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Missouri - Wikipedia

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The Mississippian culture built cities and mounds , before declining in the 14th century. When European explorers arrived in the 17th century they encountered the Osage and Missouria nations. Genevieve in and St. Missouri was admitted as a slave state as part of the Missouri Compromise. Soon after, heavy German immigration formed the Missouri Rhineland. Missouri played a central role in the westward expansion of the United States, as memorialized by the Gateway Arch. After the war, both Greater St. Louis and the Kansas City metropolitan area became centers of industrialization and business.

Today, the state is divided into counties and the independent city of St. Missouri's culture blends elements from the Midwestern and Southern United States. The musical styles of ragtime , Kansas City jazz , and St. Louis Blues developed in Missouri. The well-known Kansas City-style barbecue , and lesser-known St. Louis-style barbecue , can be found across the state and beyond. Louis is also a major center of beer brewing; Anheuser-Busch is the largest producer in the world.

Missouri wine is produced in the nearby Missouri Rhineland and Ozarks. Missouri's alcohol laws are among the most permissive in the United States. Outside of the state's major cities, popular tourist destinations include the Lake of the Ozarks , Table Rock Lake , and Branson. Well-known Missourians include U. The state is named for the Missouri River , which was named after the indigenous Missouri Indians , a Siouan-language tribe. It is said that they were called the ouemessourita wimihsoorita [8] , meaning "those who have dugout canoes ", by the Miami-Illinois language speakers.

Assuming Missouri were deriving from the Siouan language, it would translate as "It connects to the side of it," in reference to the river itself. The linguistic history was treated definitively by Donald M. Lance, who acknowledged that the question is sociologically complex, but that 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.

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There is no official state nickname. This phrase has several origins. One is popularly ascribed to a speech by Congressman Willard Vandiver in , who declared that "I come from a state that raises corn and cotton, cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I'm from Missouri, and you have got to show me.

Since the new men were unfamiliar with the mining methods, they required frequent instruction. Perry County is the county with the largest number of caves and the single longest cave. The official state motto is Latin: Missouri is landlocked and borders eight different states as does its neighbor, Tennessee. No state in the U. Missouri is bounded by Iowa on the north; by Illinois , Kentucky , and Tennessee across the Mississippi River on the east; on the south by Arkansas ; and by Oklahoma , Kansas , and Nebraska the last across the Missouri River on the west.

Whereas the northern and southern boundaries are straight lines, the Missouri Bootheel protrudes southerly into Arkansas. 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.

Although today it is usually considered part of the Midwest , [23] [24] 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. 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. Here, rolling hills remain from the glaciation that once extended from the Canadian Shield to the Missouri River.

Missouri has many large river bluffs along the Mississippi, Missouri, and Meramec Rivers. Southern Missouri rises to the Ozark Mountains , a dissected plateau surrounding the Precambrian igneous St. This region also hosts karst topography characterized by high limestone content with the formation of sinkholes and caves. The southeastern part of the state is known as the Missouri Bootheel region, which is part of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain or Mississippi embayment.

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. The Bootheel was the epicenter of the four New Madrid Earthquakes of and Missouri generally has a humid continental climate with cold snowy winters and hot, humid, and wet summers. In the southern part of the state, particularly in the Bootheel , the climate becomes humid subtropical.

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. Located in Tornado Alley , Missouri also receives extreme weather in the form of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. The most recent tornado in the state to cause damage and casualties was the Joplin tornado , which destroyed roughly one-third of the city of Joplin.

It was the first EF5 to hit the state since and the deadliest in the U. Louis and its suburbs also have a history of experiencing particularly severe tornadoes, the most recent memorable one being an EF4 tornado that damaged Lambert-St. Louis International Airport on April 22, One of the worst tornadoes in American history struck St. Missouri is home to a diversity of both flora and fauna.

There is a large amount of fresh water present due to the Mississippi River , Missouri River , Table Rock Lake and Lake of the Ozarks , with numerous smaller tributary rivers, streams, and lakes. Indigenous peoples inhabited Missouri for thousands of years before European exploration and settlement. Archaeological excavations along the rivers have shown continuous habitation for more than 7, years.

Beginning before CE , there arose the complex Mississippian culture , whose people created regional political centers at present-day St. Their large cities included thousands of individual residences, but they are known for their surviving massive earthwork mounds , built for religious, political and social reasons, in platform , ridgetop and conical shapes. Cahokia was the center of a regional trading network that reached from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. The civilization declined by CE, and most descendants left the area long before the arrival of Europeans.

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

They had migrated about from the Illinois 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. Grain production in the Illinois Country was critical to the survival of Lower Louisiana and especially the city of New Orleans. From to , 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 , due to Treaty of Fontainebleau [29] in order to have Spain join with France in the war against England.

The arrival of the Spanish in St. Louis was in September Louis 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. 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, and as the area's first major city, St. Louis expanded greatly after the invention of the steamboat and the increased river trade.

Napoleon Bonaparte had gained Louisiana for French ownership from Spain in under the Treaty of San Ildefonso , after it had been a Spanish colony since But the treaty was kept secret. Louisiana remained nominally under Spanish control until a transfer of power to France on November 30, , just three weeks before the cession to the United States. Part of the Louisiana Purchase by the United States, 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.

Charles , just west of St.

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Louis, was the starting point and the return destination of the Lewis and Clark Expedition , which ascended the Missouri River in , in order to explore the western lands to the Pacific Ocean. Louis 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 , they brought enslaved African Americans as agricultural laborers, and they desired to continue their culture and the institution of slavery.

They settled predominantly in 17 counties along the Missouri River , in an area of flatlands that enabled plantation agriculture and became known as " Little Dixie. In , the capital was shifted to its current, permanent location of Jefferson City , also on the Missouri River. The state was rocked by the —12 New Madrid earthquakes. Casualties were few due to the sparse population. Originally the state's western border was a straight line, defined as the meridian passing through the Kawsmouth, [30] the point where the Kansas River enters the Missouri River.

The river has moved since this designation. This line is known as the Osage Boundary. In the early s, Mormon migrants from northern states and Canada began settling near Independence 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 By , with the help of an "Extermination Order" by Governor Lilburn Boggs , the old settlers forcefully expelled the Mormons from Missouri and confiscated their lands.

Conflicts over slavery exacerbated border tensions among the states and territories. From to , a border dispute with Iowa over the so-called Honey Lands resulted in both states' calling-up of militias along the border. With increasing migration, from the s to the s 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 s and s.

As a majority were Catholic , they set up their own religious institutions in the state, which had been mostly Protestant. Also, there Also, there is no source given to show that most of Missouri's German immigrants were Catholic. Sources should be given for both of these claims. Many settled in cities, where they created a regional and then state network of Catholic churches and schools.

Nineteenth-century German immigrants created the wine industry along the Missouri River and the beer industry in St. Most Missouri farmers practiced subsistence farming before the American Civil War.

The majority of those who held slaves had fewer than five each. Planters , defined by some historians as those holding twenty 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. After the secession of Southern states began in , the Missouri legislature called for the election of a special convention on secession. The convention voted decisively to remain within the Union. Pro-Southern Governor Claiborne F. Jackson ordered the mobilization of several hundred members of the state militia who had gathered in a camp in St.

Alarmed at this action, Union General Nathaniel Lyon struck first, encircling the camp and forcing the state troops to surrender. Lyon directed his soldiers, largely non-English-speaking German immigrants , to march the prisoners through the streets, and they opened fire on the largely hostile crowds of civilians who gathered around them.

Soldiers killed unarmed prisoners as well as men, women and children of St. Louis in the incident that became known as the " St. These events heightened Confederate support within the state. Governor Jackson appointed Sterling Price , president of the convention on secession, as head of the new Missouri State Guard. 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 on June 14, In the town of Neosho, Missouri , Jackson called the state legislature into session.

They enacted a secession ordinance. However, even under the Southern view of secession, only the state convention had the power to secede. Since the convention was dominated by unionists, and the state was more pro-Union than pro-Confederate in any event, the ordinance of secession adopted by the legislature is generally given little credence. The Confederacy nonetheless recognized it on October 30, 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 20 that fled south with Jackson's forces.

The convention declared all offices vacant, and installed Hamilton Gamble 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 as well as volunteer regiments for the Union Army. After winning victories at the battle of Wilson's Creek and the siege of Lexington, Missouri and suffering losses elsewhere, the Confederate forces retreated to Arkansas and later Marshall, Texas , in the face of a largely reinforced Union Army.

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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. Anderson 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 Progressive Era s to s 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 middle class and rural evangelical Protestants. Folk was elected governor as a progressive reformer and Democrat in the 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.

A number of efficiency-oriented examiner boards and commissions were established during Folk's administration, including many agricultural boards and the Missouri library commission. 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 also made Kansas City a major meatpacking center, as large cattle drives from Texas brought herds of cattle to Dodge City 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 twentieth century was the height of Kansas City's prominence and its downtown became a showcase for stylish Art Deco skyscrapers as construction boomed.

In , there was a diphtheria epidemic in the area around Springfield, which killed approximately people. Serum was rushed to the area, and medical personnel stopped the epidemic. During the mids and s, St. Louis and Kansas City suffered deindustrialization and loss of jobs in railroads and manufacturing, as did other Midwestern industrial cities.

Charles claims to be the site of the first interstate highway project. 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. In , Missouri received national attention for the protests and riots that followed the shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer of Ferguson , [39] [40] [41] which led Governor Jay Nixon to call out the Missouri National Guard.

Department of Justice concluded, after careful investigation, that the police officer legitimately feared for his safety. A series of student protests at the University of Missouri against what the protesters viewed as poor response by the administration to racist incidents on campus began in September Missouri had a population of 5,,, according to the Census; an increase of , 7.

From to , this includes a natural increase of , people since the last census , births less , deaths , and an increase of 88, people due to net migration into the state. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 50, people, and migration within the country produced a net increase of 37, people. Over half of Missourians 3,, people, or Louis and Kansas City.

The state's population density Census of found that the population center of the United States is in Texas County , while the Census found the mean population center to be in Phelps County. The center of population of Missouri is in Osage County , in the city of Westphalia. The five largest ancestry groups in Missouri are: German Americans are an ancestry group present throughout Missouri. African Americans are a substantial part of the population in St. Louis County as of the census , Kansas City, Boone County and in the southeastern Bootheel and some parts of the Missouri River Valley, where plantation agriculture was once important.

Louis see Missouri French. Kansas City is home to large and growing immigrant communities from Latin America esp. Mexico and Colombia , Africa i. A notable Cherokee Indian population exists in Missouri. Females were approximately In , there were 2,, households in Missouri, with 2. The home ownership rate was Births in table don't add up, because Hispanics are counted both by their ethnicity and by their race, giving a higher overall number.

The vast majority of people in Missouri speak English. 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. It developed in isolation from French speakers in Canada and Louisiana , becoming quite distinct from the varieties of Canadian French and Louisiana Creole French. Once widely spoken throughout the area, Missouri French is now nearly extinct, with only a few elderly speakers able to use it.

The largest denominations by number of adherents in were the Southern Baptist Convention with ,; the Roman Catholic Church with ,; and the United Methodist Church with , Among the other denominations there are approximately 93, Mormons in congregations, 25, Jewish adherents in 21 synagogues , 12, Muslims in 39 masjids , 7, Buddhists in 34 temples, 20, Hindus in 17 temples, 2, Unitarians in 9 congregations, 2, Baha'i in 17 temples, 5 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 , as well as the United Pentecostal Church International in Hazelwood , both outside St.

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 visitors centers. The Unity Church is headquartered in Unity Village. Hindu Temple of St. Louis is the largest Hindu Temple in Missouri, serving over 14, Hindus. The agriculture products of the state are beef, soybeans , pork, dairy products , hay , corn , poultry, sorghum , cotton , rice , and 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 , there were , farms, the second-largest number in any state after Texas. Missouri actively promotes its rapidly growing wine industry. Missouri has vast quantities of limestone. Other resources mined are lead, coal, and crushed stone. Missouri produces the most lead of all of the states. Most of the lead mines are in the central eastern portion of the state. Missouri also ranks first or near first in the production of lime , a key ingredient in Portland cement. Missouri also has a growing science, agricultural technology and biotechnology field. Monsanto , one of the largest biotech companies in America, is based in St.

Missouri is the only state in the Union to have two Federal Reserve Banks: Louis serving eastern Missouri, southern Illinois, southern Indiana, western Kentucky, western Tennessee, northern Mississippi, and all of Arkansas. The state's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in April was 3. Personal income is taxed in ten different earning brackets, ranging from 1. Missouri's sales tax rate for most items is 4. More than 2, 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 for purely charitable purposes. There is no inheritance tax and limited Missouri estate tax related to federal estate tax collection.

In , the Tax Foundation rated Missouri as having the 5th-best corporate tax index, [80] and the 15th-best overall tax climate. In , Missouri had roughly 22, MW of installed electricity generation capacity. Five percent was generated by natural gas. Missouri has a small but growing amount of wind and solar power—wind capacity increased from MW in to MW in , while photovoltaics have increased from 0. Oil wells in Missouri produced , barrels of crude oil in fiscal Missouri has two major airport hubs: Two of the nation's three busiest rail centers are in 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. Louis with suburbs in Illinois and St. It is one of the largest systems by track mileage in the United States. Louis is the largest active multi-use transportation center in the state. It is in downtown St. Louis, next to the historic Union Station complex. Many cities have regular fixed-route systems, and many rural counties have rural public transit services.

Greyhound and Trailways provide inter-city bus service in Missouri. Louis, but discontinued service to Columbia and Kansas City in The Mississippi River and Missouri River are commercially navigable over their entire lengths in Missouri. The Missouri was channelized through dredging and jettys and the Mississippi was given a series of locks and dams to avoid rocks and deepen the river.

Louis is a major destination for barge traffic on the Mississippi. From to traffic deaths have decreased annually from 1, in , to 1, in , to for , to for , to in , to in The current Constitution of Missouri, the fourth constitution for the state, was adopted in It provides for three branches of government: The legislative branch consists of two bodies: These bodies comprise the Missouri General Assembly. The House of Representatives has members who are apportioned based on the last 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 Governor of Missouri and includes five other statewide elected offices.