Missouri

Missouri became the twenty-fourth state to join the Union on August 10, 1821. The Show-Me State, located in the Midwest, is surrounded by Iowa , Illinois , Kentucky , Tennessee , Arkansas , Oklahoma , Kansas , and Nebraska . It is the nineteenth-largest state in America. Its capital is Jefferson City.

As white settlers flooded into Missouri after 1803, the Native American tribes living there were forced into Kansas and present-day Oklahoma. Over the next three decades, treaties were negotiated and land was surrendered, leaving few tribes in the area.

The first white explorers to pass through Missouri were French priest Jacques Marquette (1637–1675) and French-Canadian explorer Louis Jolliet (1645–1700), who paddled past the mouth of the Mississippi River in 1673. Nine years later, the entire Mississippi Valley, including Missouri, was claimed for France, which called the area the Louisiana Territory. In 1762, Spain gained possession of the Louisiana Territory. The Spanish did not try to settle Missouri, but they did allow Americans to move into the territory. Spanish rule lasted until 1800, when Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) demanded that the Louisiana Territory be returned to France's control. In 1803, the United States acquired the territory, including Missouri, in the Louisiana Purchase .

Thanks largely to its river access and the advent of steamboat travel, Missouri's population exceeded one million by 1860. Although it was a proslavery state, Missouri remained loyal to the Union throughout the American Civil War (1861–65). In January 1865, it became the first state to free its slaves.

Missouri became known as the Robber State in the 1870s as outlaw brothers Jesse James (1847–1882) and Frank James (1843–1915) terrorized residents. As railroad construction increased, the percentage of “wild” land shrank, until finally the Missouri frontier closed altogether. The economy shifted from agriculture to industry, and lead mining was an economic mainstay. By 1970, the state was second only to Michigan in automobile manufacturing.

Along with the rest of the country, Missouri enjoyed prosperity in the years following World War II (1939–45). It did not last long, however, and by the 1960s several of the state's cities were suffering from serious deterioration. St. Louis alone lost 47 percent of its population between 1950 and 1980. Federal, state, and private funding amounting to millions of dollars was used to rebuild and repair housing throughout the early 1980s.

Missouri's total population in 2006 was just over 5.8 million. More than half of all residents lived in cities, primarily Kansas City and St. Louis. Of the 5.8 million, 84.5 percent were white, 11.2 percent were African American, and 2.6 percent were Hispanic.

Tourism is a booming industry in Missouri, with more than half of visitors coming from out of state. The most popular attractions include the St. Louis Gateway Arch (the tallest manmade national monument in the country), the town of Branson (often called the “Live Music Show Capital of the World”), and the city of Hannibal, which, in the novels of native son Samuel Clemens (1835–1910), known as Mark Twain, became St. Petersburg, the hometown of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and Becky Thatcher.