Statehood: Aug. 10, 1821; the 24th state. Nickname:
Show Me State. Bird: Bluebird. Flower: White hawthorn. Tree: Flowering
dogwood. Motto: Salus populi suprema lex esto ("Let the welfare of
the people be the supreme law"). Song: "Missouri Waltz."
Missouri is a midwestern state of the United States, located
near the country's geographic center at the confluence of the two longest
rivers in the United States--the Mississippi and the Missouri. Situated
where North meets South and where the industrial East gives way to the
plains of the West, Missouri exhibits characteristics of all these areas.
It is bordered on the north by Iowa; on the east by Illinois, Kentucky,
and Tennessee; on the south by Arkansas; and on the west by Nebraska, Kansas,
and Oklahoma. During the 19th century Missouri served as a springboard
for countless westward-bound settlers, and the state's cities were long
the westernmost outposts of U.S. civilization. Missouri, an Algonquian
word meaning "people with big canoes," was the name given to
the Indians living near the mouth of the Missouri River.
LAND AND RESOURCES The terrain of Missouri varies from flat
plains to rough hills. The lowest elevation, 70 m (230 ft), is along the
St. Francis River in the southeast, and the highest point, 540 m (1,772
ft), is Taum Sauk Mountain in the St. Francois Mountains south of St. Louis.
Physiographic Regions Missouri has three major physiographic regions: the
Ozark Highland, the Plains, and the Mississippi Alluvial Plain. The Ozark
Highland has an average elevation of about 305 m (1,000 ft); it covers
the southern portion of the state from St. Louis and Jefferson City on
the Missouri River to Oklahoma and Arkansas. The region is famous for more
than 5,000 caves and many large springs. One, Big Spring, in the south
central part of the state, is among the largest springs in the United States.
The Ozarks retain the rolling surface of a plateau near Springfield and
in some of the central areas, but elsewhere swift-flowing streams have
dissected the plateau, forming steep, narrow-crested hills. Relief reaches
230 m (750 ft) in the most rugged areas (see Ozark Mountains). North and
west of the Ozarks is the Plains region, rising gradually from 200 m (650
ft) near St. Louis to more than 380 m (1,250 ft) in the extreme northwest.
During the past half-million years Pleistocene glaciers extended as far
south as the Missouri River, covering northern Missouri with glacial till.
Parts of the northeast are nearly flat, but in most places postglacial
erosion by streams has resulted in hills and valleys. In a belt about 80
km (50 mi) wide along the Missouri River, the dissected plains are thickly
mantled with loess. South of the Missouri River, along the Kansas border,
the Osage Plains are more open and undulating. The third major physiographic
region, the Mississippi Alluvial Plain, or Bootheel, consists of the seven
southeastern counties. The flat surface slopes slightly southward from
the foot of the Ozark Escarpment. Soils Missouri's most productive soils
are those of the loess belt along the Missouri River and the alluvial soils
of the Bootheel. Soil erosion, once a widespread problem, is now better
controlled with improved management practices. Rivers and Lakes The Mississippi
and Missouri rivers dominate the state's drainage system. The streams of
northern Missouri flow generally southward across the till plain to these
rivers. In southern Missouri streams flow away from the crest of the Ozark
Highland in all directions. Ozark streams are fed by a complex network
of underground drainage systems, and their discharge is relatively stable
throughout the year. Missouri's largest lakes are artificial. The Lake
of the Ozarks, formed by damming on the Osage River, is one of the world's
largest artificial lakes. Groundwater is abundant. Climate Missouri has
a continental climate with hot, humid summers and cold winters. Because
it lacks major topographical barriers, the state has a gradual climatic
differentiation, warming from northwest to southeast. The clash of contrasting
air masses in spring and fall may set off violent thunderstorms, some of
which are accompanied by tornadoes. The average January minimum temperatures
range from - 10 degrees C (14 degrees F) in the northwest to - 1 degrees
C (30 degrees F) in the southeast. July maximum temperatures average 33
degrees C (92 degrees F) throughout the state. Precipitation occurs throughout
the year. Mean annual precipitation ranges from 813 mm (32 in) in the northwest
to 1,270 mm (50 in) in the southeast. Average annual snowfall is 508 mm
(20 in) in the northwest and 130 mm (6.5 in) in the southeast. Vegetation
and Animal Life At the time of white settlement the flatter parts of the
Plains region were covered with prairie grass that reached heights of 2
m (7 ft). The more dissected parts were covered with hardwood forests.
In the Ozarks an oak and hickory woodland prevailed, with short-leaf pine
intermixed in the east. The Mississippi Alluvial Plain had a lowland forest
of bald cypress, tupelo, and sweetgum. At present, new-growth commercial
forests are gaining importance, and only in the Bootheel and the Osage
Plains have farms and pastures blocked reforestation. The varied and abundant
wildlife of Missouri includes deer, wild turkeys, and bears. Mineral Resources
Missouri has about 5.5 billion metric tons (6.1 billion U.S. tons) of coal
reserves in the Plains region, but much of it is in thin seams or of high
sulfur content. The state also has vast reserves of tar sands in its western
counties, but no economical method of mining this petroleum has yet been
found. Missouri is the leading lead-mining state in the United States,
with deposits in the eastern Ozarks. Refractory clays are mined in central
Missouri, and extensive iron ore deposits are found in the eastern Ozarks.
Limestone, marble, granite, and sandstone are quarried for construction
purposes. Cement and lime are also important mineral products.
PEOPLE Missouri's population density approximates the national
average of about 27 persons per sq km (70 persons per sq mi ), but rural
regions in the Ozarks and in north central Missouri are much more sparsely
populated. During the 1980s, Kansas City overtook St. Louis as the largest
city in Missouri, but its metropolitan-area population is only about two-thirds
that of metropolitan St. Louis. Other large cities are Springfield, Independence,
Saint Joseph, and Columbia. Two-thirds of Missourians live in metropolitan
areas, with one-third of those in the 19 cities with populations of 25,000
or more. Between 1980 and 1990 the population of Missouri increased by
more than 4 percent, and Missouri was among the faster-growing states in
the Midwest but remained below the national growth average. Missouri has
one of the nation's highest percentages of persons over 65 years of age.
Blacks, concentrated in the large cities, constitute 10.7 percent of the
state's population. The religious affiliation of Missourians is diverse.
Roman Catholics are the largest single religious group, but Protestants,
representing many denominations, form the majority of church members. Education
Education in Missouri was conducted primarily in private institutions until
after the Civil War, when free public education became widely available.
Education is at present supervised by a state department of education.
Per-pupil expenditure for public elementary and secondary schools runs
somewhat below the amount for the nation as a whole. The University of
Missouri, founded in 1839, was the first state university west of the Mississippi
River. Today it has four campuses. Eight state universities and colleges
have been established along with Lincoln University, founded in 1866 as
the first state college for blacks (see Missouri, state universities and
colleges of). Private institutions include St. Louis University (1818)
and Washington University (1853), both in St. Louis. Culture Missouri supports
the arts through a state council on the arts. The Missouri State Museum
is in Jefferson City. The St. Louis Art Museum and the Nelson-Atkins Museum
of Art in Kansas City, as well as the plant collections of the Missouri
Botanical Garden in St. Louis are renowned. The St. Louis Symphony, established
in 1879, is the second-oldest symphony orchestra in the United States.
Branson, in the White River region of southwestern Missouri, is a national
center for country music. Folklore festivals are also an attraction. Historical
Sites A popular historical site in the state is the Gateway Arch in the
Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. Designed by Eero Saarinen, it is
located on the original riverfront town site of St. Louis and symbolizes
the city's role as gateway to the West. The region surrounding Hannibal
is closely associated with the life and work of Mark Twain. Saint Joseph
was the eastern terminus of the famed but short-lived pony express. Sainte
Genevieve preserves some of the best remaining examples of French Creole
architecture in the Mississippi Valley. Recreation The Ozark National Scenic
Riverways, the first national riverway, encompasses the Current and Jacks
Fork rivers in the eastern Ozarks. Large tracts of the Ozarks are in national
or state forests. The state also maintains a large and varied system of
state parks. Professional baseball, football, and ice hockey teams are
supported in St. Louis and Kansas City. Communications The St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
founded by Joseph Pulitzer, and the Kansas City Star and Times are leading
metropolitan newspapers. The world's first school of journalism was founded
at the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1908.
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY Although Missouri is often considered an
agricultural state--and in fact is one of the nation's leading farming
states--manufacturing and service industries have assumed a more prominent
economic role in Missouri than farming. The number of farms and farmers
in Missouri has decreased, a trend also seen in the nation as a whole.
Agriculture Missouri remains an important agricultural state. Its principal
crops are soybeans and corn, followed by winter wheat, cotton, and hay.
Missouri usually ranks among the ten leading states in the production of
each of these commodities. The loess belt and the Bootheel are the foremost
row-crop areas, but agriculture is successful throughout the Plains region
and western Ozarks. Most corn is used for livestock feed. This helps explain
why Missouri is a major livestock state, habitually ranking high among
all U.S. states in the production of beef cattle, hogs, and dairy cattle.
Dairying is concentrated in southwestern Missouri. The distinctive agricultural
economy of the Bootheel was once based on large cotton farms, but soybeans,
corn, wheat, alfalfa, and rice have displaced much of the cotton. Manufacturing
Manufacturing accounts for about 20 percent of the total value of goods
and services produced in Missouri every year. The largest industry is the
manufacture of transportation equipment, especially automobiles, with the
state's production ranking third in the nation; aircraft, spacecraft, and
railroad equipment are also produced. Other major industries include food
processing (primarily brewing, flour milling, and meat-packing), printing
and publishing, and the manufacture of chemicals, fabricated metal products,
machinery, and electrical equipment. Tourism Tourist facilities are concentrated
at the Lake of the Ozarks and in the White River region of the southwest.
All of the Ozarks offer hiking, cave exploring, camping, boating, canoeing,
fishing, and hunting. Many small Ozark communities are economically dependent
on tourism. Transportation Missouri's central location and its economic
vitality spurred the development of a large network of roads, highways,
and railroad track. The most heavily used transportation corridors are
those between St. Louis and Kansas City and St. Louis and the southwest.
Commercial barge traffic on both the Missouri and Mississippi rivers makes
St. Louis the nation's busiest inland river port. Both St. Louis and Kansas
City are national air and trucking centers and serve as major distribution
nodes for Missouri and much of the area of its adjoining states. Although
large artificial lakes are conspicuous in the state's landscape, hydroelectric
power provides only a small amount of Missouri's electricity production.
Coal-fueled plants furnish approximately 85 percent. There is a nuclear
power plant in Callaway County.
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS Missouri has had four constitutions:
1820, prior to statehood; 1865 and 1875, in the aftermath of the Civil
War; and 1945. Amendments to the constitution may be proposed by a majority
of the legislature or by petition signed by 8 percent of the voters in
two-thirds of the state's congressional districts. Proposed amendments
must be approved by a majority of the voters in a statewide election. A
constitutional convention must be called every 20 years to review the constitution
for possible changes. The Missouri general assembly is composed of the
senate of 34 members, half of whom are elected every 2 years for 4-year
terms, and the house of representatives, with 163 members, all of whom
are elected every 2 years. The general assembly meets annually. The governor
is elected for 4 years and may succeed himself once. The chief judicial
officers are the 7 supreme court judges. The Missouri Plan for selecting
judges, adopted in 1945, has become a nationwide model for the nonpartisan
assignment of judges. Each of Missouri's 114 counties is governed by a
3-member elected county commission. St. Louis functions as an independent
city with county status. Both the Democratic and Republican parties have
considerable electoral strength in Missouri, but since World War II the
Democrats, strongest in the cities and the Bootheel, have more often controlled
the legislature. Elected state offices and Missouri's representation in
the U.S. Congress have been rather equally divided between the two parties.
Missouri's Democrats tend to have a more conservative political philosophy
than Democrats nationally. Republicans retain strength in suburban regions
and in the southwestern part of the state.
HISTORY Among the early Indian inhabitants of Missouri were
Mound Builders, whose earthenwork monuments can be seen throughout the
state. The most important regional tribes were the Osage, Sauk, Fox, and
Missouri. Most had moved from the state by the time of European settlement.
European exploration began with the passage of Father Jacques Marquette
and the trader Louis Jolliet down the Mississippi in 1673. In 1682 the
Mississippi Valley was claimed for France by Robert Cavelier, sieur de
La Salle, who named the territory Louisiana. The first permanent white
settlement in what is now Missouri was made by the French at Sainte Genevieve
in the 1740s. French settlement in the 18th century was based on lead mining
and fur trading, of which St. Louis (founded 1764) became the center. France
ceded the region to Spain in 1762, but Spanish control was never more than
superficial. The Spanish did, however, permit settlement from east of the
Mississippi, and by 1800 most of the new settlers were from Kentucky and
Tennessee. Spain retroceded the region to France in 1800, and in 1803,
Missouri, along with the rest of the Louisiana territory, was sold to the
United States (see Louisiana Purchase). Missouri was made a U.S. territory
in 1812. Statehood was achieved in 1821 by way of the Missouri Compromise
(1820), which permitted Missouri's entry into the Union as a slave state.
In 1837 the six northwestern counties were purchased from the Indians and
added to the state by the Platte Purchase. Because of its central location
and its access to navigable rivers, Missouri served as the departure point
for western trails and expeditions. The Lewis and Clark Expedition began
near St. Louis in 1804. The Santa Fe Trail opened a thriving trade with
the Southwest in 1821, and the Oregon Trail, beginning in the 1830s and
'40s, was used by thousands of settlers to the Northwest. Both trails originated
at Independence, Mo. Steamboat traffic on the Mississippi and Missouri
rivers became important by the 1820s. Later access to the West took place
via the overland Butterfield Trail, the pony express, and the railroads
radiating from St. Louis and Kansas City. The famous Missouri mule was
specially bred for the arduous Santa Fe Trail. Missouri was primarily a
rural, agricultural state. In the Ozarks a subsistence farmer-woodsman
economy, with Appalachian cultural traits, was established. The Boonslick
district in the state's center developed into the richest agricultural
region, based in part on a small-scale slave plantation system. The Civil
War and Economic Growth By the mid-19th century slavery was becoming uneconomical,
and immigrants from free states and from Europe, especially Germany and
Ireland, had modified the social structure. Nonetheless, slavery remained
a controversial issue in the state. The case of Dred Scott v. Sandford,
which reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1856-57, began in Missouri. The
moderate antislavery stance of Missouri's longtime (1821-51) senator, Thomas
Hart Benton, cost him his political career. Despite the strong block of
proslavery sentiment, a Missouri state convention voted against secession
in 1861. Several major Civil War battles took place in the state, however,
and guerrilla fighting was bitter, bloody, and statewide. Violence continued
after the war in the activities of such outlaws as Jesse James. The state
government was troubled by extremist groups immediately after the war,
but stability was achieved in the 1870s. After the Civil War, railroad
building and the renewed westward movement of Americans encouraged industry
and urban growth. Following a new influx of foreign immigrants, St. Louis
grew to become the nation's fourth-largest city in 1900. Economic development
in the West fostered Kansas City's growth in agricultural and cattle-based
industries. Missouri's peak rural-farm population was reached in 1900.
Its economic and social growth was depicted in the murals of Thomas Hart
Benton, grandnephew of the senator. The 20th Century In the period from
1880 to 1920 lumbering companies exhausted the best of the Ozark and Bootheel
timber, and moved on to new territories. Many former employees turned to
agriculture. In southeastern Missouri large-scale forest clearing, levee
building, ditching, and draining of swamps encouraged cotton farming and
attracted thousands of laborers, many of whom were black. The Tri-State
Mining District, centered on Joplin, was the nation's largest zinc-producing
region, and the lead mines of the St. Francois region boomed in the 1920s.
Political power inexorably shifted from rural areas to the urban centers,
as Missouri's cities expanded in response to the growing economy. The Depression
of the 1930s temporarily slowed economic growth, and World War II further
drained the rural work force, which left the farms in favor of employment
in the cities. Industries continued to expand in the 1950s. By the 1960s,
however, depopulation and urban deterioration of the inner part of each
metropolitan area had begun. Solutions are complicated by a fiscally conservative
citizenry and by the fact that state boundaries transect the metropolitan
areas of St. Louis and Kansas City. In the early 1980s, Missouri also was
faced with a major environmental challenge when dioxin contamination was
discovered at Times Beach, near St. Louis. A major cleanup program was
begun in 1991. The state faced another challenge in 1993 as most of its
counties were declared disaster areas, after flooding of the Missouri and
Mississippi rivers caused death, homelessness, and more than $4 billion
in property and crop damage. Despite such problems, Missouri, with its
national centrality and diverse resources, remains economically attractive.
The state also has attracted retirement communities and tourists. A road
improvement program has broken down the isolation of the Ozarks, encouraging
the revival of Ozark crafts and folk culture.
Walter A. Schroeder Facts about Missouri
LAND Area: 180,546 sq km (69,709 sq mi); rank: 21st. Capital:
Jefferson City (1990 est. pop., 35,481). Largest city: Kansas City (1992
est. pop., 432,000). Counties: 114. Elevations: highest--540 m (1,772 ft),
at Taum Sauk Mountain; lowest--70 m (230 ft), at the St. Francis River.
PEOPLE Population (1993 est.): 5,234,000; rank: 16th; density: 28.9 persons
per sq km (76 per sq mi). Distribution (1990): 68.7% urban, 31.3% rural.
Average annual change (1990-93): 0.76%. EDUCATION Public enrollment (1992):
elementary--621,712; secondary--237,645; higher--199,000. Nonpublic enrollment
(1989): elementary and secondary--124,000; higher (1992)--98,000. Institutions
of higher education (1988): 96. ECONOMY State personal income (1993): $101.9
billion; rank: 17th. Median family income (1989): $31,838; rank: 32d. Nonagricultural
labor distribution (1993): manufacturing--411,000 persons; wholesale and
retail trade--569,000; government--377,000; services--644,000; transportation
and public utilities--153,000; finance, insurance, and real estate--141,000;
construction--95,000. Agriculture: income (1992)--$4.1 billion. Lumber
production (1991): 249 million board feet. Mining (nonfuel): value (1993)--$785
million. Manufacturing: value added (1991): $31.8 billion. Services: value
(1987)--$21.25 billion. GOVERNMENT (1995) Governor: Mel Carnahan, Democrat.
U.S. Congress: Senate--2 Republicans; House--6 Democrats, 3 Republicans.
Electoral college votes: 11. State legislature: 34 senators, 163 representatives.
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