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Place Name
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Missouri
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Place Status (Type)
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state
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Population
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5,323,523 (1995)
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Location
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Missouri, United States, North America
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Latitude
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38°13'N
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Longitude
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92°25'W
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Missouri
, state (1995 est. pop. 5,323,523),
69,709 sq mi/180,546 sq km,
central U.S., admitted as the 24th state of the Union in 1821;
38°13'N 92°25'W. The  is
Jefferson City, and the
largest cities are Kansas City,
Saint Louis,
Springfield, and
Independence. Mo. is bounded on the
N by Iowa; on the W by Nebr., Kansas (KS), and Okla.; on the S by Ark.; and
on the E, where the Mississippi R. forms the border, by Ill., Ky., and
Tenn. The state lies N of lat. 36°30'N except for a small area
(called the “bootheel”) in the extreme SE that protrudes into Ark.
The center of pop. of the U.S., for both 1980 and 1990, was located in
the N Ozarks of Mo.'s 2 great rivers, the Mississippi and the
Missouri, have had a great influence on the development of Mo. Mo. is a
diverse state, topographically, culturally, and economically, often
considered a microcosm of the nation, possessing characteristics of the
U.S.'s 4 quadrants. The Mississippi R. tied the region to the South,
particularly to New Orleans. The Missouri crosses the state from W to E
and enters the Mississippi near St. Louis. The portion of the Missouri
Valley bet. St. Louis and Kansas City was the greatest avenue of
pioneer advance westward across the continent. The region N of the
Missouri R. is largely prairie land, where, not unlike the Iowa plains
to the N, corn and livestock are raised. Most of the region S of the
Missouri is covered by foothills and by the dissected plateau of the
Ozark highlands, a unique region of hill scenery originally populated
by a relatively isolated, self-reliant people. The rough, heavily
forested eastern sect. of the Ozarks extends into the less hilly
farming region in the W and encompasses the irregular, twisting L. of
the Ozarks to the NW. In SW Mo. is a long, narrow area of flat land,
the Osage Plains, which are part of the Great Plains, where livestock
and forage crops are raised. In the SE, S of Cape Girardeau are the
cotton, rice, and soybean fields of the Mississippi flood plain, an
area that was once swampy but was converted to agriculture after the
establishment of a drainage system in the early part of the 20th cent.
The state's rivers have periodically flooded. Record flood levels were
attained at many places in floods of 1993. Mo.'s share of the flood of
1993 was first brought about by heavy rains in Iowa and Minn. in
spring, which swelled the Mississippi and Missouri rivers downstream in
Mo., then exacerbated by locally heavy rains, which also caused flash
flooding in smaller streams. Ironically SE Mo. was being
affected by the severe drought that gripped the SE U.S. that
same year. Missouri has extensive bituminous coal deposits in the W and
N central sections. Fire, or refractory, clays occur in central and NE
Mo., and barite in E central Mo. The Ozarks is a great metalliferous
region, including lead, zinc, silver, manganese, copper, and iron. Much
of the state is underlain by limestone and dolomite. Lead, cement, and
stone are the chief minerals produced in the mid 1990s. Mo. is, by far,
the leading state in the production of lead. Mo.'s economy, however,
rests chiefly on industry. The manufacture of aerospace and
transportation (cars, vans, trucks, RR) vehicles and equip. is the
major industry in the state; food and chemicals are next in commercial
importance, followed by printing and publishing. Machinery, fabricated
metal prods., and electrical equip. are also produced. St. Louis is an
important center for the mfg. of planes, cars, metals, and chemicals.
In Kansas City, long a leading market and agr. business center for
livestock and wheat, the mfg. of vending machines and of cars and
trucks are leading industries. Mo. remains important agriculturally,
and farming contributes substantially to the state's income. The most
valuable farm prods. are cattle, hogs, soybeans, corn, and dairy items.
Mo. ranked 6th in the production of hogs in 1990 and 7th in the
production of cattle. After soybeans, the chief crops are corn, hay,
and wheat. Mo. is 2nd in the nation in number of farms and also has
important wine producing areas, especially along Missouri R. bet. St.
Louis and Jefferson City. The development of resorts and
recreation facilities in the Ozarks has encouraged tourism and
retirement communities and added to the state's income. Services and
wholesale and retail trade closely follow mfg. in economic importance.
Mo.'s recorded history begins in the latter ½ of the
17th cent. when the Fr. explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet
descended the Mississippi R., followed by Robert Cavelier, sieur de La
Salle, who claimed the whole area drained by the Mississippi R. for
France and called the territory Louisiana. When the Fr. explorers came
the area was inhabited by Native Americans of the Osage and the Mo.
groups and by the end of the 17th cent., Fr. trade with the Native
Americans flourished. In the early 18th cent. the Fr. worked the
area's lead mines and made numerous trips through Mo. in search of
furs. Trade down the Mississippi prompted the settlement of Ste.
Genevieve before 1750 and the founding of St. Louis in 1764 by
Pierre Laclede and Rene Auguste Chouteau, who were both in the
fur-trading business. Although not involved in the last conflict
(1754-1763) of the Fr. and Indian Wars, Mo. was affected by
the Fr. defeat when in 1762, France secretly ceded the territory W of
the Mississippi to Spain. In 1800 the Louisiana Territory (including
the Mo. area) was retroceded to France, but in 1803 it passed to the
U.S. as part of the Louisiana Purchase. Fr. influence remained
dominant, even though by this time Americans had filtered into the
territory. At the time of the Lewis and Clark expedition (1803-1806),
St. Louis was already known as the gateway to the Far West. The U.S.
Territory of Mo. was set up in 1812, and settlement proceeded rapidly
after the War of 1812. The coming of the steamboat increased
traffic and trade on the Mississippi. Planters from Kentucky
and Virginia brought slaves into the territory in which the Fr. had
been using Black slaves since the 1720s. The question of admitting the
Mo. Territory as a state became a burning natl. issue because it
involved the question of extending slavery into the territories west of
the Mississippi R. The dispute was resolved by the Missouri Compromise,
which admitted (1821) Mo. to the Union as a slave state but excluded
slavery from other lands of the Louisiana Purchase N of lat. 36°30'.
Slaveholding interests became politically powerful in the new state. In
1822, W. H. Ashley (who later made a fortune in fur trading) led an
expedition of the adventurous trappers, who became known as mt. men, up
the Missouri R. to explore the West for furs. From Mo. traders
established a thriving commerce over the Santa Fe Trail with
the inhabitants of N.Mex., and pioneers followed the Oregon Trail to settle the NW. Franklin, Westport, Independence, and St.
Joseph became famous as the points of origin of these expeditions.
Settlement of Mo. itself quickened, spreading in the 1820s over the
river valleys into central Mo. and by the 1830s into W Mo. The final
boundaries of the state were formed after Native Americans gave up
their claim to the Platte country in 1836; this strip of land in the NW
corner of Mo. was added to the state. Mormon immigrants came to settle
Mo. in the 1830s, but their opposition to slavery, their friendliness
with Native Americans, and their growing numbers made them unwelcome,
and they were driven by force from the state in 1839. Ger. immigrants,
however, were cordially received during the 1840s and 1850s, settling
principally in the counties in the St. Louis area. In 1854 the problem
of slavery was made acute with the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act,
leaving the question of slavery in the Kansas and Nebr. territories to
the settlers themselves. The proslavery forces in Mo. became very
active in trying to win Kansas for the slave cause and contributed to
the violence and disorder that tore the territory apart in the years
just prior to the Civil War. Nevertheless Mo. also had leaders opposed
to slavery, including one of its senators, Thomas Hart Benton. During
the Civil War most Missourians remained loyal to the Federal govt. A
state convention, which met in March 1861, voted against secession, and
in 1862, the convention set up a provisional govt. because the
pro-Southern governor had set up a separate state gov't in SW Mo.
Guerrilla activities persisted during this period, and the lawlessness
bred by civil warfare persisted in Mo. after the war in the activities
of outlaws such as Jesse James. A new Mo. rose out of the war. The
semi-Southern atmosphere, along with the river life and steamboating,
began to decline, but the flavor of the period was preserved in the
works of one of Missouri's most celebrated sons, Mark Twain (Samuel L.
Clemens). The coming of the RR brought the eventual decay of many of
Mo.'s river towns and tied the state more closely to the East and
North. Urbanization and industrialization progressed, and the Louisiana
Purchase Exposition, held at St. Louis in 1904, dramatically revealed
Missouri's economic growth. St. Louis was the nation's 4th-largest
city. Although during World War I general prosperity prevailed in the
state, the Depression years of the 1930s sent farm values crashing
down, and many banks, especially in rural areas, failed. Prosperity
returned during World War II, when both St. Louis and Kansas City
served as vital midcontinental transportation centers. After the war
Missouri's industrialization increased enormously. During this period,
Mo. became the 2d-largest (behind Mich.) producer of automobiles in the
nation. Although most industry remains centered around the major urban
centers of Kansas City and St. Louis, the smaller cities and towns have
had success in attracting light and heavy industry. The central cities
of the two metropolitan areas have experienced dramatic outmigration,
often to nearby suburbs. The pop. of St. Louis declined 53% from 1950
to 1990. In 1945, Mo. adopted a new state constitution that remains in
effect. As independent city, St. Louis is prohibited by Mo.
Constitution to annex into adjacent St. Louis co., thereby unable to
balance its inner city decline with suburban growth. The governor of
the state is elected for a term of 4 years. The general assembly, or
legislature, has a senate with 34 members elected for 4 years
and a house of representatives with 163 members elected for 2
years. The state also elects 9 representatives and 2 senators to the
U.S. Congress and has 11 electoral votes in presidential elections.
Since the brief period of radical Republican rule from 1864 to 1870,
Mo. has been permanently wedded to neither major party. While tending
toward the Republicans in the days of Theodore Roosevelt, it turned
solidly Democratic for Franklin D. Roosevelt and helped to elect
Missourian Harry S. Truman to the presidency in 1948. Political
machines in the large cities have attracted natl. attention, notably
the machine of Thomas J. Pendergast (1872-1945) in Kansas City. Mo.
has contributed to the U.S. such outstanding statesmen as Champ Clark,
James Reed, and W. Stuart Symington. Thomas Hart Benton, a descendant
of the Mo. senator of the same name, was one of the country's
important artists. Places of cultural and historic interest in Mo.
include the Jefferson Natl. Expansion Memorial, a natl.
historic site, in St. Louis; George Washington Carver Natl. Monument,
in Diamond; Wilson's Creek Natl. Battlefield, near Springfield; the
William Rockhill Nelson Gall. of Art, in Kansas City; the Harry S.
Truman Memorial Lib., in Independence; the Mus. of the Amer. Indian, in
St. Joseph. and the State Capitol in Jefferson City. Mo.'s
schools were desegregated following the Supreme Court decision in 1954.
Insts. of higher learning include the Univ. of Mo., with four campuses,
including the main one at Columbia; Saint Louis Univ., Washington (WA)
Univ., and Webster Col., at St. Louis; Rockhurst Col., at Kansas City;
and Westminster Col., at Fulton. Mo. has 1 independent city and 114
cos.:
Adair,
Andrew,
Atchison,
Audrain,
Barry,
Barton,
Bates,
Benton,
Bollinger,
Boone,
Buchanan,
Butler,
Caldwell,
Callaway,
Camden,
Cape Girardeau,
Carroll,
Carter,
Cass,
Cedar,
Chariton,
Christian,
Clark,
Clay,
Clinton,
Cole,
Cooper,
Crawford,
Dade,
Dallas,
Daviess,
De Kalb,
Dent,
Douglas,
Dunklin,
Franklin,
Gasconade,
Gentry,
Greene,
Grundy,
Harrison,
Henry,
Hickory,
Holt,
Howard,
Howell,
Iron,
Jackson,
Jasper,
Jefferson,
Johnson,
Knox,
Laclede,
Lafayette,
Lawrence,
Lewis,
Lincoln,
Linn,
Livingston,
McDonald,
Macon,
Madison,
Maries,
Marion,
Mercer,
Miller,
Mississippi,
Moniteau,
Monroe,
Montgomery,
Morgan,
New Madrid,
Newton,
Nodaway,
Oregon,
Osage,
Ozark,
Pemiscot,
Perry,
Pettis,
Phelps,
Pike,
Platte,
Polk,
Pulaski,
Putnam,
Ralls,
Randolph,
Ray,
Reynolds,
Ripley,
Saint Charles,
Saint Clair,
Saint Francois,
Saint Louis,
Saint Louis (independent City),
Sainte Genevieve,
Saline,
Schuyler,
Scotland,
Scott,
Shannon,
Shelby,
Stoddard,
Stone,
Sullivan,
Taney,
Texas,
Vernon,
Warren,
Washington,
Wayne,
Webster,
Worth,
Wright.
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