Missouri

Paleo-Indians arrived in present-day Missouri about 9000 BC, and in 1979 a Clovis point some 10,000 to 13,500 years old was found among mastodon bones in the Kimmswick Bone Bed. The state’s more than 6,300 caves served as shelters for Indigenous peoples. Later, people of the Mississippian culture built large earthen mounds; St. Louis, known as “Mound City,” once had more than 40, and the largest, Big Mound, was destroyed in April 1869 for railroad and other development.⁠[1][2][3]

In the summer of 1673 Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet, travelling down the Mississippi River, became the first Europeans to visit the area and traced the mouth of the Missouri River. On April 9, 1682, near modern Venice, LouisianaLouisianaLouisiana is a state in the southern United States on the Gulf of Mexico, bordered by Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas; its capital is Baton Rouge and its largest city is New Orleans. It entered the Union on April 30, 1812, as the 18th state, and had a population of 4,657,757 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry, René-Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle, claimed the Louisiana region for France.⁠[4][1]

In 1700 Jesuit missionaries founded the Mission of St. Francis Xavier near modern Des Peres, the first European settlement in present-day Missouri, abandoning it in 1703 because of its swampy site. French prospectors looking for gold and silver found lead instead: in 1719 workers for the Compagnie des Indes dug for lead and silver at Mine la Motte, one of the first lead mines in North America, and in 1720 Philippe François Renault brought the first enslaved people to colonial Missouri to work the mines. In 1723 Étienne de Bourgmont built Fort Orleans on the north bank of the Missouri River in modern Carroll County; it was soon abandoned.⁠[4][2]

By 1750 the French had founded Ste. Genevieve, the first permanent white settlement in present-day Missouri, which later became the first shipping point for lead from the southeast.⁠[4][2]

The Treaty of Fontainebleau, transferring French Louisiana to Spain, was signed on November 3, 1762, and ratified by Spain on November 13 and by France on November 23; the Spanish government formally assumed control of the Louisiana Territory on May 20, 1770.⁠[4]

On February 15, 1764, Pierre Laclède, his stepson Auguste Chouteau, and other fur traders founded a trading post that Laclède named St. Louis. In 1769 Louis Blanchette established St. Charles as a trading post.⁠[4][2]

The Northwest Ordinance of July 13, 1787, banned slavery north of the Ohio River, and some French slaveholders moved west into Spanish territory to keep the people they enslaved. Colonel George Morgan established New Madrid on February 14, 1789, and Louis Lorimer and other French Canadians founded Cape Girardeau as a trading post on January 4, 1793, the year members of the Shawnee and DelawareDelawareDelaware is a U.S. state in the Mid-Atlantic region on the East Coast, with its capital at Dover and Wilmington as its largest city. On December 7, 1787, it became the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution, entering the Union as the 1st state, and it had a population of 989,948 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry received a land grant. On January 23, 1798, the Spanish lieutenant governor Zenon Trudeau granted Daniel Boone 1,000 arpents of land to attract American settlers.⁠[4]

Spain returned Louisiana to France under the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso on October 1, 1800. The Louisiana Purchase between France and the United States was signed on April 30, 1803, adding about 530 million acres west of the MississippiMississippiMississippi is a state of the United States on the Gulf of Mexico; Jackson is both its capital and its largest city. It was admitted to the Union on December 10, 1817, as the 20th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 2,961,279.Open the full entry and doubling the size of the country; most residents of the area at that time were French settlers.⁠[4][2][5]

Upper Louisiana was formally transferred to the United States in St. Louis on March 9, 1804. On May 21 Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery set out from St. Charles up the Missouri. On October 1 the District of Louisiana was placed under the governor of Indiana Territory, and Governor William Henry Harrison created the original five districts of Cape Girardeau, New Madrid, St. Charles, St. Louis, and Ste. Genevieve; on November 3 Sac and Fox representatives signed the Treaty of St. Louis at Portage des Sioux, ceding land in present-day Missouri, IllinoisIllinoisIllinois is a state of the United States that borders Lake Michigan and the states of Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Iowa; its capital is Springfield and its largest city is Chicago. It was admitted to the Union on December 3, 1818, as the 21st state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 12,812,508.Open the full entry, and WisconsinWisconsinWisconsin is a state in the north-central United States; its capital is Madison and its largest city is Milwaukee. Wisconsin was admitted to the Union on May 29, 1848, as the 30th state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 5,893,718 residents.Open the full entry.⁠[1][4]

Louisiana Territory was established on March 3, 1805, with its seat of government at St. Louis. On June 27, 1807, the territorial General Assembly passed a law allowing enslaved people to sue for their freedom. Joseph Charless began publishing the Missouri Gazette, the area’s first newspaper, on July 12, 1808, and on November 10, 1808, the Treaty of Fort Clark, the first treaty with the Osage, established Fort Osage as a federal trading post and set out hunting rights and the resolution of disputes.⁠[4][2]

On December 16, 1811, a magnitude 7.5 earthquake centred in southeastern Missouri devastated the New Madrid area, with aftershocks continuing into April 1812. On February 17, 1815, Congress passed the first federal disaster relief law to aid victims of the New Madrid earthquakes.⁠[4]

On June 4, 1812, Congress renamed Louisiana Territory the Territory of Missouri and gave its residents the right to elect a legislature. The first territorial General Assembly met in St. Louis on October 1, 1812, when Territorial Governor Benjamin Howard proclaimed the existing districts to be counties. After the War of 1812 American settlers poured into the region, and on August 2, 1817, the steamboat Zebulon M. Pike reached St. Louis, the first steamboat to navigate the Mississippi above the mouth of the OhioOhioOhio is a state in the Midwestern United States; its capital is Columbus. It joined the Union in 1803 as the 17th state, the first carved from the Northwest Territory, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 11,799,448.Open the full entry.⁠[6][4][5]

On January 8, 1818, Speaker of the House Henry Clay presented Missouri’s petition for statehood to Congress, setting off a debate over slavery. On March 6, 1820, the Senate agreed to the Missouri Compromise: MaineMaineMaine is a state in the northeastern United States, bordered by Canada and New Hampshire; its capital is Augusta and its largest city is Portland. It entered the Union on March 15, 1820, as the 23rd state, and had a population of 1,362,359 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry would enter as a free state, Missouri could draft a constitution without restrictions on slavery, and slavery was prohibited north of 36°30′ in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase; that day President James Monroe signed the Enabling Act authorizing Missouri to form a constitution and state government.⁠[4][6][1]

On July 19, 1820, the first constitutional convention, meeting at the Mansion House Hotel in St. Louis, adopted Missouri’s first constitution, written in 38 days; its Article V vested judicial power in a Supreme Court, chancellors, circuit courts, and inferior tribunals, and Article V still covers the courts in the current constitution. Missouri held its first state election on August 28, 1820, electing Alexander McNair as the first governor, and the first General Assembly began its session at the Missouri Hotel in St. Louis on September 18. That year Thomas Hart Benton became the first Missourian elected to the U.S. Senate.⁠[4][7][2]

Concerns raised by the state constitution required a “second Missouri compromise,” which Missouri lawmakers approved in June 1821. The legislators first met on June 4, 1821, on the second floor of two adjoining Federal-style brick buildings in St. Charles, which served as the temporary capitol until 1826.⁠[8][9][2]

President James Monroe signed the proclamation admitting Missouri, which had 25 counties at statehood; the capital remained at St. Charles until a permanent site was chosen. David Barton and Thomas Hart Benton, both of St. Louis, took their oaths as U.S. senators on December 3 and December 6, 1821, Barton drawing Class 2 and Benton Class 3. In September 1821 William Becknell widened the Santa Fe Trail into a wagon road, and on December 31 Governor McNair signed the bill designating Jefferson as the seat of government.⁠[10][2][6]

On December 30, 1824, the Missouri Supreme Court set the “once free, always free” precedent in Winny v. Whitesides.⁠[10]

State government moved permanently to Jefferson City on October 1, 1826. The first capitol there, built between 1823 and 1826, was destroyed by fire in 1837, and its replacement was completed in 1840.⁠[10][11]

Henry Duden’s promotional pamphlet of 1829 encouraged German settlement, and more than 38,000 Germans settled in the “Missouri Rhineland” between 1830 and 1840.⁠[10]

Congress approved the Indian Removal Act on May 28, 1830. The Platte Purchase of 1836, the last Native American land treaty, added six northwestern counties, and President Martin Van Buren’s proclamation of March 28, 1837, completed the annexation; in 1838 thousands of Cherokee passed through Missouri on the Trail of Tears. On October 27, 1838, Governor Lilburn Boggs issued an order against the Mormons. Missouri has no reservations today.⁠[2][1][10]

The first organized wagon train on the Oregon Trail left Elm Grove on May 16, 1842. In the Mexican–American War, Alexander Doniphan’s troops won the Battle of Sacramento River on February 28, 1847. After gold was discovered in California in 1849, Missouri towns became departure points for emigrants, establishing the state as the “Gateway to the West”; that year a second serious cholera epidemic killed more than 4,000 people in St. Louis, and a fire on May 17 destroyed most of downtown St. Louis and numerous steamboats.⁠[10]

Dred and Harriet Scott sued for their freedom in the St. Louis Circuit Court on April 6, 1846. On February 16, 1847, the General Assembly prohibited the education of Black people, free or enslaved. On March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney issued the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision, ruling against the Scotts.⁠[10][2]

The Town of Kansas, now Kansas City, was incorporated on February 4, 1850. Ground was broken in St. Louis for the Pacific Railroad, Missouri’s first railroad, on July 4, 1851, and the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, the first to cross the state, was completed on February 13, 1859. In 1855 proslavery Missourians took part in guerrilla warfare in KansasKansasKansas is a state of the United States bordered by Nebraska to the north, Missouri to the east, Oklahoma to the south, and Colorado to the west; its capital is Topeka and its largest city is Wichita. It was admitted to the Union on January 29, 1861, as the 34th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 2,937,880.Open the full entry. On April 3, 1860, the Pony Express made its first run from St. Joseph to Sacramento, California.⁠[10][1]

A State Convention, whose delegates were elected under a law of January 16, 1861, began meeting on February 28 and voted 98–1 against secession on March 19. The Camp Jackson Affair in St. Louis on May 10 was followed by several days of rioting, and on June 13 Union forces occupied Jefferson City after Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson left the capital. On July 31 the State Convention declared the state’s executive and legislative offices vacant, and on August 10 the Union was defeated at Wilson’s Creek, the first major battle west of the Mississippi. On October 28 the ousted “Rebel Legislature” adopted an act of secession at Neosho, but Missouri remained in the Union.⁠[3][1]

The Battle of Island Mound in Bates County on October 29, 1862, was the first combat by Black soldiers in the Civil War. From 1863 African American men could enlist in the U.S. Colored Troops, and more than 8,300 Missourians served. On August 25, 1863, General Thomas Ewing issued General Order No. 11, forcing residents of four western counties to leave, and on September 27, 1864, the Battle of Pilot Knob opened Price’s Raid, while William T. “Bloody Bill” Anderson’s guerrillas captured 23 Union soldiers at Centralia and massacred those who did not volunteer to be spared.⁠[3][2]

On January 11, 1865, the Constitutional Convention passed an ordinance abolishing slavery in Missouri, eleven months before the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified, and Missouri ratified that amendment on February 6. The second constitution, the “Drake Constitution,” named for its chief author Charles Drake, was adopted on April 10; its Ironclad Oath barred professionals from working unless they swore they had never aided the Confederacy. On September 17, 1866, the Lincoln Institute in Jefferson City, founded with $6,400 contributed by soldiers of the 62nd and 65th U.S. Colored Troops, received its first students; it became Lincoln University in 1921.⁠[3][2]

On February 24, 1870, the General Assembly established the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy, now the Missouri University of Science and Technology. The Eads Bridge in St. Louis, the first bridge across the Mississippi south of the Missouri River, opened on July 4, 1874. Missouri’s third constitution, adopted on October 30, 1875, removed the Ironclad Oath, limited taxation, extended the governor’s term to four years, and provided for the popular election of Supreme Court judges. On August 22, 1876, St. Louis voters approved separating St. Louis City and St. Louis County into separate governments.⁠[12]

Robert Ford killed Jesse James on April 3, 1882. Union Station in St. Louis, at its opening the world’s largest and busiest railroad station, opened on September 1, 1894, and Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag” was published in Sedalia in 1899.⁠[12]

The St. Louis World’s Fair (Louisiana Purchase Exposition) opened on April 30, 1904, and the city hosted that year’s Summer Olympics, the first Olympic Games held in the United States.⁠[13][1]

On February 5, 1911, lightning struck the dome of the State Capitol, which burned. The present Capitol was built between 1913 and 1917 on the same bluff above the Missouri River and dedicated on October 6, 1924. It rests on 285 concrete piers reaching solid rock, measures 437 feet long and 200 feet wide through the wings, has an exterior of Carthage limestone, and is crowned by a bronze figure of Ceres atop the dome’s lantern, 260 feet above the ground.⁠[13][11]

After the United States entered World War I on April 7, 1917, more than 30,000 Missouri soldiers served, mostly in the 35th and 89th Infantry Divisions, and more than 14,000 Missourians enlisted in the Navy; John J. Pershing commanded the American Expeditionary Force. On July 3, 1919, Missouri became the 11th state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment granting women full suffrage, and on November 2, 1920, Walthall Moore became the first Black member of the General Assembly. The Centennial Road Law, signed on August 4, 1921, created the first bipartisan State Highway Commission and launched a statewide highway system.⁠[13][1]

The Tri-State Tornado of March 18, 1925, which began in southeastern Missouri and struck Missouri, Illinois, and IndianaIndianaIndiana is a state in the Midwestern United States; its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. It was admitted to the Union on December 11, 1816, as the 19th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 6,785,528.Open the full entry, is the deadliest tornado in U.S. history. On January 5, 1931, Missouri became the third state to complete and pave its portion of Route 66, and in April 1931 Bagnell Dam was completed, forming the Lake of the Ozarks.⁠[13]

The first Missouri Conservation Commission, created by initiative petition in November 1936, was appointed on July 1, 1937. On December 12, 1938, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada that Lloyd Gaines should be admitted to the University of Missouri law school; on November 5, 1940, voters approved the Missouri Nonpartisan Court Plan by constitutional amendment; and on July 25, 1941, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that Lucile Bluford had to be admitted to the university’s graduate journalism programme. The lynching of Cleo Wright in Sikeston on January 12, 1942, prompted the first federal Justice Department civil rights intervention of its kind.⁠[13]

Missouri’s fourth and current constitution took effect on March 30, 1945, reorganizing state administration, tax collection, and local government. On April 12 Vice President Harry S. Truman, a former U.S. senator from Missouri, became president on the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the first president from Missouri. Japan signed its surrender aboard the USS Missouri on September 2; more than 450,000 Missourians had served in the Pacific and European theatres. On March 5, 1946, Winston ChurchillWinston ChurchillSir Winston Churchill (1874–1965) was a British Conservative statesman and writer who served as Prime Minister in 1940–1945 and 1951–1955, led Britain through the Second World War and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953.Open the full entry gave his “Iron Curtain” speech at Westminster College in Fulton.⁠[13][6][2]

On June 27, 1950, Judge Sam Blair ordered the University of Missouri to admit Black students. On August 2, 1956, Missouri received the nation’s first contract to build an interstate highway, now I-44, with construction beginning on August 13. The General Assembly created the Missouri Commission on Human Rights on June 8, 1957; Theodore McNeal became Missouri’s first Black state senator on November 8, 1960; and William L. Clay Sr. became its first Black U.S. representative on November 5, 1968.⁠[14]

The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis, designed by Eero Saarinen, was completed on October 28, 1965; the memorial, created in 1933, was renamed Gateway Arch National Park on February 22, 2018.⁠[14][2]

The Great Flood of April–October 1993 broke river records at Jefferson City on July 30 and at St. Louis on August 1, with damage across the country exceeding $15 billion.⁠[14]

On May 22, 2011, a tornado that struck Joplin and nearby areas killed 161 people and injured more than 1,150, the seventh-deadliest tornado in U.S. history.⁠[14]

On August 9, 2014, 18-year-old Michael Brown was killed by a police officer in Ferguson, sparking national protests. A grand jury did not indict the officer; the U.S. Department of Justice found that he had not violated federal law but documented unfair practices by the Ferguson police and municipal court.⁠[14][2]

On April 26, 2021, the U.S. Census Bureau released the 2020 census apportionment results. Missouri kept 8 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, the same as after the 2010 census, with an average of 770,035 people per seat, giving it 10 electoral votes in the 2024 and 2028 presidential elections.⁠[15][16][17]

Under the current constitution, legislative power is vested in the General Assembly. The Senate has 34 members serving four-year terms, with odd-numbered districts elected in presidential election years and even-numbered districts in midterm years, and the House of Representatives has 163 members serving two-year terms. In 1992 voters limited service to eight years in each chamber, or 16 years in all. The General Assembly convenes each year on the first Wednesday after the first Monday in January and adjourns at midnight on May 30.⁠[18]

As of November 2026 the governor is Mike Kehoe, formerly the 47th lieutenant governor, who was sworn in as Missouri’s 58th governor at the State Capitol on January 13, 2025; Lieutenant Governor David Wasinger, Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, and State Treasurer Vivek Malek were sworn in the same day.⁠[19][20]

The Supreme Court has seven judges. Under the Nonpartisan Court Plan a commission nominates three candidates and the governor appoints one; an appointed judge stands for retention at the first general election after 12 months in office and is retained for a 12-year term, and the judges choose a chief justice from among themselves, rotating the post every two years. The Court of Appeals has an Eastern District (St. Louis, 14 judges), a Western District (Kansas City, 11) and a Southern District (Springfield and Poplar Bluff, 7), 32 judges in all, and the state has 46 judicial circuits.⁠[21]

Missouri is bordered by IowaIowaIowa is a state in the Midwestern United States; its capital and largest city is Des Moines. It was admitted to the Union on December 28, 1846, as the 29th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 3,190,369.Open the full entry, NebraskaNebraskaNebraska is a state of the United States bordered by South Dakota to the north, Iowa and Missouri to the east, Kansas to the south, and Colorado to the southwest, with its panhandle bordering Wyoming to the west; its capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha. It was admitted to the Union on March 1, 1867, as the 37th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 1,961,504.Open the full entry, and Kansas to the north and west, Arkansas and OklahomaOklahomaOklahoma is a U.S. state whose capital is Oklahoma City. It was admitted to the Union on November 16, 1907, as the 46th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 3,959,353.Open the full entry to the south and southwest, and Illinois, KentuckyKentuckyKentucky is a U.S. state bordered by Illinois, Indiana and Ohio to the north, West Virginia and Virginia to the east, Tennessee to the south and Missouri to the west; its capital is Frankfort and its largest city is Louisville. It entered the Union on June 1, 1792, as the 15th state and the first state west of the Appalachian Mountains, and had a population of 4,505,836 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry, and TennesseeTennesseeTennessee is a U.S. state in the southeast-central United States, with its capital at Nashville. It was admitted to the Union on June 1, 1796, as the 16th state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 6,910,840 residents.Open the full entry to the east; the Missouri River forms the northern half of the western boundary. Northern Missouri lies in the Central Lowland, including the Dissected Till Plains at 500 to 1,200 feet (150 to 370 metres) and the Osage Plains in the west-central part; most of southern Missouri is the Ozark Plateaus at 1,000 to 1,600 feet (300 to 500 metres), with the St. Francois Mountains in the east; and the southeast is the Mississippi Alluvial Plain.⁠[1]

In the Census Bureau’s state area measurements (boundaries as of January 1, 2010), Missouri has a total area of 69,707 square miles (180,540 square kilometres), of which 68,742 square miles (178,040 square kilometres) is land and 965 square miles (2,501 square kilometres) is water, all of it inland. The highest point is Taum Sauk Mountain in Iron County at 1,772 feet (540 metres), and the lowest is along the St. Francis River at the southern boundary, 230 feet (70 metres) above sea level. The main rivers are the Missouri and the Mississippi, with the Platte, Grand, Chariton, Salt, Osage, Gasconade, White, Black, and St. Francis; the state has more than 3,000 natural springs, and Big Spring in Carter County flows at more than 275 million gallons a day.⁠[22][1]

The average annual temperature in the north is about 55 °F (13 °C), and summer temperatures above 100 °F (38 °C) can occur anywhere in the state. The growing season is 210 days in the southeastern corner and 170 days along the northern border and in the central highlands, and annual precipitation is about 50 inches (130 centimetres) in the Mississippi floodplain and less than 35 inches (89 centimetres) in the extreme northwest. Lying in “Tornado Alley,” the state averages more than 30 tornadoes a year.⁠[1]

The Census Bureau’s Vintage 2025 estimate put Missouri’s population at 6,270,541 on July 1, 2025, 1.9% above the April 1, 2020, estimates base; population density in 2020 was 89.5 people per square mile. In QuickFacts population estimates, 21.7% of residents were under 18 and 19.6% were 65 or older; 80.0% were White alone, 11.5% Black alone, 0.7% American Indian and Alaska Native alone, 2.6% Asian alone, 5.9% Hispanic or Latino, and 75.4% White alone, not Hispanic or Latino. In American Community Survey data for 2020–2024, 4.5% of residents were foreign-born, 32.4% of people aged 25 and older held a bachelor’s degree or higher, median household income was $70,702 (in 2024 dollars), and 12.3% of people were in poverty.⁠[23]

In the 2020 census non-Hispanic whites made up 76% of the population, down from 81% in 2010; African Americans were about 11%, concentrated in the St. Louis and Kansas City areas; and Hispanics were about 5%, a population that grew nearly fivefold between 1990 and 2020. About 3% of residents are wholly or partly of Native American descent, and the state has no federally recognized tribes. St. Louis has about 70,000 Bosnians, the largest Bosnian population outside Europe.⁠[1][2]

Kansas City lies at the big bend of the Missouri River, facing its twin, Kansas City, Kansas, across the state line, and its metropolitan area includes Independence and Lee’s Summit; St. Louis is a Mississippi River port. Springfield and Columbia are other notable cities.⁠[1]

Missouri’s nominal GDP (all industry total, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data) was $475,377.3 million in 2025, $455,774.8 million in 2024, and $432,264.7 million in 2023.⁠[24]

Services employ about three-quarters of the workforce and produce a similar share of gross state product, while manufacturing contributes more than one-tenth, led by food processing, with aircraft, motor vehicles and parts, and chemicals also important. More than half the land is cropland or pasture, and Missouri has more farms than any state except TexasTexasTexas is a U.S. state in the south-central United States, with its capital at Austin and its largest city Houston. It was admitted to the Union on December 29, 1845, as the 28th state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 29,145,505 residents.Open the full entry. Crushed stone, lead, cement, and lime are the most valuable minerals, and the state is one of the country’s leading lead producers. The Monsanto Company was founded in St. Louis as a chemical company on November 29, 1901, and E. Anheuser & Co. was established there in 1860.⁠[1][13][10]

A free academy opened at Sainte Genevieve in 1806, and on March 19, 1835, the General Assembly passed an act regulating sixteenth-section lands and establishing common schools. The Geyer Act of February 9, 1839, founded the public university system, and the State University, now the University of Missouri, opened on April 14, 1841; it is the oldest state university west of the Mississippi and in 1908 organized the world’s first school of journalism. St. Louis opened the first public high school in 1853, and on September 1, 1873, Susan Elizabeth Blow opened the first public kindergarten in the United States at the Des Peres School in Carondelet.⁠[1][10][12]

Other public universities include Truman State University (Kirksville), the University of Central Missouri (Warrensburg), Southeast Missouri State University (Cape Girardeau), and Missouri State University (Springfield), which grew out of normal schools established between 1870 and 1905, as well as Harris-Stowe State University in St. Louis; private universities include Washington University and St. Louis University in St. Louis.⁠[1][12][13]

Kansas City has an orchestra and opera, ballet, and theatre companies; the American Jazz Museum and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum share a building in the 18th and Vine jazz district, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is noted for its Asian art. The St. Louis Symphony, founded in 1880 as the St. Louis Choral Society, is one of the oldest in the country, and Forest Park in St. Louis holds the Saint Louis Zoo, the Missouri History Museum, the Saint Louis Science Center, the Saint Louis Art Museum, and the Muny theatre. Branson is known for live country music. In sports, the St. Louis CardinalsSt. Louis CardinalsThe St. Louis Cardinals are a professional baseball club in St. Louis, playing in Major League Baseball’s National League at Busch Stadium.Open the full entry, founded in 1882, have won 11 World Series; the Kansas City RoyalsKansas City RoyalsThe Kansas City Royals are a professional baseball club in Kansas City, founded by Ewing Kauffman and playing since 1969.Open the full entry won in 1985 and 2015; the Kansas City ChiefsKansas City ChiefsThe Kansas City Chiefs are an NFL professional American football team that began AFL play in 1960 as Lamar Hunt’s Dallas Texans and moved to Kansas City in 1963. Based at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri, the four-time Super Bowl champions are owned by the Hunt family and coached by Andy Reid.Open the full entry won Super Bowls in 1970 and 2020; and the St. Louis BluesSt. Louis BluesSt. Louis Blues is an NHL ice hockey team in St. Louis, Missouri, playing at Enterprise Center.Open the full entry won the Stanley Cup in 2019.⁠[1]

The state is named after the Native American people who originally inhabited the land. “Show-Me State” is not an official nickname but is widely used and appears on licence plates; the most widely known account credits Willard Duncan Vandiver, a U.S. representative from 1897 to 1903, who said at an 1899 naval banquet in Philadelphia, “I am from Missouri. You have got to show me,” while another traces it to a miners’ strike in Leadville, ColoradoColoradoColorado is a U.S. state classified as one of the Mountain states, with Denver as its capital. It was admitted to the Union on August 1, 1876, as the 38th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 5,773,714.Open the full entry, in the mid-1890s.⁠[5][25]

The Great Seal, designed by Judge Robert William Wells, was adopted by the General Assembly on January 11, 1822; its motto is the Latin “Salus Populi Suprema Lex Esto” (“The welfare of the people shall be the supreme law”). The state flag, designed by Marie Elizabeth Watkins Oliver, wife of former state senator Robert B. Oliver, was adopted on March 22, 1913, through House Bill 329; it has three horizontal stripes of red, white, and blue with the state coat of arms at the centre, encircled by a blue band of 24 stars denoting Missouri as the 24th state. Senator Arthur L. Oliver had introduced flag bills in 1909, 1911, and 1913.⁠[26][27][13]

The state floral emblem is the white hawthorn blossom (March 16, 1923), the bird the native bluebird (March 30, 1927), the tree the flowering dogwood (June 20, 1955), the song the “Missouri Waltz” (June 30, 1949), the animal the Missouri mule (May 31, 1995), and the fish the channel catfish (May 23, 1997). In 2021 the Gateway Arch was designated the state monument by law.⁠[26]

State of Missouri: Official website: https://www.mo.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[28]

Office of Governor Mike Kehoe: Official website: https://governor.mo.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[20]

Missouri Secretary of State: Official website: https://www.sos.mo.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[27]