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# Entered Union     Year Settled

24th      Aug. 10, 1821     1735

 

Nickname

Show-Me State

 

Rank      Population

18th       5,911,605

 

Rank      Square Miles

21st        69,704

 

State Bird

Eastern Bluebird

 

State Flower

Hawthorn

 

State Tree

Flowering Dogwood

 

State Motto

Salus populi suprema lex esto    Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law

 

Missouri is called the "Show Me State," because its people have a reputation for believing only what they see. Its name is an Algonquin Indian term meaning "river of the big canoes." Originally home to a number of Indian tribes, the state entered the Union in 1821. Today, more than half the population lives in Missouri's two major cities--Kansas City and St. Louis. The capital is Jefferson City.

 

The Missouri Territory came to the United States as part of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, one of the best real estate deals the United States ever made. Before Missouri became the 24th state on August 10, 1821, certain compromises had to be made to keep a balance in the Union between the slave and non-slave states. Those compromises would later turn neighbor against neighbor.

 

Under the Missouri Compromise of 1820, designed by statesman Henry Clay, Missouri entered the Union as a slave state, and Maine entered as a free state, thus keeping the number of slave and non-slave states equal at 12 each.

 

John F. Smith recalled in an interview an incident when Jayhawkers, a group opposed to slavery, came to his house in 1861. One of the Jayhawkers threatened to shoot his father, a Missouri slave owner.

 

". . . (then) we heard a shout and looked up the road . . . The man dropped his gun to his side, when Judge Myers rode up he was shaking his head and his eyes were blazing fire . . . All the Jayhawkers turned around and sulked off like whipped dogs."

 

The Civil War continued to divide Missourians. Although the state remained with the Union, some of its citizens chose to fight for the Confederacy. Smith's father and his rescuer, Judge Myers, remained best friends despite their conflicting views on slavery, but the two ended up fighting on opposite sides of the war.

 

Ironclad ships, built in Missouri, became part of the Missouri Squadron. The vessels aided the Union in preventing the movement of Confederate troops and supplies.

 

Mark Twain

Born: November 30, 1835

Died: April 1910

Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri, and later moved with his family to Hannibal, Missouri, where he grew up. Although he had a number of odd jobs early in his life, Clemens is best known as a writer who took the pen name of Mark Twain about five years after he published his first major work.

 

Twain was a traveling journalist, humorist, writer, and lecturer whose most famous novels are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. His childhood in Hannibal along the Mississippi River inspired colorful tales of adventures on the waterway. Twain traveled around the world and he dazzled audiences far and wide with lectures filled with the same humor and spirit found in his writings.

 

Pony Express

Nowadays, it takes only a few days for a letter to travel from coast to coast, and you can send an e-mail in seconds. But in the mid-19th century, it took six months for a letter to travel from Washington, D.C., to California!

 

As the United States expanded to the West Coast, communication became very important to the success of the nation and its Western pioneers. The country needed a speedy way to send messages. As a result, the Pony Express was born.

 

In April 1860, 75 young men were hired and 100 horses were purchased to carry mail on horseback from Pony Express headquarters in the Patee House hotel, in St. Joseph, Missouri, to California. The cost to have the Pony Express carry one letter, which took 10 days, from Missouri to California was $5. Today, that $5 is worth about $90! Can you imagine spending $90 to send a letter?

 

By October 1861, however, the Pony Express was extinct. The telegraph could send messages much cheaper and faster, and, by 1869, railroads stretched from coast to coast. Today, you can visit the Patee House, which is now a museum dedicated to the history of the Pony Express. The building is a National Historic Landmark.

 

General John J. Pershing and World War I

On April 6, 1917, the U.S. joined its allies--Britain, France, and Russia--to fight in World War I. Under the command of Missouri native, Major General John J. Pershing, more than 2 million U.S. soldiers fought on battlefields in France. Many Americans were not in favor of the U.S. entering the war and wanted to remain neutral. However, the U.S. eventually did enter the war. Do you know how the war began and why the U.S. became a part of it?

 

Disagreements in Europe over territory and boundaries, among other issues, came to a head with the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria by a Serbian zealot on June 28, 1914. Exactly one month later, war broke out.

 

In 1915, the British passenger liner the Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine, killing 128 Americans and futher heightening tensions. By the end of 1915, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire were battling the Allied Powers of Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Belgium, Serbia, Montenegro and Japan.

 

In 1917, the U.S. entered the war. Germany formally surrendered on November 11, 1918, and all nations agreed to stop fighting while the terms of peace, the Treaty of Versailles, was negotiated.

 

The war brought about change in America. For example, women, many of whom had been active supporters of the war to preserve democracy finally got the right to vote with the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. How else does war always change a country?

 

Missouri Native, President Harry S. Truman Calls for “Fair Deal”

A "Fair Deal" is what President called his plan. He announced it in a speech on January 5, 1949. His Fair Deal recommended that all Americans have health insurance, that the minimum wage (the lowest amount of money per hour that someone can be paid) be increased, and that, by law, all Americans be guaranteed equal rights.

 

Truman's plans were not popular with the members of Congress. They rejected his plans for national health insurance though they did raise the minimum wage. What about equal employment rights for all Americans?

 

Truman also proposed the Fair Employment Practices Act, which would outlaw racial and religious discrimination in hiring. Congress passed the Employment Act in 1946 and clearly stated the government's responsibility in helping to achieve full employment.