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The Two Federal Reserve Banks of Missouri
Stars and stripes, eagle and laurels—patriotism, federalism, strength, and peace; each of these symbols and values represented on the seal of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Missouri, spoke to the mission of the system as a whole. The first central banking institution allowed to open in the United States since Andrew Jackson’s disastrous…
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French Missouri: French Settlement and Community in the Colonial Era
In Missouri artist George Caleb Bingham’s Fur Trappers Descending the Missouri, a white French fur trader and his biracial son stare back at the viewer as they travel down the Missouri River. Although he was born after the United States government acquired the Louisiana Territory, Bingham knew that Americans were not the first people of…
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The Forgotten Trail: Missouri’s Old Wire Road
Have you ever wondered why roads end up where they are? The obvious answer is somebody wanted to go from where they were to a new place. Familiar roads, such as the Oregon and Santa Fe Trails, are part of the popular history of the United States. Another road, an integral part of westward expansion…
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Route 66: America’s Mother Road
Route 66 is collectively remembered as the “Mother Road”: a path to opportunity and a symbol of freedom. Officially named in 1926, this 2,400-mile highway started in Chicago and traveled southwest through eight states before ending in Los Angeles. Route 66 connected small towns to urban centers and facilitated the prolific growth of new towns…
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Missouri and the Western Steamboat
No object better reflected early Missouri’s history than the iconic western paddlewheel steamboat. Missouri boasts of access to two of the nation’s major interior rivers — the Missouri and the Mississippi, and, therefore, the steamboat figures prominently in the early history of the state. Oftentimes, Americans romanticize the steamboat age as a time of slow…