Humans have inhabited present-day Missouri for at least 12,000 years. The Mississippian culture, which emerged at least in the ninth century, 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. The French incorporated the territory into Louisiana, founding Ste. Genevieve in 1735 and St. Louis in 1764. After a brief period of Spanish rule, the United States acquired Missouri as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Americans from the Upland South rushed into the new Missouri Territory; Missouri played a central role in the westward expansion of the United States. Missouri was admitted as a slave state as part of the Missouri Compromise of 1820. As a border state, Missouri's role in the American Civil War was complex, and it was subject to rival governments, raids, and guerilla warfare. After the war, both Greater St. Louis and the Kansas City metropolitan area became centers of industrialization and business.
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Lloyd Lionel Gaines (born 1911 – disappeared March 19, 1939) was the plaintiff in Gaines v. Canada (1938), one of the most important early court cases in the 20th-century U.S. civil rights movement. After being denied admission to the University of Missouri School of Law because he was African American, and refusing the university's offer to pay for him to attend a neighboring state's law school that had no racial restriction, Gaines filed suit. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ruled in his favor, holding that the separate but equal doctrine required that Missouri either admit him or set up a separate law school for black students.
The Missouri General Assembly chose the latter option. It authorized conversion of a former cosmetology school in St. Louis to establish the Lincoln University School of Law, to which other, mostly black, students were admitted. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which had supported Gaines's suit, planned to file another one challenging the adequacy of the new law school. While waiting for classes to begin, Gaines traveled between St. Louis, Kansas City and Chicago looking for work. He worked odd jobs and gave speeches before local NAACP chapters. One night in Chicago he left the fraternity house, where he was staying, to buy stamps, and never returned. He was never seen again by anyone who knew or recognized him and reported doing so. (Full article...)
The museum was closed in 1994 for renovations and reopened in December 2006 with an expanded facility to exhibit an artifact collection begun in 1920. (Full article...)
Image 2The states and territories of the United States as a result of Missouri's admission as a state on August 10, 1821. The remainder of the former Missouri Territory became unorganized territory. (from Missouri)
Image 6The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City services the western portion of Missouri, as well as all of Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, and northern New Mexico. (from Missouri)
Image 10The Lake of the Ozarks is one of several man-made lakes in Missouri, created by the damming of several rivers and tributaries. The lake has a surface area of 54,000 acres and 1,150 miles of shoreline and has become a popular tourist destination. (from Missouri)
Image 11The population center for the United States has been in Missouri since 1980. As of 2020, it is near Interstate 44 in Missouri as it approaches Springfield. (from Missouri)
Image 14The states and territories of the United States as a result of Missouri's admission as a state on August 10, 1821. The remainder of the former Missouri Territory became unorganized territory. (from Missouri)
Image 42Treemap of the popular vote by county, 2016 presidential election (from Missouri)
Image 43The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City services the western portion of Missouri, as well as all of Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, and northern New Mexico. (from Missouri)
Image 46The population center for the United States has been in Missouri since 1980. As of 2020, it is near Interstate 44 in Missouri as it approaches Springfield. (from Missouri)
Image 51Christopher Bond became the youngest person elected Governor of Missouri in 1972 and was part of the rise of the Republican Party in the state. (from History of Missouri)
Image 72The Lake of the Ozarks is one of several man-made lakes in Missouri, created by the damming of several rivers and tributaries. The lake has a surface area of 54,000 acres and 1,150 miles of shoreline and has become a popular tourist destination. (from Missouri)
Image 73Forrest Smith, elected Governor of Missouri in 1948, was the first governor chosen under the 1945 state Constitution. (from History of Missouri)
Image 74Köppen climate types of Missouri (from Missouri)
... that after his professional gridiron football career, Ed "Brick" Travis served as president of the Missouri Auto Dealers Association and as president of a local school board?
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