Missouri

HISTORY

The state is named for the Missouri River, which was named after the indigenous Missouri Indians. They were called the ouemessourita, meaning "those who have dugout canoes", by the Miami-Illinois language speakers.

The first European settlers were mostly ethnic French Canadians, who in 1735 created their first settlement in Missouri at present-day Ste. Genevieve , about an hour south of St. Louis.

St. Louis was founded by French from New Orleans in 1764. It became the center of a regional fur trade with Native American tribes that extended up the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, which dominated the regional economy for decades.

Fur Traders Descending the Missouri by Missouri painter George Caleb Bingham

Missouri was part of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase by the United States, Following Louisiana's admittance as a U.S. state nine years later, the Louisiana Territory was renamed the Missouri Territory.

The Missouri Compromise was signed into law by President James Monroe in 1820. The compromise allowed Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state, but made the rest of the northern part of the Louisiana Purchase territory slavery-free.

Missouri officially became a US state on August 10, 1821.

Missouri earned the nickname Gateway to the West because it served as a major departure point for expeditions and settlers heading to the West during the 19th century.

With increasing migration, from the 1830s to the 1860s Missouri's population almost doubled with every decade. Most of the newcomers were American-born, but many Irish and German immigrants arrived in the late 1840s and 1850s.

Kansas City, Missouri existed before Kansas was a state. After Kansas became a state in 1861 they founded their own Kansas City to benefit from the economic growth Kansas City, Missouri was experiencing.

Union Station in St. Louis was the largest and busiest railway station in the world when it opened in 1894.

Passengers st St Louis' Union Street station

The Missouri flag was made the official flag of the state on March 22, 1913. Designed by Mary Elizabeth Oliver, the red and white stripes, represent valor and purity, respectively. The blue represents three things: the permanency, vigilance, and justice of the state. The three colors also highlight the French influence on the state in its early years.

A 5.1 kilograms (11 lb) chondrite-type meteorite broke into at least seven pieces and landed near the town of Archie in Cass County, Missouri in 1932..

An EF5 Tornado struck the US city of Joplin, Missouri in 2011 killing 161 people, the single deadliest US tornado since modern record keeping began in 1950.

FUN FACTS

Missouri's unofficial nickname is the "Show Me State", which appears on its license plates.

Mormons believe that the Garden of Eden was located in Jackson County, Missouri.

Plato, an incorporated village in northwestern Texas County, Missouri, is the mean center of the U.S. population.

The tallest monument built in the US, the Gateway Arch, in St. Louis, Missouri, is 630 feet tall.

The Gateway Arch in St. Louis. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikipedia Commons

Missouri law prohibits employers from requiring that their employees get identifying microchip implants.

It's legal to carry a switchblade in Missouri if you only have one arm.