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The St. Louis Arch
In November 1933, when Luther Ely Smith returned to St. Louis from visiting the George Rogers Clark Memorial, which he helped build in Vincennes, Indiana, he appraised his adopted city’s riverfront. From near this site, William Clark and the Corps of Discovery co-leader Merriweather Lewis embarked in 1804 on their overland expedition to the Pacific…
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Missouri Trolleys and Streetcars
When employees of the St. Louis Transit Company voted to strike on May 8, 1900, the effect was to severely crush the city’s primary public transportation system for several months. Similarly, in December 1918, 2,800 employees of the Kansas City Railways, in demand for higher wages, walked off the job and temporarily shut down the…
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The Heart of Kansas City, Missouri
Union Station currently sits as the centerpiece of the Kansas City skyline. Thousands of visitors from across the metropolitan area and country admire its architectural beauty and world-class exhibits every day. However, four short decades ago in the 1980s, the future of the once-thriving railway station stood unclear. Plagued with the decrease in railway travel,…
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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 Start of the Santa Fe Trade
Missouri neared statehood at a moment of serious financial struggle. Amid the depression that followed the Napoleonic Wars, important banks in Missouri were failing, and Missourians became suspicious of these institutions and the currency they issued. The legislature offered paper money to officials and merchants, which banks had loaned on the government’s credit, but the…
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The Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and Missouri’s Response
The Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 occurred just as World War I was winding down. The name, Spanish Influenza, likely derives from the King of Spain’s diagnosis, followed by a sensationalized report of his illness. Unlike many wartime countries, Spain was neutral in the Great War and had no press censorship. The pandemic unfolded in…
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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…