups in Europe
** Demographics of Europe
** European cuisine, the cuisines of Europe ...
explorers arrived in the 17th century, they encountered the
Osage The Osage Nation, a Native American tribe in the United States, is the source of most other terms containing the word "osage".
Osage can also refer to:
* Osage language, a Dhaegin language traditionally spoken by the Osage Nation
* Osage (Unicode b ...
and
Missouria
The Missouria or Missouri (in their own language, Niúachi, also spelled Niutachi) are a Native American tribe that originated in the Great Lakes region of what is now the United States before European contact.May, John D"Otoe-Missouria"''Oklaho ...
nations. The French incorporated the territory into
Louisiana
Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...
, founding
Ste. Genevieve in 1735 and
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
in 1764. After a brief period of
Spanish rule, the United States acquired Missouri as part of the
Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase (french: Vente de la Louisiane, translation=Sale of Louisiana) was the acquisition of the territory of Louisiana by the United States from the French First Republic in 1803. In return for fifteen million dollars, or app ...
in 1803. Americans from the
Upland South
The Upland South and Upper South are two overlapping cultural and geographic subregions in the inland part of the Southern and lower Midwestern United States. They differ from the Deep South and Atlantic coastal plain by terrain, history, econom ...
, including enslaved
African Americans
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
, rushed into the new
Missouri Territory
The Territory of Missouri was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from June 4, 1812, until August 10, 1821. In 1819, the Territory of Arkansas was created from a portion of its southern area. In 1821, a southeas ...
. Missouri was admitted as a slave state as part of the
Missouri Compromise of 1820
The Missouri Compromise was a federal legislation of the United States that balanced desires of northern states to prevent expansion of slavery in the country with those of southern states to expand it. It admitted Missouri as a slave state and ...
. Many from
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
,
Kentucky
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...
and
Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
settled in the
Boonslick The Boonslick, or Boone's Lick Country, is a cultural region of Missouri along the Missouri River that played an important role in the westward expansion of the United States and the development of Missouri's statehood in the early 19th century. Th ...
area of
Mid-Missouri
Mid-Missouri is a loosely-defined region comprising the central area of the U.S. state of Missouri. The region's largest city is Columbia (population 121,717); the Missouri state capital, Jefferson City, and the University of Missouri are also l ...
. Soon after, heavy German immigration formed the
Missouri Rhineland
The Missouri Rhineland is a geographical area of Missouri that extends from west of St. Louis to slightly east of Jefferson City, located mostly in the Missouri River Valley on both sides of the river. Dutzow, the first permanent German settle ...
.
Missouri played a central role in the westward expansion of the United States, as memorialized by the
Gateway Arch
The Gateway Arch is a monument in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Clad in stainless steel and built in the form of a weighted catenary arch, it is the world's tallest arch and Missouri's tallest accessible building. Some sources conside ...
. The
Pony Express
The Pony Express was an American express mail service that used relays of horse-mounted riders. It operated from April 3, 1860, to October 26, 1861, between Missouri and California. It was operated by the Central Overland California and Pik ...
,
Oregon Trail
The Oregon Trail was a east–west, large-wheeled wagon route and Westward Expansion Trails, emigrant trail in the United States that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of what ...
,
Santa Fe Trail
The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century route through central North America that connected Franklin, Missouri, with Santa Fe, New Mexico. Pioneered in 1821 by William Becknell, who departed from the Boonslick region along the Missouri River, th ...
and
California Trail
The California Trail was an emigrant trail of about across the western half of the North American continent from Missouri River towns to what is now the state of California. After it was established, the first half of the California Trail f ...
all began in Missouri. As a
border state,
Missouri's role in the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
was complex, and it was subject to rival governments, raids, and guerilla warfare. After the war, both
Greater St. Louis
Greater St. Louis is a bi-state metropolitan area that completely surrounds and includes the independent city of St. Louis, the principal city. It includes parts of both Missouri and Illinois. The city core is on the Mississippi Riverfront on t ...
and the
Kansas City metropolitan area
The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more th ...
became centers of industrialization and business. Today the state is divided into
114 counties and the
independent city
An independent city or independent town is a city or town that does not form part of another general-purpose local government entity (such as a province).
Historical precursors
In the Holy Roman Empire, and to a degree in its successor states ...
of St. Louis.
Missouri's culture blends elements of the Midwestern and
Southern United States
The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...
. It is the birthplace of the musical genres
ragtime
Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that flourished from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers such as Scott ...
,
Kansas City jazz
Kansas City jazz is a style of jazz that developed in Kansas City, Missouri during the 1920s and 1930s, which marked the transition from the structured big band style to the much more improvisational style of bebop. The hard- swinging, bluesy tra ...
and
St. Louis blues
The St. Louis Blues are a professional ice hockey team based in St. Louis. The Blues compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division in the Western Conference. The franchise was founded in 1967 as one of the s ...
. The well-known
Kansas City-style barbecue
Kansas City-style barbecue refers to the specific regional barbecue style of slowly smoked meat originating from Kansas City in the early 20th century. Henry Perry is credited as the originator of the style, as two of the oldest Kansas City-st ...
, and the lesser-known
St. Louis-style barbecue
St. Louis-style barbecue refers to spare ribs associated with the St. Louis area. These are usually grilled rather than slow-cooked over indirect heat with smoke which is typically associated with the term "barbecue" in the United States.
Hist ...
, can be found across the state and beyond. Missouri is a major center of beer brewing and has some of the most permissive
alcohol laws in the U.S. It is home to
Anheuser-Busch
Anheuser-Busch Companies, LLC is an American brewing company headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Since 2008, it has been wholly owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV (AB InBev), now the world's largest brewing company, which owns multiple glo ...
, the world's largest beer producer, and produces an
eponymous wine produced in the
Missouri Rhineland
The Missouri Rhineland is a geographical area of Missouri that extends from west of St. Louis to slightly east of Jefferson City, located mostly in the Missouri River Valley on both sides of the river. Dutzow, the first permanent German settle ...
and Ozarks. Outside the state's major cities, popular tourist destinations include the
Lake of the Ozarks
Lake of the Ozarks is a reservoir created by impounding the Osage River in the northern part of the Ozarks in central Missouri. Parts of three smaller tributaries to the Osage are included in the impoundment: the Niangua River, Grandglaize Creek ...
,
Table Rock Lake
Table Rock Lake is an artificial lake or reservoir in the Ozarks of southwestern Missouri and northwestern Arkansas in the United States. Designed, built and operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the lake is impounded by Table Rock Dam ...
and
Branson Branson may refer to:
Places
;Canada
* Branson, Toronto
;United States
* Branson, Missouri, a popular tourist destination in the Ozark Mountains
* Branson, Colorado
* Branson City, California
* The Branson School, in Ross, California
* Warrenpoi ...
.
Well-known Missourians include
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson Berry (October 18, 1926 – March 18, 2017) was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist who pioneered rock and roll. Nicknamed the " Father of Rock and Roll", he refined and developed rhythm and blues into th ...
,
Sheryl Crow
Sheryl Suzanne Crow (born February 11, 1962) is an American musician, singer, songwriter and actress. Her music incorporates elements of rock, pop, country, folk, and blues. She has released eleven studio albums, five compilations and three li ...
,
Walt Disney
Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...
,
Edwin Hubble
Edwin Powell Hubble (November 20, 1889 – September 28, 1953) was an Americans, American astronomer. He played a crucial role in establishing the fields of extragalactic astronomy and observational cosmology.
Hubble proved that many objects ...
,
Nelly
Cornell Iral Haynes Jr. (born November 2, 1974), better known by his stage name Nelly, is an American rapper, singer, actor and entrepreneur. He embarked on his music career with the hip hop group St. Lunatics in 1993 and signed to Universal ...
,
Brad Pitt
William Bradley Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and film producer. He is the recipient of various accolades, including two Academy Awards, a British Academy Film Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award. ...
,
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...
, and
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...
. Some of the largest companies based in the state include
Cerner
Cerner Corporation is an American supplier of health information technology (HIT) services, devices, and hardware. As of February 2018, its products were in use at more than 27,000 facilities around the world. The company had more than 29,000 emp ...
,
Express Scripts
Express Scripts Holding Company is a pharmacy benefit management (PBM) organization. In 2017 it was the 22nd-largest company in the United States by total revenue as well as the largest pharmacy benefit management (PBM) organization in the United ...
,
Monsanto
The Monsanto Company () was an American agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation founded in 1901 and headquartered in Creve Coeur, Missouri. Monsanto's best known product is Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide, developed in th ...
,
Emerson Electric
Emerson Electric Co. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Ferguson, Missouri. The ''Fortune'' 500 company manufactures products and provides engineering services for industrial, commercial, and consumer markets. ,
Edward Jones,
H&R Block
H&R Block, Inc., or H&R Block, is an American tax preparation company operating in Canada, the United States, and Australia. The company was founded in 1955 by brothers Henry W. Bloch and Richard Bloch.
As of 2018, H&R Block operates approximat ...
,
Wells Fargo Advisors
Wells Fargo Advisors is a subsidiary of Wells Fargo, located in St Louis, Missouri. It is the third largest brokerage firm in the United States as of June 30, 2021 with $1.9 trillion retail client assets under management.
The subsidiary was for ...
,
Centene Corporation, and
O'Reilly Auto Parts
O’Reilly Automotive, Inc. is an American auto parts retailer that provides automotive aftermarket parts, tools, supplies, equipment, and accessories to professional service providers and do-it-yourself customers. Founded in 1957 by the O’Reil ...
. Well-known universities in Missouri include the
University of Missouri
The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Universit ...
,
Saint Louis University
Saint Louis University (SLU) is a private Jesuit research university with campuses in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, and Madrid, Spain. Founded in 1818 by Louis William Valentine DuBourg, it is the oldest university west of the Mississip ...
,
Washington University in St. Louis
Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...
. Missouri has been called the "Mother of the West" and the "Cave State", but its most famous nickname is the "Show Me State".
Etymology and pronunciation
The state is named for the
Missouri River, which was named after the indigenous
Missouri Indians, a
Siouan-language tribe. It is said they were called the ''ouemessourita'' (''wimihsoorita''), meaning "those who have dugout
canoe
A canoe is a lightweight narrow water vessel, typically pointed at both ends and open on top, propelled by one or more seated or kneeling paddlers facing the direction of travel and using a single-bladed paddle.
In British English, the term ...
s", by the
Miami-Illinois language
Miami-Illinois (endonym: , ) also known as Irenwa, or Irenwe is an indigenous Algonquian language spoken in the United States, primarily in Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, western Ohio and adjacent areas along the Mississippi River by the Miami a ...
speakers.
Assuming ''Missouri'' were deriving from the Siouan language, it could come from "Maya Sunni" (), which translates as "It connects to the side of it", in reference to the river itself. Most likely, though, the name ''Missouri'' comes from
Chiwere
Chiwere (also called Iowa-Otoe-Missouria or Báxoje-Jíwere-Ñút'achi) is a Siouan language originally spoken by the Missouria, Otoe, and Iowa peoples, who originated in the Great Lakes region but later moved throughout the Midwest and plains. T ...
, a Siouan language spoken by people who resided in the modern-day states of Wisconsin, Iowa, South Dakota, Missouri, and Nebraska.
The name ''Missouri'' has several different pronunciations even among its present-day inhabitants,
the two most common being and . Further pronunciations also exist in Missouri or elsewhere in the United States, involving the realization of the medial consonant as either or ; the vowel in the second syllable as either or ; and the third syllable as (phonetically , , or ) or .
Any combination of these phonetic realizations may be observed coming from speakers of
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lan ...
. In British
received pronunciation
Received Pronunciation (RP) is the Accent (sociolinguistics), accent traditionally regarded as the Standard language, standard and most Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestigious form of spoken British English. For over a century, there has been ...
, the preferred variant is , with being a possible alternative.
The linguistic history was treated definitively by Donald M. Lance, who acknowledged that the question is sociologically complex, but no pronunciation could be declared "correct", nor could any be clearly defined as native or outsider, rural or urban, southern or northern, educated or otherwise. Politicians often employ multiple pronunciations, even during a single speech, to appeal to a greater number of listeners. In informal contexts respellings of the state's name, such as "Missour-''ee''" or "Missour-''uh''", are occasionally used to distinguish pronunciations phonetically.
Nicknames
There is no official state nickname.
However, Missouri's unofficial nickname is the "Show Me State," which appears on its
license plates
A vehicle registration plate, also known as a number plate (British English), license plate (American English), or licence plate ( Canadian English), is a metal or plastic plate attached to a motor vehicle or trailer for official identificat ...
. This phrase has several origins. One is popularly ascribed to a speech by Congressman
Willard Vandiver
Willard Duncan Vandiver (March 30, 1854 – May 30, 1932) was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from the state of Missouri. He is popularly credited with the authorship of the famous expression: "I'm from Misso ...
in 1899, who declared that "I come from a state that raises corn and cotton,
cocklebur
''Xanthium'' (cocklebur) is a genus of flowering plants in the tribe Heliantheae within the family Asteraceae, native to the Americas and eastern Asia and some parts of south Asia .
Description
Cockleburs are coarse, herbaceous annual plants ...
s and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I'm from Missouri, and you have got to show me." This is in keeping with the saying "I'm from Missouri," which means "I'm skeptical of the matter and not easily convinced." However, according to researchers, the phrase "show me" was already in use before the 1890s. Another one states that it is a reference to Missouri miners who were taken to
Leadville, Colorado
The City of Leadville is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Statutory city, statutory city that is the county seat, the most populous community, and the only List of municipalities in Colorado, incorporated municipality in Lake County, Colorad ...
to replace striking workers. Since the new men were unfamiliar with the mining methods, they required frequent instruction.
Other nicknames for Missouri include "The Lead State", "The Bullion State", "The Ozark State", "The Mother of the West", "The Iron Mountain State", and "Pennsylvania of the West". It is also known as the "Cave State" because there are more than 7,300 recorded caves in the state (second to
Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
).
Perry County Perry County may refer to:
United States
*Perry County, Alabama
*Perry County, Arkansas
*Perry County, Illinois
*Perry County, Indiana
*Perry County, Kentucky
*Perry County, Mississippi
*Perry County, Missouri
*Perry County, Ohio
*Perry Coun ...
is the county with the largest number of caves and the single longest cave.
The official state motto is la, "Salus Populi Suprema Lex Esto", which means "Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law."
History
Early history
Archaeological
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
excavations along river valleys have shown continuous habitation since about 9000 BCE. Beginning before 1000
CE, the people of the
Mississippian culture
The Mississippian culture was a Native Americans in the United States, Native American civilization that flourished in what is now the Midwestern United States, Midwestern, Eastern United States, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from appr ...
created regional political centers at present-day
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
and across the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...
at
Cahokia
The Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site ( 11 MS 2) is the site of a pre-Columbian Native American city (which existed 1050–1350 CE) directly across the Mississippi River from modern St. Louis, Missouri. This historic park lies in south-w ...
, near present-day
Collinsville, Illinois
Collinsville is a city located mainly in Madison County, and partially in St. Clair County, Illinois. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 25,579, an increase from 24,707 in 2000. Collinsville is approximately from St. Louis, Mis ...
. Their large cities included thousands of individual residences. Still, they are known for their surviving massive
earthwork mounds, built for religious, political and social reasons, in
platform
Platform may refer to:
Technology
* Computing platform, a framework on which applications may be run
* Platform game, a genre of video games
* Car platform, a set of components shared by several vehicle models
* Weapons platform, a system or ...
,
ridge
A ridge or a mountain ridge is a geographical feature consisting of a chain of mountains or hills that form a continuous elevated crest for an extended distance. The sides of the ridge slope away from the narrow top on either side. The line ...
top and
conical
A cone is a three-dimensional geometric shape that tapers smoothly from a flat base (frequently, though not necessarily, circular) to a point called the apex or vertex.
A cone is formed by a set of line segments, half-lines, or lines conn ...
shapes. Cahokia was the center of a regional trading network that reached from the
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lakes ...
to the
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin, ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of ...
. The civilization declined by 1400 CE, and most descendants left the area long before the arrival of Europeans. St. Louis was at one time known as Mound City by the European Americans because of the numerous surviving prehistoric mounds since lost to urban development. The Mississippian culture left mounds throughout the middle Mississippi and Ohio river valleys, extending into the southeast and the upper river.
![Gateway Arch edit1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d9/Gateway_Arch_edit1.jpg)
The land that became the state of Missouri was part of numerous different territories possessed changing and often indeterminate borders and had many different Native American and European names between the 1600s and statehood. For much of the first half of the 1700s, the west bank of the Mississippi River that would become Missouri was mostly uninhabited, something of a no man's land that kept peace between the Illinois on the east bank of the Mississippi River and to the North, and the Osage and Missouri Indians of the lower Missouri Valley. In the early 1700s, French traders and missionaries explored the whole of the Mississippi Valley, named the region “Louisiana.” Around the same time, a different group of French Canadians who established five villages on the east bank of the Mississippi River placed their settlements in the le pays des Illinois, “the country of the Illinois.” When habitantssettlers of French Canadian descentbegan crossing the Mississippi River to establish settlements such as Ste. Genevieve, they continued to place their settlements in the Illinois Country. At the same time, the French settlements on both sides of the Mississippi River were part of the French province of Louisiana. To distinguish the settlements in the Middle Mississippi Valley from French settlements in the lower Mississippi Valley around New Orleans, French officials and inhabitants referred to the Middle Mississippi Valley as La Haute Louisiane, “The High Louisiana,” or “Upper Louisiana.”
The first European settlers were mostly ethnic
French Canadian
French Canadians (referred to as Canadiens mainly before the twentieth century; french: Canadiens français, ; feminine form: , ), or Franco-Canadians (french: Franco-Canadiens), refers to either an ethnic group who trace their ancestry to Fren ...
s, who created their first settlement in Missouri at present-day
Ste. Genevieve, about an hour south of St. Louis. They had migrated about 1750 from the
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
Country. They came from colonial villages on the east side of the Mississippi River, where soils were becoming exhausted, and there was insufficient river bottom land for the growing population. The early Missouri settlements included many enslaved Africans and Native Americans, and slave labor was central to both commercial agriculture and the fur trade. Sainte-Geneviève became a thriving agricultural center, producing enough surplus wheat,
corn
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...
and tobacco to ship tons of grain annually downriver to Lower Louisiana for trade. Grain production in the Illinois Country was critical to the survival of Lower Louisiana and especially the city of New Orleans.
St. Louis was founded soon after by French
fur traders
The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the mos ...
,
Pierre Laclède
Pierre Laclède Liguest or Pierre Laclède (22 November 1729 – 20 June 1778) was a French fur trader who, with his young assistant and stepson Auguste Chouteau, founded St. Louis in 1764, in what was then Spanish Upper Louisiana, in present-day M ...
and stepson
Auguste Chouteau
René-Auguste Chouteau, Jr. (September 7, 1749, or September 26, 1750 – February 24, 1829Beckwith, 8.), also known as Auguste Chouteau, was the founder of St. Louis, Missouri, a successful fur trader and a politician. He and his partner had a mo ...
from New Orleans in 1764. From 1764 to 1803, European control of the area west of the Mississippi to the northernmost part of the Missouri River basin, called Louisiana, was assumed by the Spanish as part of the Viceroyalty of
New Spain
New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( es, Virreinato de Nueva España, ), or Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain during the Spanish colonization of the Am ...
, due to
Treaty of Fontainebleau[Foley (1989), 26.] (in order to have Spain join with France in the war against England). The arrival of the Spanish in St. Louis was in September 1767.
St. Louis became the center of a regional
fur trade
The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the mos ...
with Native American tribes that extended up the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, which dominated the regional economy for decades. Trading partners of major firms shipped their furs from St. Louis by river down to New Orleans for export to Europe. They provided a variety of goods to traders for sale and trade with their Native American clients. The fur trade and associated businesses made St. Louis an early financial center and provided the wealth for some to build fine houses and import luxury items. Its location near the confluence of the Illinois River meant it also handled produce from the agricultural areas. River traffic and trade along the Mississippi were integral to the state's economy. As the area's first major city, St. Louis expanded greatly after the invention of the
steamboat
A steamboat is a boat that is marine propulsion, propelled primarily by marine steam engine, steam power, typically driving propellers or Paddle steamer, paddlewheels. Steamboats sometimes use the ship prefix, prefix designation SS, S.S. or S/S ...
and the increased river trade.
19th century
![George Caleb Bingham 001](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/George_Caleb_Bingham_001.jpg)
Napoleon Bonaparte had gained Louisiana for French ownership from Spain in 1800 under the
Treaty of San Ildefonso after it had been a Spanish colony since 1762. But the treaty was kept secret. Louisiana remained nominally under Spanish control until a transfer of power to France on November 30, 1803, just three weeks before the cession to the United States.
Part of the 1803
Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase (french: Vente de la Louisiane, translation=Sale of Louisiana) was the acquisition of the territory of Louisiana by the United States from the French First Republic in 1803. In return for fifteen million dollars, or app ...
by the United States, Missouri earned the nickname ''Gateway to the West'' because it served as a significant departure point for expeditions and settlers heading to the West during the 19th century.
St. Charles, just west of St. Louis, was the starting point and the return destination of the
Lewis and Clark Expedition
The Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, was the United States expedition to cross the newly acquired western portion of the country after the Louisiana Purchase. The Corps of Discovery was a select gro ...
, which ascended the Missouri River in 1804, to explore the western lands to the Pacific Ocean.
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
was a major supply point for decades, for parties of settlers heading west.
As many of the early settlers in western Missouri migrated from the
Upper South
The Upland South and Upper South are two overlapping cultural and geographic subregions in the inland part of the Southern and lower Midwestern United States. They differ from the Deep South and Atlantic coastal plain by terrain, history, econom ...
, they brought enslaved
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
s as agricultural laborers, and they desired to continue their culture and the institution of
slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
. They settled predominantly in 17 counties along the
Missouri River, in an area of flatlands that enabled
plantation
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...
agriculture and became known as "
Little Dixie."
The state was rocked by the
1811–12 New Madrid earthquakes. Casualties were few due to the sparse population.
Admission as a state in 1821
![United States 1821-08-1822](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/United_States_1821-08-1822.png)
In 1821, the former Missouri Territory was admitted as a
slave state
In the United States before 1865, a slave state was a state in which slavery and the internal or domestic slave trade were legal, while a free state was one in which they were not. Between 1812 and 1850, it was considered by the slave states ...
, under the
Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise was a federal legislation of the United States that balanced desires of northern states to prevent expansion of slavery in the country with those of southern states to expand it. It admitted Missouri as a Slave states an ...
, and with a temporary state capital in St. Charles. In 1826, the
capital
Capital may refer to:
Common uses
* Capital city, a municipality of primary status
** List of national capital cities
* Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences
* Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...
was shifted to its current, permanent location of
Jefferson City
Jefferson City, informally Jeff City, is the capital of Missouri, United States. It had a population of 43,228 at the 2020 census, ranking as the 15th most populous city in the state. It is also the county seat of Cole County and the principa ...
, also on the Missouri River.
Originally the state's western border was a straight line, defined as the meridian passing through the Kawsmouth, the point where the
Kansas River
The Kansas River, also known as the Kaw, is a river in northeastern Kansas in the United States. It is the southwesternmost part of the Missouri River drainage, which is in turn the northwesternmost portion of the extensive Mississippi River dr ...
enters the Missouri River. The river has moved since this designation. This line is known as the Osage Boundary. In 1836 the
Platte Purchase
The Platte Purchase was a land acquisition in 1836 by the United States government from American Indian tribes of the region. It comprised lands along the east bank of the Missouri River and added to the northwest corner of the state of Miss ...
was added to the northwest corner of the state after purchase of the land from the native tribes, making the Missouri River the border north of the Kansas River. This addition increased the land area of what was already the largest state in the Union at the time (about to Virginia's 65,000 square miles, which then included West Virginia).
In the early 1830s,
Mormon
Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into several ...
migrants from northern states and Canada began settling near
Independence
Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the statu ...
and areas just north of there. Conflicts over religion and slavery arose between the 'old settlers' (mainly from the South) and the Mormons (mainly from the North). The
Mormon War erupted in 1838. By 1839, with the help of an "Extermination Order" by Governor
Lilburn Boggs
Lilburn Williams Boggs (December 14, 1796March 14, 1860) was the sixth Governor of Missouri from 1836 to 1840. He is now most widely remembered for his interactions with Joseph Smith and Porter Rockwell, and Missouri Executive Order 44, known b ...
, the old settlers forcibly expelled the Mormons from Missouri and confiscated their lands.
Conflicts over slavery exacerbated border tensions among the states and territories. From 1838 to 1839, a border dispute with
Iowa
Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the ...
over the so-called
Honey Lands
The Honey War was a bloodless territorial dispute in 1839 between Iowa Territory and Missouri over their border.
The dispute over a strip running the entire length of the border, caused by unclear wording in the Missouri Constitution on bound ...
resulted in both states' calling-up of
militias
A militia () is generally an army or some other fighting organization of non-professional soldiers, citizens of a country, or subjects of a state, who may perform military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of r ...
along the border.
With increasing migration, from the 1830s to the 1860s, Missouri's population almost doubled with every decade. Most newcomers were American-born, but many Irish and German immigrants arrived in the late 1840s and 1850s. As a majority were
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
, they set up their own religious institutions in the state, which had been mostly
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
. Many settled in cities, creating a regional and then state network of Catholic churches and schools. 19th-century German immigrants created the wine industry along the Missouri River and the beer industry in St. Louis.
While many German immigrants were strongly anti-slavery,
many Irish immigrants living in cities were pro-slavery, fearing that liberating African-American slaves would create a glut of unskilled labor, driving wages down.
Most Missouri farmers practiced
subsistence farming
Subsistence agriculture occurs when farmers grow food crops to meet the needs of themselves and their families on smallholdings. Subsistence agriculturalists target farm output for survival and for mostly local requirements, with little or no su ...
before the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
. The majority of those who held slaves had fewer than five each.
Planters
Planters Nut & Chocolate Company is an American snack food company now owned by Hormel Foods. Planters is best known for its processed nuts and for the Mr. Peanut icon that symbolizes them. Mr. Peanut was created by grade schooler Antonio Gentil ...
, defined by some historians as those holding 20 slaves or more, were concentrated in the counties known as "
Little Dixie," in the central part of the state along the
Missouri River. The tensions over slavery chiefly had to do with the future of the state and nation. In 1860, enslaved
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
s made up less than 10% of the state's population of 1,182,012. In order to control the flooding of farmland and low-lying villages along the Mississippi, the state had completed construction of of
levee
A levee (), dike (American English), dyke (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English), embankment, floodbank, or stop bank is a structure that is usually soil, earthen and that often runs parallel (geometry), parallel to ...
s along the river by 1860.
American Civil War
![NPS CW at a Glance Western 1864](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/NPS_CW_at_a_Glance_Western_1864.jpg)
After the secession of Southern states began in 1861, the Missouri legislature called for the election of a special convention on secession. This convention voted against secession, but also qualified their support of the Union. In the aftermath of
Battle of Fort Sumter
The Battle of Fort Sumter (April 12–13, 1861) was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina by the South Carolina militia. It ended with the surrender by the United States Army, beginning the American Civil War.
Follo ...
Pro-Southern Governor
Claiborne F. Jackson
Claiborne Fox Jackson (April 4, 1806 – December 6, 1862) was an American politician of the Democratic Party in Missouri. He was elected as the 15th Governor of Missouri, serving from January 3, 1861, until July 31, 1861, when he was forc ...
ordered the mobilization of several hundred members of the state militia who had gathered in a camp in
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
for training. In secret, he also requested Confederate arms and artillery to help take the
St. Louis Arsenal. Alarmed at this action, and discovering the Confederate aid, General
Nathaniel Lyon
Nathaniel Lyon (July 14, 1818 – August 10, 1861) was the first Union general to be killed in the American Civil War. He is noted for his actions in Missouri in 1861, at the beginning of the conflict, to forestall secret secessionist plans of th ...
struck first, encircling the camp and forcing the state troops to surrender. Lyon directed his soldiers, largely non-English-speaking German
immigrants
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...
, to march the prisoners through the streets, and this lead to riot by pro-secession citizens. While it is disputed how it started, this riot lead to violence and Union soldiers killed by St. Louis civilians. The event as a whole, is called the
Camp Jackson Affair.
These events sharpened the divisions within the state. Governor Jackson appointed
Sterling Price
Major-General Sterling "Old Pap" Price (September 14, 1809 – September 29, 1867) was a senior officer of the Confederate States Army who commanded infantry in the Western and Trans-Mississippi theaters of the American Civil War. Prior to ...
, president of the convention on secession, as head of the new
Missouri State Guard
The Missouri State Guard (MSG) was a military force established by the Missouri General Assembly on May 11, 1861. While not a formation of the Confederate States Army, the Missouri State Guard fought alongside Confederate troops and, at various ...
. In the face of Union General Lyon's rapid advance through the state, Jackson and Price were forced to flee the capital of
Jefferson City
Jefferson City, informally Jeff City, is the capital of Missouri, United States. It had a population of 43,228 at the 2020 census, ranking as the 15th most populous city in the state. It is also the county seat of Cole County and the principa ...
on June 14, 1861. In
Neosho, Missouri
Neosho (; originally or ) is the most populous city in Newton County, Missouri, Newton County, Missouri, United States, which it serves as the county seat. With a population of 12,590 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city i ...
, Jackson called the state legislature into session to call for secession. However, the elected legislative body was split between pro-Union and pro-Confederate. As such, few of the pro-unionist attended the session called in Neosho, and the ordinance of secession was quickly adopted. The Confederacy recognized Missouri secession on October 30, 1861.
With the elected governor absent from the capital and the legislators largely dispersed, the state convention was reassembled with most of its members present, save twenty who fled south with Jackson's forces. The convention declared all offices vacant and installed
Hamilton Gamble
Hamilton Rowan Gamble (November 29, 1798 – January 31, 1864) was an American jurist and politician who served as the Chief Justice of the Missouri Supreme Court at the time of the Dred Scott case in 1852. Although his colleagues voted to over ...
as the new governor of Missouri. President Lincoln's administration immediately recognized Gamble's government as the legal Missouri government. The federal government's decision enabled raising pro-Union militia forces for service within the state and volunteer regiments for the Union Army.
Fighting ensued between Union forces and a combined army of General Price's Missouri State Guard and Confederate troops from
Arkansas
Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...
and Texas under General
Ben McCulloch
Brigadier general, Brigadier-General Benjamin McCulloch (November 11, 1811 – March 7, 1862) was a soldier in the Texas Revolution, a Texas Ranger Division, Texas Ranger, a Major general (United States), major-general in the Texas militia and t ...
. After winning victories at the
battle of Wilson's Creek
The Battle of Wilson's Creek, also known as the Battle of Oak Hills, was the first major battle of the Trans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War. It was fought on August 10, 1861, near Springfield, Missouri, Springfield, Missou ...
and the siege of
Lexington, Missouri
Lexington is a city in and the county seat of Lafayette County, Missouri. The population was 4,726 at the 2010 census. Located in western Missouri, Lexington lies approximately east of Kansas City and is part of the Greater Kansas City Metropol ...
and suffering losses elsewhere, the Confederate forces retreated to Arkansas and later
Marshall, Texas
Marshall is a city in the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat of Harrison County, Texas, Harrison County and a cultural and educational center of the Ark-La-Tex region. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, the population of M ...
, in the face of a largely reinforced Union Army.
Though regular Confederate troops staged some large-scale raids into Missouri, the fighting in the state for the next three years consisted chiefly of
guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which small groups of combatants, such as paramilitary personnel, armed civilians, or Irregular military, irregulars, use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, Raid (military), raids ...
. "Citizen soldiers" or insurgents such as Captain
William Quantrill
William Clarke Quantrill (July 31, 1837 – June 6, 1865) was a Confederate guerrilla leader during the American Civil War.
Having endured a tempestuous childhood before later becoming a schoolteacher, Quantrill joined a group of bandits who ...
,
Frank
Frank or Franks may refer to:
People
* Frank (given name)
* Frank (surname)
* Franks (surname)
* Franks, a medieval Germanic people
* Frank, a term in the Muslim world for all western Europeans, particularly during the Crusades - see Farang
Curre ...
and
Jesse James
Jesse Woodson James (September 5, 1847April 3, 1882) was an American outlaw, bank and train robber, guerrilla and leader of the James–Younger Gang. Raised in the " Little Dixie" area of Western Missouri, James and his family maintained stro ...
, the
Younger brothers, and
William T. Anderson
William T. Anderson (c. 1840October 26, 1864), known by the nickname "Bloody Bill" Anderson, was a soldier who was one of the deadliest and most notorious Confederate guerrilla leaders in the American Civil War. Anderson led a band of vol ...
made use of quick, small-unit tactics. Pioneered by the Missouri Partisan Rangers, such insurgencies also arose in portions of the Confederacy occupied by the Union during the Civil War. Historians have portrayed stories of the James brothers' outlaw years as an American "Robin Hood" myth. The vigilante activities of the
Bald Knobbers
The Bald Knobbers were a group of vigilantes in the Ozark region of southwest Missouri from 1885 to 1889. They are commonly depicted wearing black horned hoods with white outlines of faces painted on them, a distinction that evolved during the r ...
of the Ozarks in the 1880s were an unofficial continuation of insurgent mentality long after the official end of the war, and they are a favorite theme in
Branson's self-image.
Reconstruction period and later 19th century
20th century
The
Progressive Era
The Progressive Era (late 1890s – late 1910s) was a period of widespread social activism and political reform across the United States focused on defeating corruption, monopoly, waste and inefficiency. The main themes ended during Am ...
(1890s to 1920s) saw numerous prominent leaders from Missouri trying to end corruption and modernize politics, government, and society.
Joseph "Holy Joe" Folk was a key leader who made a strong appeal to the middle class and rural evangelical Protestants. Folk was elected governor as a progressive reformer and
Democrat
Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to:
Politics
*A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people.
*A member of a Democratic Party:
**Democratic Party (United States) (D)
**Democratic ...
in the
1904 election. He promoted what he called "the Missouri Idea," the concept of Missouri as a leader in public morality through popular control of law and strict enforcement. He successfully conducted antitrust prosecutions, ended free railroad passes for state officials, extended bribery statutes, improved election laws, required formal registration for lobbyists, made racetrack gambling illegal and enforced the Sunday-closing law. He helped enact Progressive legislation, including an initiative and referendum provision, regulation of elections, education, employment and child labor, railroads, food, business, and public utilities. Several efficiency-oriented examiner boards and commissions were established during Folk's administration, including many agricultural boards and the Missouri library commission.
![General John Joseph Pershing head on shoulders](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/General_John_Joseph_Pershing_head_on_shoulders.jpg)
Between the Civil War and the end of World War II, Missouri transitioned from a rural economy to a hybrid industrial-service-agricultural economy as the Midwest rapidly industrialized. The expansion of railroads to the West transformed Kansas City into a major transportation hub within the nation. The growth of the Texas cattle industry along with this increased rail infrastructure and the invention of the
refrigerated boxcar
A refrigerator car (or "reefer") is a refrigerated boxcar (U.S.), a piece of railroad rolling stock designed to carry perishable freight at specific temperatures. Refrigerator cars differ from simple insulated boxcars and ventilated boxcars (co ...
also made Kansas City a major
meatpacking
The meat-packing industry (also spelled meatpacking industry or meat packing industry) handles the slaughtering, processing, packaging, and distribution of meat from animals such as cattle, pigs, sheep and other livestock. Poultry is generally no ...
center, as large
cattle drives
A cattle drive is the process of moving a herd of cattle from one place to another, usually moved and herded by cowboys on horses.
Europe
In medieval central Europe, annual cattle drives brought Hungarian Grey cattle across the Danube River ...
from Texas brought herds of cattle to
Dodge City
Dodge City is the county seat of Ford County, Kansas, United States, named after nearby Fort Dodge. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 27,788. The city is famous in American culture for its history as a wild frontier town ...
and other Kansas towns. There, the cattle were loaded onto trains destined for Kansas City, where they were butchered and distributed to the eastern markets. The first half of the 20th century was the height of Kansas City's prominence, and its downtown became a showcase for stylish
Art Deco
Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...
skyscrapers
A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ris ...
as construction boomed.
![Boy resting on bed in attic of sharecropper shack, New Madrid County, Missouri](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Boy_resting_on_bed_in_attic_of_sharecropper_shack%2C_New_Madrid_County%2C_Missouri.jpg)
In 1930, there was a
diphtheria
Diphtheria is an infection caused by the bacterium '' Corynebacterium diphtheriae''. Most infections are asymptomatic or have a mild clinical course, but in some outbreaks more than 10% of those diagnosed with the disease may die. Signs and s ...
epidemic in the area around Springfield, which killed approximately 100 people. Serum was rushed to the area, and medical personnel stopped the epidemic.
During the mid-1950s and 1960s, St. Louis and Kansas City suffered deindustrialization and loss of jobs in railroads and manufacturing, as did other
Midwestern
The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...
industrial cities. In 1956
St. Charles claims to be the site of the first
interstate
The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, is a network of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National Highway System in the United States. Th ...
highway project. Such highway construction made it easy for middle-class residents to leave the city for newer housing developed in the suburbs, often former farmland where land was available at lower prices. These major cities have gone through decades of readjustment to develop different economies and adjust to demographic changes. Suburban areas have developed separate job markets, both in knowledge industries and services, such as major retail malls.
21st century
In 2014, Missouri received national attention for the
protests and riots that followed the
shooting of Michael Brown
On August 9, 2014, 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis.
Brown was accompanied by his 22-year-old male friend Dorian Johnson, who later stated that Brow ...
by a police officer of
Ferguson, which led Governor
Jay Nixon
Jeremiah Wilson "Jay" Nixon (born February 13, 1956) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 55th Governor of Missouri from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was first elected to the governorship in 2008 and reele ...
to call out the
Missouri National Guard
The Missouri National Guard (MONG), commonly known as the Missouri Guard, is a component of the Army National Guard and Missouri State Department of the National Guard. It is composed of Army and Air National Guard units. The Department office is ...
.
A
grand jury
A grand jury is a jury—a group of citizens—empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena physical evidence or a pe ...
declined to
indict
An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concept often use that of an ...
the officer, and the
U.S. Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United State ...
concluded, after careful investigation, that the police officer legitimately feared for his safety. However, in a separate investigation, the Department of Justice also found that the Ferguson Police Department and the City of Ferguson relied on unconstitutional practices in order to balance the city's budget through racially motivated excessive fines and punishments, that the Ferguson police "had used excessive and dangerous force and had disproportionately targeted blacks," and that the municipal court "emphasized revenue over public safety, leading to routine breaches of citizens' constitutional guarantees of due process and equal protection under the law."
A series of student protests at the
University of Missouri
The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Universit ...
against what the protesters viewed as poor response by the administration to racist incidents on campus began in September 2015.
On June 7, 2017, the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. ...
issued a warning to prospective African-American travelers to Missouri. This is the first NAACP warning ever covering an entire state. According to a 2018 report by the
Missouri Attorney General
The Office of the Missouri Attorney General was created in 1806 when Missouri was part of the Louisiana Territory. Missouri's first Constitution in 1820 provided for an appointed attorney general, but since the 1865 Constitution, the Attorney Gene ...
's office, for the past 18 years, "African Americans, Hispanics and other people of color are disproportionately affected by stops, searches and arrests." The same report found that the biggest discrepancy was in 2017, when "black motorists were 85% more likely to be pulled over in traffic stops".
In 2018 the USDA announced its plans to relocate Economic Research Service (ERS) and National Institute of Food & Agriculture (NIFA) to Kansas City. They have since decided on a specific location in downtown Kansas City, Missouri. With the addition of the KC Streetcar project and construction of the Sprint Center Arena, the downtown area in KC has attracted investment in new offices, hotels, and residential complexes. Both Kansas City and St. Louis are undergoing a rebirth in their downtown areas with the addition of the new Power & Light (KC) and Ballpark Village (STL) districts and the renovation of existing historical buildings in each downtown area. The 2019 announcement of an MLS expansion team in St. Louis is driving even more development in the downtown west area of St. Louis.
Geography
![National-atlas-missouri](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/National-atlas-missouri.png)
Missouri borders eight different states, a figure equaled only by its neighbor, Tennessee. Missouri is bounded by
Iowa
Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the ...
on the north; by
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
,
Kentucky
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...
, and
Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
across the Mississippi River on the east; on the south by
Arkansas
Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...
; and by
Oklahoma
Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...
,
Kansas
Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the ...
, and
Nebraska
Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwe ...
(the last across the Missouri River) on the west. Whereas the northern and southern boundaries are straight lines, the
Missouri Bootheel
The Missouri Bootheel is a salient located in the southeasternmost part of the U.S. state of Missouri, extending south of 36°30′ north latitude, so called because its shape in relation to the rest of the state resembles the heel of a boot. ...
extends south between the
St. Francis and the
Mississippi
Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...
rivers. The two largest rivers are the Mississippi (which defines the eastern boundary of the state) and the Missouri River (which flows from west to east through the state), essentially connecting the two largest metros of Kansas City and St. Louis.
Although today it is usually considered part of the
Midwest
The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...
, Missouri was historically seen by many as a
border state, chiefly because of the settlement of migrants from the South and its status as a slave state before the Civil War, balanced by the influence of St. Louis. The counties that made up "
Little Dixie" were those along the Missouri River in the center of the state, settled by Southern migrants who held the greatest concentration of slaves.
In 2005, Missouri received 16,695,000 visitors to its national parks and other recreational areas totaling , giving it $7.41 million in annual revenues, 26.6% of its operating expenditures.
Topography
![US mo physiographic map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/US_mo_physiographic_map.jpg)
North of, and in some cases just south of, the Missouri River lie the Northern Plains that stretch into Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas. Here, rolling hills remain from the
glaciation
A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate betw ...
that once extended from the Canadian Shield to the Missouri River. Missouri has many large river bluffs along the Mississippi, Missouri, and
Meramec River
The Meramec River (), sometimes spelled Maramec River, is one of the longest free-flowing waterways in the U.S. state of Missouri, draining Blanc, Caldwell, and Hawk. "Location" while wandering Blanc, Caldwell, and Hawk. "Executive Summary" fr ...
s. Southern Missouri rises to the
Ozark Mountains
The Ozarks, also known as the Ozark Mountains, Ozark Highlands or Ozark Plateau, is a physiographic region in the U.S. states of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and the extreme southeastern corner of Kansas. The Ozarks cover a significant portio ...
, a
dissected plateau
A dissected plateau is a plateau area that has been severely eroded such that the relief is sharp. Such an area may be referred to as mountainous, but dissected plateaus are distinguishable from orogenic mountain belts by the lack of folding, me ...
surrounding the
Precambrian
The Precambrian (or Pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pꞒ, or Cryptozoic) is the earliest part of Earth's history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is so named because it preceded the Cambrian, the first period of the ...
igneous
Igneous rock (derived from the Latin word ''ignis'' meaning fire), or magmatic rock, is one of the three main rock types, the others being sedimentary and metamorphic. Igneous rock is formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or ...
St. Francois Mountains
The St. Francois Mountains in southeast Missouri are a mountain range of Precambrian igneous mountains rising over the Ozark Plateau. This range is one of the oldest exposures of igneous rock in North America.
The name of the range is spelled out ...
. This region also hosts
karst topography
Karst is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by underground drainage systems with sinkholes and caves. It has also been documented for more weathering-resistant ro ...
characterized by high limestone content with the formation of sinkholes and caves.
![Bell Mountain](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Bell_Mountain.jpg)
The southeastern part of the state is known as the
Missouri Bootheel
The Missouri Bootheel is a salient located in the southeasternmost part of the U.S. state of Missouri, extending south of 36°30′ north latitude, so called because its shape in relation to the rest of the state resembles the heel of a boot. ...
region, which is part of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain or
Mississippi embayment
The Mississippi embayment is a physiographic feature in the south-central United States, part of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain. It is essentially a northward continuation of the fluvial sediments of the Mississippi River Delta to its conflu ...
. This region is the lowest, flattest, warmest, and wettest part of the state. It is also among the poorest, as the economy there is mostly agricultural. It is also the most fertile, with cotton and rice crops predominant. The Bootheel was the epicenter of the four
New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811 and 1812.
Climate
![Missouri Köppen](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Missouri_K%C3%B6ppen.svg)
Missouri generally has a
humid continental climate
A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and freezing ...
with cool, sometimes cold, winters and hot, humid, and wet summers. In the southern part of the state, particularly in the
Bootheel, the climate becomes
humid subtropical
A humid subtropical climate is a zone of climate characterized by hot and humid summers, and cool to mild winters. These climates normally lie on the southeast side of all continents (except Antarctica), generally between latitudes 25° and 40° ...
. Located in the interior United States, Missouri often experiences extreme temperatures. Without high mountains or oceans nearby to moderate temperature, its climate is alternately influenced by air from the cold Arctic and the hot and humid Gulf of Mexico. Missouri's highest recorded temperature is at
Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
and
Union
Union commonly refers to:
* Trade union, an organization of workers
* Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets
Union may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Music
* Union (band), an American rock group
** ''Un ...
on July 14, 1954, while the lowest recorded temperature is also at Warsaw on February 13, 1905.
Located in
Tornado Alley
Tornado Alley is a loosely defined area of the central United States where tornadoes are most frequent. The term was first used in 1952 as the title of a research project to study severe weather in areas of Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, So ...
, Missouri also receives extreme weather in the form of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. On May 22, 2011, a
massive EF-5 tornado killed 158 people and destroyed roughly one-third of the city of
Joplin. The tornado caused an estimated $1–3 billion in damages, killed 159 people and injured more than a thousand. It was the first EF5 to hit the state since 1957 and the deadliest in the U.S. since 1947, making it the seventh deadliest tornado in American history and 27th deadliest in the world.
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
and its suburbs also have a history of experiencing particularly severe tornadoes, the most recent one of note being an EF4 that damaged
Lambert-St. Louis International Airport
St. Louis Lambert International Airport is the primary commercial airport serving metropolitan St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Commonly referred to as Lambert Field or simply Lambert, it is the largest and busiest airport in the state of ...
on April 22, 2011.
One of the worst tornadoes in American history struck St. Louis on May 27, 1896, killing at least 255 people and causing $10 million in damage (equivalent to $3.9 billion in 2009 or $ in today's dollars).
Wildlife
Missouri is home to diverse
flora
Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous) native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' gut flora'' or '' skin flora''.
E ...
and
fauna
Fauna is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is ''flora'', and for fungi, it is '' funga''. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively referred to as '' biota''. Zoo ...
, including several
endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...
species. There is a large amount of
fresh water
Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does include ...
present due to the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...
,
Missouri River,
Table Rock Lake
Table Rock Lake is an artificial lake or reservoir in the Ozarks of southwestern Missouri and northwestern Arkansas in the United States. Designed, built and operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the lake is impounded by Table Rock Dam ...
and
Lake of the Ozarks
Lake of the Ozarks is a reservoir created by impounding the Osage River in the northern part of the Ozarks in central Missouri. Parts of three smaller tributaries to the Osage are included in the impoundment: the Niangua River, Grandglaize Creek ...
, with numerous smaller tributary rivers, streams, and lakes. North of the Missouri River, the state is primarily rolling hills of the
Great Plains
The Great Plains (french: Grandes Plaines), sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. It is located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, an ...
, whereas south of the Missouri River, the state is dominated by the Oak-Hickory
Central U.S. hardwood forest
The Interior Low Plateaus are a physiographic region in eastern United States. It consists of a diverse landscape that extends from north Alabama across central Tennessee and Kentucky into southern Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Its natural communi ...
.
Forests
Recreational and commercial uses of public forests, including grazing, logging, and mining, increased after World WarII. Fishermen, hikers, campers, and others started lobbying to protect forest areas with a "wilderness character." During the 1930s and 1940s
Aldo Leopold
Aldo Leopold (January 11, 1887 – April 21, 1948) was an American writer, philosopher, naturalist, scientist, ecologist, forester, conservationist, and environmentalist. He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin and is best known for his ...
,
Arthur Carhart Arthur Hawthorne Carhart (1892–1978) was a US Forest Service official, writer and conservationist who inspired wilderness protection in the United States. He was one of the first to realize the importance of conservation and became a nationally r ...
and
Bob Marshall developed a "wilderness" policy for the Forest Service. Their efforts bore fruit with the
Wilderness Act of 1964
The Wilderness Act of 1964 () was written by Howard Zahniser of The Wilderness Society. It created the legal definition of wilderness in the United States, and protected 9.1 million acres (37,000 km²) of federal land. The result of a lon ...
, which designated wilderness areas "where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by men, where man himself is a visitor and does not remain." This included
second growth public forests like the
Mark Twain National Forest
Mark Twain National Forest (MTNF) is a U.S. United States National Forest, National Forest located in the southern half of Missouri. MTNF was established on September 11, 1939. It is named for author Mark Twain, a Missouri native. The MTNF cover ...
.
Demographics
![Missouri population map (2000)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/Missouri_population_map_%282000%29.png)
The
United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of the ...
estimates that the population of Missouri was 6,137,428 on July 1, 2019, a 2.48% increase since the
2010 United States census
The United States census of 2010 was the twenty-third United States national census. National Census Day, the reference day used for the census, was April 1, 2010. The census was taken via mail-in citizen self-reporting, with enumerators servin ...
.
Missouri had a population of 5,988,927, according to the 2010 census; an increase of 137,525 (2.3 percent) since the year 2010. From 2010 to 2018, this includes a natural increase of 137,564 people since the last census (480,763 births less 343,199 deaths) and an increase of 88,088 people due to net
migration
Migration, migratory, or migrate may refer to: Human migration
* Human migration, physical movement by humans from one region to another
** International migration, when peoples cross state boundaries and stay in the host state for some minimum le ...
into the state.
Immigration
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...
from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 50,450 people, and migration within the country produced a net increase of 37,638 people. More than half of Missourians (3,294,936 people, or 55.0%) live within the state's two largest metropolitan areas—
St. Louis and Kansas City. The state's population density 86.9 in 2009, is also
closer to the national average (86.8 in 2009) than any other state.
![US-Population-Center-Illinois-and-Missouri](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/US-Population-Center-Illinois-and-Missouri.png)
The U.S. census of 2010 found that the
population center
Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a ...
of the United States is in
Texas County, while the 2000 census found the mean population center to be in
Phelps County. The
center of population
In demographics, the center of population (or population center) of a region is a geographical point that describes a centerpoint of the region's population. There are several ways of defining such a "center point", leading to different geogr ...
of Missouri is in
Osage County, in the city of
Westphalia
Westphalia (; german: Westfalen ; nds, Westfalen ) is a region of northwestern Germany and one of the three historic parts of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It has an area of and 7.9 million inhabitants.
The territory of the regio ...
.
In 2004, the population included 194,000 foreign-born (3.4 percent of the state population).
The five largest ancestry groups in Missouri are:
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
(27.4 percent),
Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
(14.8 percent),
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
(10.2 percent), American (8.5 percent) and
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
(3.7 percent).
German Americans are an ancestry group present throughout Missouri. African Americans are a substantial part of the population in St. Louis (56.6% of African Americans in the state lived in
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
or
St. Louis County as of the 2010 census), Kansas City, Boone County and in the southeastern Bootheel and some parts of the Missouri River Valley, where plantation agriculture was once important. Missouri
Creoles of French ancestry are concentrated in the Mississippi River Valley south of St. Louis (see Missouri French). Kansas City is home to large and growing immigrant communities from Latin America esp. Mexico and Colombia, Africa (i.e. Sudan, Somalia and Nigeria), and Southeast Asia including China and the Philippines; and Europe like the former Yugoslavia (see Bosnian American). A notable Cherokee Indian population exists in Missouri.
In 2004, 6.6 percent of the state's population was reported as younger than5, 25.5 percent younger than 18, and 13.5 percent 65 or older. Females were approximately 51.4 percent of the population. 81.3 percent of Missouri residents were high school graduates (more than the national average), and 21.6 percent had a bachelor's degree or higher. 3.4 percent of Missourians were foreign-born, and 5.1 percent reported speaking a language other than English at home.
In 2010, there were 2,349,955 households in Missouri, with 2.45 people per household. The homeownership rate was 70.0 percent, and the median value of an owner-occupied housing unit was $137,700. The median household income for 2010 was $46,262, or $24,724 per capita. There was 14.0 percent (1,018,118) of Missourians living below the poverty line in 2010.
The mean commute time to work was 23.8 minutes.
Birth data
In 2011, 28.1% of Missouri's population younger than age1 were minorities.
''Note: Births in table don't add up, because Hispanics are counted both by their ethnicity and by their race, giving a higher overall number.''
* Since 2016, data for births of White Hispanic and Latino Americans, White Hispanic origin are not collected, but included in one ''Hispanic'' group; persons of Hispanic origin may be of any race.
Language
The vast majority of people in Missouri speak English. Approximately 5.1% of the population reported speaking a language other than English at home. The Spanish language is spoken in small Latino communities in the St. Louis and Kansas City Metro areas.
Missouri is home to an endangered dialect of the French language known as Missouri French. Speakers of the dialect, who call themselves ''Creole peoples, Créoles'', are descendants of the French pioneers who settled the area then known as the Illinois Country beginning in the late 17th century. It developed in isolation from French speakers in Canada and Louisiana, becoming quite distinct from the varieties of Canadian French and Louisiana French. Once widely spoken throughout the area, Missouri French is now nearly extinct, with only a few elderly speakers able to use it.
[; International Sociological Association.]
Religion
According to a Pew Research study
conducted in 2014, 80% of Missourians identify with a religion. 77% affiliate with Christianity and its various denominations and the other 3% are adherents of non-Christian religions. The remaining 20% have no religion, with 2% specifically identifying as atheists and 3% identifying as agnostics (the other 15% do not identify as "anything in particular").
The religious demographics of Missouri are as follows:
* Christian 77%
** Protestant 58%
*** Evangelical Protestant 36%
*** Mainline Protestant 16%
*** Historically Black Protestant 6%
** Catholic 16%
** Mormon 1%
** Orthodox Christian <1%
** Jehovah's Witness <1%
** Other Christian <1%
* Non-Christian Religions 3%
** Jewish <1%
** Muslim <1%
** Buddhist 1%
** Hindu <1%
** Other World Religions <1%
* Unaffiliated (No religion) 20%
** Atheist 2%
** Agnostic 3%
** Nothing in particular 15%
* Don't know <1%
The largest denominations by number of adherents in 2010 were the Southern Baptist Convention with 749,685; the Roman Catholic Church with 724,315; and the United Methodist Church with 226,409.
Among the other denominations there are approximately 93,000 Mormons in 253 congregations, 25,000 Jewish adherents in 21 synagogues, 12,000 Muslims in 39 masjids, 7,000 Buddhists in 34 temples, 20,000 Hindus in 17 temples, 2,500 Unitarian Universalism, Unitarians in nine congregations, 2,000 of the Baháʼí Faith in 17 temples, five Sikh temples, a Zoroastrian temple, a Jain temple and an uncounted number of neopagans.
Several religious organizations have headquarters in Missouri, including the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, which has its headquarters in Kirkwood, Missouri, Kirkwood, as well as the United Pentecostal Church International in Hazelwood, Missouri, Hazelwood, both outside St. Louis.
Independence
Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the statu ...
, near Kansas City, is the headquarters for the Community of Christ (formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) and the group Remnant Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Remnant Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This area and other parts of Missouri are also of significant religious and historical importance to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), which maintains several sites and visitor centers.
Springfield
Springfield may refer to:
* Springfield (toponym), the place name in general
Places and locations Australia
* Springfield, New South Wales (Central Coast)
* Springfield, New South Wales (Snowy Monaro Regional Council)
* Springfield, Queenslan ...
is the headquarters of the Assemblies of God USA and the Baptist Bible Fellowship International. The General Association of General Baptists has its headquarters in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, Poplar Bluff. The Unity Church is headquartered in Unity Village, Missouri, Unity Village. Springfield is particularly known as a Christian center in the state and is considered by some to be a "buckle" of the Bible Belt.
Hindu Temple of St. Louis is the largest Hindu Temple in Missouri, serving more than 14,000 Hindus.
Economy
![Missouri quarter, reverse side, 2003](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/Missouri_quarter%2C_reverse_side%2C_2003.jpg)
* Total employment in 2016: 2,494,720
* Total Number of employer establishments in 2016: 160,912
The United States Department of Commerce, U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis estimated Missouri's 2016 gross domestic product, gross state product at $299.1 billion, ranking 22nd among U.S. states. Per capita personal income in the United States, Per capita personal income in 2006 was $32,705,
ranking 26th in the nation. Major industries include aerospace, Vehicles, transportation equipment, food processing, chemical industry, chemicals, printing/publishing, electrical equipment, light manufacturing, financial services and beer.
The agriculture products of the state are beef, soybeans, pork, dairy products, hay, maize, corn, poultry, sorghum, cotton, rice, and Egg (food), eggs. Missouri is ranked 6th in the nation for the production of hogs and 7th for cattle. Missouri is ranked in the top five states in the nation for production of soy beans, and it is ranked fourth in the nation for the production of rice. In 2001, there were 108,000 farms, the second-largest number in any state after Texas. Missouri actively promotes its rapidly growing Missouri wine, wine industry. According to the Missouri Partnership, Missouri's agriculture industry contributes $33 billion in GDP to Missouri's economy, and generates $88 billion in sales and more than 378,000 jobs.
Missouri has vast quantities of limestone. Other resources mined are lead, coal, and crushed Rock (geology), stone. Missouri produces the most lead of all the states. Most of the lead mines are in the Lead Belt, central eastern portion of the state. Missouri also ranks first or near first in the production of Lime (mineral), lime, a key ingredient in Portland cement.
Missouri also has a growing science, agricultural technology, and biotechnology field.
Monsanto
The Monsanto Company () was an American agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation founded in 1901 and headquartered in Creve Coeur, Missouri. Monsanto's best known product is Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide, developed in th ...
, formerly one of the largest biotech companies in America, was based in
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
until it was acquired by Bayer AG in 2018. It is now part of the Crop Science Division of Bayer Corporation, Bayer's U.S. subsidiary.
Tourism, services, and wholesale/retail trade follow manufacturing in importance—tourism benefits from the many rivers, lakes, caves, parks, etc., throughout the state. In addition to a network of state parks, Missouri is home to Gateway Arch National Park in St. Louis and the Ozark National Scenic Riverways. A much-visited show cave is Meramec Caverns in Stanton, Missouri, Stanton.
Missouri is the only state in the Union to have two Federal Reserve Banks: one in Kansas City (serving western Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Colorado, northern New Mexico, and Wyoming) and one in St. Louis (serving eastern Missouri, southern Illinois, southern Indiana, western Kentucky, western Tennessee, northern Mississippi, and all of Arkansas).
![New Federal Reserve Bank Kansas City MO](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/New_Federal_Reserve_Bank_Kansas_City_MO.jpg)
The state's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in April 2017 was 3.9 percent. In 2017, Missouri became a right-to-work state, but in August 2018, Missouri voters rejected a right-to-work law with 67% to 33%.
Taxation
Personal Income tax, income is taxed in ten different earning brackets, ranging from 1.5% to 6.0%. Missouri's sales tax rate for most items is 4.225%, with some additional local levies. More than 2,500 Missouri local governments rely on property taxes levied on real property (real estate) and personal property.
Most personal property is exempt, except for motorized vehicles. Exempt real estate includes property owned by governments and property used as nonprofit cemeteries, exclusively for religious worship, for schools and colleges, and purely charitable purposes. There is no inheritance tax and limited Missouri estate tax related to Estate tax (United States), federal estate tax collection.
In 2017, the Tax Foundation rated Missouri as having the 5th-best corporate tax index,
and the 15th-best overall tax climate.
Missouri's corporate income tax rate is 6.25%; however, 50% of federal income tax payments may be deducted before computing taxable income, leading to an effective rate of 5.2%.
Energy
In 2012, Missouri had roughly 22,000 MW of installed electricity generation capacity.
In 2011, 82% of Missouri's electricity was generated by Fossil-fuel power station, coal.
Ten percent was generated from the state's only nuclear power plant,
the Callaway Nuclear Generating Station, Callaway Plant in Callaway County, northeast of
Jefferson City
Jefferson City, informally Jeff City, is the capital of Missouri, United States. It had a population of 43,228 at the 2020 census, ranking as the 15th most populous city in the state. It is also the county seat of Cole County and the principa ...
. Five percent was generated by natural gas.
One percent was generated by hydroelectric sources,
such as the dams for Truman Reservoir, Truman Lake and
Lake of the Ozarks
Lake of the Ozarks is a reservoir created by impounding the Osage River in the northern part of the Ozarks in central Missouri. Parts of three smaller tributaries to the Osage are included in the impoundment: the Niangua River, Grandglaize Creek ...
. Missouri has a small but growing amount of wind and solar power—wind capacity increased from 309 MW in 2009 to 459 MW in 2011, while photovoltaics have increased from 0.2 MW to 1.3 MW over the same period.
As of 2016, Missouri's solar installations had reached 141 MW.
Oil wells in Missouri produced 120,000 barrels of crude oil in fiscal 2012. There are no oil refineries in Missouri.
Transportation
Airports
Missouri has two major airport hubs: St. Louis Lambert International Airport and Kansas City International Airport. Southern Missouri has the Springfield–Branson National Airport (SGF) with multiple non-stop destinations. Residents of Mid-Missouri use Columbia Regional Airport (COU) to fly to Chicago (ORD), Dallas (DFW) or Denver (DEN).
Rail
![KC Streetcar (26813012241)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/KC_Streetcar_%2826813012241%29.jpg)
Two of the nation's three busiest rail centers are in Missouri.
Kansas City
The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more ...
is a major railroad hub for BNSF Railway, Norfolk Southern Railway, Kansas City Southern Railway, and Union Pacific Railroad, and every class1 railroad serves Missouri. Kansas City is the second-largest freight rail center in the US (but is first in the amount of tonnage handled). Like Kansas City, St. Louis is a major destination for train freight. Springfield remains an operational hub for BNSF Railway.
Amtrak passenger trains serve Union Station (Kansas City, Missouri), Kansas City, La Plata (Amtrak station), La Plata, Jefferson City station, Jefferson City, Gateway Multimodal Transportation Center, St. Louis, Lee's Summit, Missouri, Lee's Summit, Independence (Amtrak station), Independence, Warrensburg, Missouri, Warrensburg, Hermann, Missouri, Hermann, Washington, Missouri, Washington, Kirkwood, Sedalia, Missouri, Sedalia, and Poplar Bluff, Missouri, Poplar Bluff. A proposed high-speed rail route in Missouri as part of the Chicago Hub Network has received $31 million in funding.
The only urban light rail/subway system operating in Missouri is MetroLink (St. Louis), MetroLink, which connects the city of St. Louis with suburbs in Illinois and St. Louis County. It is one of the largest systems (by track mileage) in the United States. The KC Streetcar in downtown Kansas City opened in May 2016.
The Gateway Multimodal Transportation Center in St. Louis is the largest active multi-use transportation center in the state. It is in downtown St. Louis, next to the historic Union Station (St. Louis), Union Station complex. It serves as a hub center/station for MetroLink, the St. Louis MetroBus, MetroBus regional bus system, Greyhound Lines, Greyhound, Amtrak, and taxi services.
The proposed Missouri Hyperloop would connect St. Louis, Kansas City, and Columbia, reducing travel times to around a half hour.
Bus
![Mississippi from Cardiff Hill in Hannibal](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/Mississippi_from_Cardiff_Hill_in_Hannibal.jpg)
Many cities have regular fixed-route systems, and many rural counties have rural public transit services. Greyhound Lines, Greyhound and Trailways provide inter-city bus service in Missouri. Megabus (North America), Megabus serves St. Louis, but discontinued service to Columbia and Kansas City in 2015.
Rivers
The Mississippi River and Missouri River are commercially navigable over their entire lengths in Missouri. The Missouri was channelized through dredging and jetties, and the Mississippi was given a series of lock (water transport), locks and dams to avoid rocks and deepen the river. St. Louis is a major destination for barge traffic on the Mississippi.
Roads
Following the passage of Amendment 3 in late 2004, the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) began its Smoother, Safer, Sooner road-building program with a goal of bringing of highways up to good condition by December 2007. From 2006 to 2011 traffic deaths have decreased annually from 1,257 in 2005, to 1,096 in 2006, to 992 in 2007, to 960 in 2008, to 878 in 2009, to 821 in 2010, to 786 in 2011.
Law and government
![Missouri-governor-mansion](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/Missouri-governor-mansion.jpg)
The current Constitution of Missouri, the fourth constitution for the state, was adopted in 1945. It provides for three branches of government: the legislative, judicial, and executive branches. The legislative branch consists of two bodies: the Missouri House of Representatives, House of Representatives and the Missouri Senate, Senate. These bodies comprise the Missouri General Assembly.
The House of Representatives has 163 members apportioned based on the last United States Census, decennial census. The Senate consists of 34 members from districts of approximately equal populations. The judicial department comprises the Supreme Court of Missouri, which has seven judges, the Missouri Court of Appeals (an intermediate appellate court divided into three districts), sitting in Kansas City, St. Louis, and Springfield, and 45 Circuit Courts which function as local trial courts. The executive branch is headed by the List of Governors of Missouri, Governor of Missouri and includes five other statewide elected offices. Following the death of State Auditor Tom Schweich in 2015, only one of Missouri's statewide elected offices is held by a Democratic Party (United States), Democrat: his successor Nicole Galloway.
Harry S Truman (1884–1972), the 33rd President of the United States (Democrat, 1945–1953), was born in Lamar, Missouri, Lamar. He was a judge in Jackson County, Missouri, Jackson County and then List of United States Senators from Missouri, represented the state in the United States Senate for ten years, before being elected vice-president in 1944 United States presidential election, 1944. He lived in Independence after retiring as president in 1953.
In a 2020 study, Missouri was ranked as 48th on the "Cost of Voting Index" with only Texas and Georgia ranking higher.
Former status as a political bellwether
Missouri was widely regarded as a bellwether in American politics, often making it a swing state. The state had a longer stretch of supporting the winning presidential candidate than any other state, having voted with the nation in every election from 1904 to 2004 with a single exception: 1956 United States presidential election, 1956 when Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson II, Adlai Stevenson of neighboring Illinois lost the election despite carrying Missouri. However, in recent years, areas of the state outside Kansas City, St. Louis, and Columbia have shifted heavily to the right, making Missouri a safe Republican state on the whole. The last Democrat to win the state's electoral votes was 1996 United States presidential election in Missouri, Bill Clinton in 1996. It rejected Democrat Barack Obama of neighboring Illinois in both of his successful campaigns in 2008 and 2012. Missouri voted for Mitt Romney by nearly 10% in 2012 and voted for Donald Trump by over 18% in 2016 and 15% in 2020.
On October 24, 2012, there were 4,190,936 registered voters.
At the state level, both Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill and Democratic Governor
Jay Nixon
Jeremiah Wilson "Jay" Nixon (born February 13, 1956) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 55th Governor of Missouri from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was first elected to the governorship in 2008 and reele ...
were re-elected.
On November 3, 2020, there were 4,318,758 registered voters, with 3,026,028 voting (70.1%). By this time, the state had favored more Republican candidates for federal offices. The offices held by Democratic party officials a decade before were subsequently held by Republican Senator Josh Hawley and Republican Governor Mike Parson.
Missouri's accuracy rate for the last 29 presidential elections is now 89.66%. This percentage is on par with that of Ohio, which has voted for the winner of every presidential election since 1896, except in 1944 United States presidential election, 1944, 1960 United States presidential election, 1960 and 2020 United States presidential election, 2020, with no Republican ever winning the White House without the state. Nevada has been carried by the winner of every presidential election since 1912, with only two exceptions: 1976 United States presidential election, 1976 and 2016 United States presidential election, 2016. New Mexico has voted for the winner of every presidential election since its statehood in 1912, except in 1976 United States presidential election, 1976, 2000 United States presidential election, 2000 and 2016 United States presidential election, 2016.
Laissez-faire alcohol and tobacco laws
Missouri has been known for its population's generally "stalwart, conservative, noncredulous" attitude toward regulatory regimes, which is one of the origins of the state's unofficial nickname, the "Show-Me State". As a result, and combined with the fact that Missouri is one of America's leading alcohol states, regulation of alcohol and tobacco in Missouri is among the most laissez-faire in America. For 2013, the annual "Freedom in the 50 States" study prepared by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University ranked Missouri as #3 in America for alcohol freedom and #1 for tobacco freedom (#7 for freedom overall).
The study notes that Missouri's "alcohol regime is one of the least restrictive in the United States, with no blue laws and taxes well below average", and that "Missouri ranks best in the nation on tobacco freedom".
Missouri law makes it "an improper employment practice" for an employer to refuse to hire, to fire, or otherwise to disadvantage any person because that person lawfully uses alcohol and/or tobacco products outside of work.
With a large German immigrant population and the development of a brewing industry, Missouri always has had among the most permissive alcohol laws of the United States by state, alcohol laws in the United States. It has never enacted statewide prohibition in the United States, prohibition. Missouri voters rejected prohibition in three separate referendums in 1910, 1912, and 1918. Alcohol regulation did not begin in Missouri until 1934.
Today, alcohol laws are controlled by the state government, and local jurisdictions are prohibited from going beyond those state laws. Missouri has no statewide United States open container laws, open container law or prohibition on drinking in public, no alcohol-related blue laws, no local option, no precise locations for selling liquor by the package (allowing even drug stores and gas stations to sell any kind of liquor), and no differentiation of laws based on alcohol percentage. State law protects persons from arrest or criminal penalty for public intoxication.
Missouri law expressly prohibits any jurisdiction from going dry county, dry. Missouri law also expressly allows parents and guardians to serve alcohol to their children. The Power & Light District in Kansas City is one of the few places in the United States where a state law explicitly allows persons over 21 to possess and consume open containers of alcohol in the street (as long as the beverage is in a plastic cup).
As for tobacco (as of July 2016), Missouri has the lowest cigarette excise taxes in the United States, at 17 cents per pack, and the state electorate voted in 2002, 2006, 2012, and twice in 2016 to keep it that way. In 2007, ''Forbes'' named Missouri's largest metropolitan area,
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
, America's "best city for smokers".
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2008 Missouri had the fourth highest percentage of adult smokers among U.S. states, at 24.5%. Although federal law prohibits the sale of tobacco to persons under 21, tobacco products can be distributed to persons under 21 by family members on private property.
No statewide smoking ban ever has been seriously entertained before the Missouri General Assembly, and in October 2008, a statewide survey by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services found that only 27.5% of Missourians support a statewide ban on smoking in all bars and restaurants. Missouri state law permits restaurants seating less than 50 people, bars, bowling alleys, and billiard parlors to decide their own smoking policies, without limitation.
Cannabis laws
In 2014, a Republican-led legislature and Democratic governor
Jay Nixon
Jeremiah Wilson "Jay" Nixon (born February 13, 1956) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 55th Governor of Missouri from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was first elected to the governorship in 2008 and reele ...
enacted a series of laws to partially decriminalize possession of cannabis by making first-time possession of up to 10 grams no longer punishable with jail time and legalizing Cannabidiol, CBD oil. In November 2018, Cannabis in Missouri, 66% of voters approved a constitutional amendment that established a right to medical marijuana and a system for licensing, regulating, and taxing medical marijuana.
Counties
Missouri has 114 counties and one
independent city
An independent city or independent town is a city or town that does not form part of another general-purpose local government entity (such as a province).
Historical precursors
In the Holy Roman Empire, and to a degree in its successor states ...
, St. Louis, which is Missouri's most densely populated—5,140 people per square mile.
The largest counties by population are St. Louis County, Missouri, St. Louis (996,726), Jackson County, Missouri, Jackson (698,895), and St. Charles County, Missouri, St. Charles (395,504). Worth County is the smallest (2,057).
The largest counties by size are Texas County, Missouri, Texas (1,179 square miles) and Shannon County, Missouri, Shannon (1,004). Worth County, Missouri, Worth County is the smallest (266).
Cities and towns
Jefferson City is the capital city of Missouri, while the state's five largest cities are Kansas City, St. Louis, Springfield,
Columbia, and Independence.
St. Louis is the principal city of the largest metropolitan area in Missouri, composed of 17 counties and the independent city of St. Louis; eight of its counties are in Illinois. As of 2019, St. Louis was the United States metropolitan area#Top, 21st-largest metropolitan area in the nation with 2.91 million people. However, if ranked using Combined Statistical Area, it is Table of United States Combined Statistical Areas, 20th-largest with 2.91 million people in 2019. Some of the major cities making up the St. Louis metro area in Missouri are O'Fallon, Missouri, O'Fallon,
St. Charles, St. Peters, Missouri, St. Peters, Florissant, Missouri, Florissant, Chesterfield, Missouri, Chesterfield, Wentzville, Missouri, Wentzville, Wildwood, Missouri, Wildwood, University City, Missouri, University City, and Ballwin, Missouri, Ballwin.
Kansas City is Missouri's largest city and the principal city of the fourteen-county Kansas City Metropolitan Area, Kansas City Metropolitan Statistical Area, including five counties in the state of Kansas. As of 2019, it was the 31st-largest metropolitan area in the U.S., with 2.16 million people. In the Combined Statistical Area in 2019, it ranked 27th with 2.51 million. Some of the other major cities comprising the Kansas City metro area in Missouri include
Independence
Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the statu ...
, Lee's Summit, Missouri, Lee's Summit, Blue Springs, Missouri, Blue Springs, Liberty, Missouri, Liberty, Raytown, Missouri, Raytown, Gladstone, Missouri, Gladstone, and Grandview, Missouri, Grandview.
Springfield is Missouri's third-largest city and the principal city of the Springfield-Branson, Missouri metropolitan area, Springfield-Branson Metropolitan Area, which has a population of 549,423 and includes seven counties in southwestern Missouri.
Branson Branson may refer to:
Places
;Canada
* Branson, Toronto
;United States
* Branson, Missouri, a popular tourist destination in the Ozark Mountains
* Branson, Colorado
* Branson City, California
* The Branson School, in Ross, California
* Warrenpoi ...
is a major tourist attraction in the The Ozarks, Ozarks in southwest Missouri. Some of the other major cities comprising the Springfield-Branson metro area include Nixa, Missouri, Nixa, Ozark, Missouri, Ozark, and Republic, Missouri, Republic.
Education
Missouri State Board of Education
The Missouri State Board of Education has general authority over all public education in the state of Missouri. It is made up of eight citizens appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Missouri Senate.
Primary and secondary schools
Education is compulsory from ages seven to seventeen. It is required that any parent, guardian, or another person with custody of a child between the ages of seven and seventeen, the compulsory attendance age for the district, must ensure the child is enrolled in and regularly attends public, private, parochial school, home school or a combination of schools for the full term of the school year. Compulsory attendance also ends when children complete sixteen credits in high school.
Children in Missouri between the ages of five and seven are not required to be enrolled in school. However, if they are enrolled in a public school, their parent, guardian, or custodian must ensure they regularly attend.
Missouri schools are commonly but not exclusively divided into three tiers of primary and secondary education: elementary school, middle school or junior high school and high school. The public school system includes kindergarten to 12th grade. District territories are often complex in structure. In some cases, elementary, middle, and junior high schools of a single district feed into high schools in another district. As another example, special education and related services for students in the twenty-two school districts of St. Louis County are provided by staff employeed by a special school sistrict, a local education agency that serves students county-wide. High school athletics and competitions are governed by the Missouri State High School Activities Association (MSHSAA).
Homeschooling is legal in Missouri and is an option to meet the compulsory education requirement. It is neither monitored nor regulated by the state's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Another gifted school is the Missouri Academy of Science, Mathematics and Computing, which is at the Northwest Missouri State University.
Colleges and universities
![Brookings](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Brookings.jpg)
The University of Missouri System is Missouri's statewide public university system. The flagship institution and largest university in the state is the
University of Missouri
The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Universit ...
in
Columbia. The others in the system are University of Missouri–Kansas City, University of Missouri–St. Louis, and Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla, Missouri, Rolla.
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the state established a series of normal schools in each region of the state, originally named after the geographic districts: Northeast Missouri State University (now Truman State University) (1867), Central Missouri State University (now the University of Central Missouri) (1871), Southeast Missouri State University (1873), Southwest Missouri State University (now Missouri State University) (1905), Northwest Missouri State University (1905), Missouri Western State University (1915), Maryville University (1872) and Missouri Southern State University (1937). Lincoln University (Missouri), Lincoln University and Harris–Stowe State University were established in the mid-nineteenth century and are historically black colleges and universities.
Among private institutions
Washington University in St. Louis
Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...
and
Saint Louis University
Saint Louis University (SLU) is a private Jesuit research university with campuses in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, and Madrid, Spain. Founded in 1818 by Louis William Valentine DuBourg, it is the oldest university west of the Mississip ...
are two top ranked schools in the US. There are numerous junior colleges, trade schools, church universities and other private universities in the state. A.T. Still University was the first osteopathic medical school in the world. Hannibal–LaGrange University in Hannibal, Missouri, was one of the first colleges west of the Mississippi (founded 1858 in LaGrange, Missouri, and moved to Hannibal in 1928).
The state funds a $2000, renewable merit-based scholarship, Bright Flight (Missouri scholarship), Bright Flight, given to the top three percent of Missouri high school graduates who attend a university in-state.
The 19th-century border wars between Missouri and Kansas have continued as a sports rivalry between the
University of Missouri
The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Universit ...
and University of Kansas. The rivalry was chiefly expressed through football and basketball games between the two universities, but since Missouri left the Big 12 Conference in 2012, the teams no longer regularly play one another. It was the oldest college rivalry west of the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...
and the second-oldest in the nation. Each year when the universities met to play, the game was coined the "Border War." Following the game, an exchange occurred where the winner took a historic Indian War Drum, which had been passed back and forth for decades. Though Missouri and Kansas no longer have an annual game after the University of Missouri moved to the Southeastern Conference, rivalry still exists between them.
Culture
Music
![The Gem Theatre](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/The_Gem_Theatre.jpg)
Many well-known musicians were born or have lived in Missouri. These include guitarist and rock pioneer
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson Berry (October 18, 1926 – March 18, 2017) was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist who pioneered rock and roll. Nicknamed the " Father of Rock and Roll", he refined and developed rhythm and blues into th ...
, singer and actress Josephine Baker, "Queen of Rock" Tina Turner, pop singer-songwriter
Sheryl Crow
Sheryl Suzanne Crow (born February 11, 1962) is an American musician, singer, songwriter and actress. Her music incorporates elements of rock, pop, country, folk, and blues. She has released eleven studio albums, five compilations and three li ...
, Michael McDonald (singer), Michael McDonald of the Doobie Brothers, and rappers
Nelly
Cornell Iral Haynes Jr. (born November 2, 1974), better known by his stage name Nelly, is an American rapper, singer, actor and entrepreneur. He embarked on his music career with the hip hop group St. Lunatics in 1993 and signed to Universal ...
, Chingy and Akon, all of whom are either current or former residents of St. Louis.
Country singers from Missouri include Perryville native Chris Janson, New Franklin, Missouri, New Franklin native Sara Evans, St. Francois County, Missouri, Cantwell native Ferlin Husky, West Plains, Missouri, West Plains native Porter Wagoner, Tyler Farr of Garden City, Missouri, Garden City, and Mora, Missouri, Mora native Leroy Van Dyke, along with bluegrass musician Rhonda Vincent, a native of Greentop, Missouri, Greentop. Rapper Eminem was born in St. Joseph and also lived in Savannah and Kansas City. Ragtime composer Scott Joplin lived in St. Louis and Sedalia. Jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker lived in Kansas City. Rock and Roll singer Steve Walsh (musician), Steve Walsh of the group Kansas (band), Kansas was born in St. Louis and grew up in St. Joseph.
The Kansas City Symphony and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra are the state's major orchestras. The latter is the nation's second-oldest symphony orchestra and achieved prominence in recent years under conductor Leonard Slatkin.
Branson Branson may refer to:
Places
;Canada
* Branson, Toronto
;United States
* Branson, Missouri, a popular tourist destination in the Ozark Mountains
* Branson, Colorado
* Branson City, California
* The Branson School, in Ross, California
* Warrenpoi ...
is well known for its music theaters, most of which bear the name of a star performer or musical group.
Literature
Missouri is the native state of
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...
. His novels ''The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'' and ''The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' are set in his boyhood hometown of Hannibal, Missouri, Hannibal. Authors Kate Chopin, T. S. Eliot and Tennessee Williams were from St. Louis. Kansas City-born writer William Least Heat-Moon resides in Rocheport, Missouri, Rocheport. He is best known for ''Blue Highways'', a chronicle of his travels to small towns across America, which was on The New York Times Bestseller list for 42 weeks in 1982–1983. Novelist Daniel Woodrell, known for depicting life in the Missouri Ozarks, was born in Springfield and lives in West Plains.
Film
Filmmaker, animator, and businessman
Walt Disney
Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...
spent part of his childhood in the Linn County, Missouri, Linn County town of Marceline, Missouri, Marceline before settling in Kansas City. Disney began his artistic career in Kansas City, where he founded the Laugh-O-Gram Studio.
![Major sports by state](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Major_sports_by_state.svg)
Several film versions of Mark Twain's novels ''The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'' and ''The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' have been made. ''Meet Me in St. Louis'', a musical involving the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, starred Judy Garland. Part of the 1983 road movie ''National Lampoon's Vacation'' was shot on location in Missouri, for the Griswolds' trip from Chicago to Los Angeles. The Thanksgiving holiday film ''Planes, Trains, and Automobiles'' was partially shot at Lambert–St. Louis International Airport. ''White Palace (film), White Palace'' was filmed in St. Louis. The award-winning 2010 film ''Winter's Bone'' was shot in the
Ozarks
The Ozarks, also known as the Ozark Mountains, Ozark Highlands or Ozark Plateau, is a physiographic region in the U.S. states of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and the extreme southeastern corner of Kansas. The Ozarks cover a significant port ...
of Missouri. ''Up in the Air (2009 film), Up in the Air'' starring George Clooney was filmed in St. Louis. John Carpenter's ''Escape from New York'' was filmed in St. Louis during the early 1980s due to a large number of abandoned buildings in the city. The 1973 movie ''Paper Moon (film), Paper Moon'', which starred Ryan and Tatum O'Neal, was partly filmed in St. Joseph. Most of HBO's film ''Truman (1995 film), Truman'' (1995) was filmed in Kansas City, Independence, and the surrounding area; Gary Sinise won an Emmy for his portrayal of Harry Truman in the film. ''Ride with the Devil (film), Ride With the Devil'' (1999), starring Jewel and Tobey Maguire, was filmed in the countryside of Jackson County (where the historical events of the film actually took place). ''Gone Girl (film), Gone Girl'', a 2014 film starring Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris, and Tyler Perry, was filmed in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Cape Girardeau.
Sports
![BuschStadium 2006-05-30](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/BuschStadium_2006-05-30.jpg)
Missouri hosted the 1904 Summer Olympics at
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
, the first time the games were hosted in the United States.
Professional major league teams:
* Major League Baseball, MLB: St. Louis Cardinals, Kansas City Royals
* National Football League, NFL: Kansas City Chiefs
* National Hockey League, NHL: St. Louis Blues
* Major League Soccer, MLS: St. Louis City SC (Founded 2019, has not started play yet)
Former professional major league teams:
* National Football League:
** St. Louis Cardinals (NFL), St. Louis Cardinals (moved from Chicago in 1960; moved to Tempe, Arizona, in 1988 and are now the Arizona Cardinals)
** St. Louis All Stars (active in 1923 only)
** Kansas City Blues/Cowboys (active 1924–1926, folded)
** St. Louis Gunners (independent team, joined the NFL for the last three weeks of the 1934 season and folded thereafter)
** St. Louis Rams 1995–2015 moved from Los Angeles and then back to Los Angeles
* Major League Baseball (American League):
** St. Louis Browns (moved from Milwaukee in 1902; moved to Baltimore, Maryland after the 1953 season and are now the Baltimore Orioles)
** Kansas City Athletics (moved from Philadelphia in 1955; moved to Oakland, California after the 1967 season and are now the Oakland Athletics)
* National Basketball Association:
** St. Louis Bombers (NBA), St. Louis Bombers (charter Basketball Association of America, BAA franchise in 1946, joined the NBA when it formed in 1949; ceased operations in 1950)
** St. Louis Hawks (moved from Milwaukee in 1955; moved to Atlanta in 1968 and are now the Atlanta Hawks)
** Kansas City Kings (moved from Cincinnati in 1972; moved to Sacramento, California, Sacramento in 1985 and are now the Sacramento Kings; prior to locating in Kansas City, they were known as the Cincinnati Royals)
* National Hockey League:
** Kansas City Scouts (1974 expansion team, moved to Denver, Colorado in 1976 and became the Colorado Rockies (NHL), Colorado Rockies, and would move again to Newark, New Jersey; now called the New Jersey Devils)
** St. Louis Eagles (1934 relocation of the Ottawa Senators (original), original Ottawa Senators, folded after the 1934–35 season)
* Major League Soccer:
** Sporting Kansas City#The early years: 1996–1999, Kansas City Wiz/Kansas City Wizards (founded in 1995, but moved from Kansas City, Missouri, to Kansas City, Kansas, in 2010 and became Sporting Kansas City)
See also
* Index of Missouri-related articles
* List of people from Missouri
* Outline of Missouri
References
External links
*
*
Missouri State Guide, from the Library of Congress*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*''Scientific American'',
Ancient Man in Missouri, September 11, 1880, p. 169
{{coord, 38, -92, dim:300000_region:US-MO_type:adm1st, name=State of Missouri, display=title
Missouri,
1821 establishments in the United States
Midwestern United States
States and territories established in 1821
States of the United States
Contiguous United States