# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Missouri

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​MISSOURI, a north-central state of the United States of America, and one of the greatest and richest, and economically one of the most nearly independent, in the Union, lying almost midway between the two oceans, the Gulf of Mexico and Canada. It is bounded N. by Iowa; E. by Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee; S. by Arkansas; and W. by Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. Its N. and S. limits are mainly coincident with the parallels of 40° 35′ and 36° 30′ N. lat.—the southernmost boundary, in the S.E. corner, is the meridian of 36° N. lat.—and much of the western border is the meridian of 94° 43′ W. long. respectively; but natural boundaries are afforded on the extreme N.E. by the Des Moines river, on the E. by the Mississippi, on the S.E. by the St Francis and on the N.W. by the ​Missouri. Altogether, about 850 m., or considerably more than half of the entire boundary, is water-front: about 560 m. along the Mississippi, about 208 m. along the Missouri, and about 100 m. along the St Francis and Des Moines. The length of the state from north to south, disregarding the St Francis projection southward, is 282 m., the width from west to east varies from 208 to 308 m., and the total area is 69,420 sq. m., of which 693 sq. m. are water surface.
Physical Features.—Missouri has three distinct physiographic divisions: a north-western upland plain, or prairie region; a lowland, in the extreme south-east; and, between these, the Missouri portion of the Ozark uplift. The boundary between the prairie and Ozark regions follows the Missouri river from its mouth to Glasgow, running thence south-westward, with irregular limits, but with a direct trend, to Jasper county at the south-east corner of Kansas; and the boundary between the Ozark and embayment regions runs due south-west from Cape Girardeau.
1. The prairie region embraces, accordingly, somewhat more than “northern” Missouri—i.e. the portion of the state north of the Missouri river—and somewhat more than a third of the state. It is a beautiful, rolling country, with a great abundance of streams; more hilly and broken in its western than in its eastern half. The elevation in the extreme north-west is about 1200 ft. and in the extreme north-east about 500 ft., while the rim of the region to the south-east, along the border of the Ozark region, has an elevation of about 900 ft. The larger streams have valleys 250 to 300 ft. deep and sometimes 8 to 10 m. broad, the country bordering them being the most broken of the region. The smaller streams have so eroded the whole face of the country that little of the original surface plain is to be seen. The Mississippi river is skirted throughout the length of the state by contours of 400 to 600 ft. elevation.
2. The Ozark region is substantially a low dome, with local faulting and minor undulations, dominated by a ridge—or, more exactly, a relatively even belt of highland—that runs from near the Mississippi about Ste Genevieve county to Barry county on the Arkansas border; the contour levels falling with decided regularity in all directions below this crest. High rocky bluffs that rise precipitously on the Mississippi, sometimes to a height of 150 ft. or so above the water, from the mouth of the Meramec to Ste Genevieve, mark where that river cuts the Ozark ridge, which, across the river, is continued by the Shawnee Hills in Illinois. The elevations of the crest in Missouri (the highest portion of the uplift is in Arkansas) vary from 1100 to 1600 ft. This second physiographic region comprehends somewhat less than two-thirds of the area of the state. The Burlington escarpment, which in places is as much as 250 to 300 ft. in height, runs along the western edge of the Cambro-Ordovician formations and divides the region into an eastern and a western area, known respectively to physiographers as the Salem Upland and the Springfield Upland. Superficially, each is a simple rolling plateau, much broken by erosion (though considerable undissected areas drained by underground channels remain), especially in the east, and dotted with hills; some of these are residual outliers of the eroded Mississippian limestones to the west, and others are the summits of an archaean topography above which sedimentary formations that now constitute the valley-floor about them were deposited and then eroded. There is no arrangement in chains, but only scattered rounded peaks and short ridges, with winding valleys about them. The highest points in the state are Tom Sauk Mountain (more than 1800 ft.), in Iron county and Cedar Gap Plateau (1683 ft.), in Wright county. Few localities have an elevation exceeding 1400 ft. Rather broad, smooth valleys, well degraded hills with rounded summits, and—despite the escarpments—generally smooth contours and sky-lines, characterize the whole of this Ozark region.
3. The third region, the lowlands of the south-east, has an area of some 3000 sq. m. It is an undulating country, for the most part well drained, but swampy in its lowest portions. The Mississippi is skirted with lagoons, lakes and morasses from Ste Genevieve to the Arkansas border, and in places is confined by levees.
The drainage of the state is wholly into the Mississippi, directly or indirectly, and almost wholly into either that river or the Missouri within the borders of the state. The latter stream, crossing the state and cutting the eastern and western borders at or near St Louis and Kansas City respectively, has a length between these of 430 m. The areas drained into the Mississippi outside the state through the St Francis, White and other minor streams are relatively small. The larger streams of the Ozark dome are of decided interest to the physiographer. Those of the White system have open-trough valleys bordered by hills in their upper courses and canyons in their lower courses; others, notably the Gasconade, exhibit remarkable differences in the drainage areas of their two sides, with interesting illustrations of shifting water-partings; and the White, Gasconade, Osage and other rivers are remarkable for upland meanders, lying, not on flood-plains, but around the spurs of a highland country.
Caves, chiefly of limestone formation, occur in great numbers in and near the Ozark Mountain region in the south-western part of Missouri. More than a hundred have been discovered in Stone county alone, and there are many in Christian, Greene and McDonald counties. The most remarkable is Marble Cave, a short distance south-east of the centre of Stone county. The entrance is through a large sink-hole at the top of Roark Mountain, from which there is a passage-way to an open chamber. This extraordinary hall-like room is about 350 ft. long and about 125 ft. wide, has bluish-grey limestone walls, and an almost perfectly vaulted roof, rising from 100 to 195 ft. Its acoustic properties are said to be almost perfect, and it has been named “the Auditorium.” At one end is a remarkable stalagmitic formation of white and gold onyx, about 65 ft. in height and about 200 ft. in girth, called “the White Throne.” Jacob's Cavern (q.v.), near Pineville, McDonald county, disclosed on exploration skeletons of men and animals, rude implements, &c. Crystal Cave, near Joplin, Jasper county, has its entire surface lined with calcite crystals and scalenohedron formations, from 1 ft. to 2 ft. in length. Knox Cave, in Greene county, and several Caverns near Ozark, in Christian county, are also of interest. Other caves include Fried's Cave, about 6 m. north-east of Rolla, Phelps county, Hannibal Cave (in Ralls county, about 1 m. south of Hannibal), which has a deep pool containing many eyeless fish; and various caverns in Miller, Ozark, Greene and Parry counties.
Geology.—The geological history of the state covers the period from Algonkian to late Carboniferous time, after which there is a gap in the record until Tertiary time, except that there was apparently a temporary depression of the north-western and south-western corners in the Cretaceous age. Northern Missouri is covered with a mantle of glacial deposits, generally thick, although in the stream valleys of the north-east the bed-rocks are widely exposed. The southern limit of these glacial deposits is practically the bluffs bordering the Missouri river, except for a narrow strip along the Mississippi below St Louis. These Pleistocene deposits include bouldery drift, loess, terrace deposits and alluvium. The till is generally less than 5 ft. and rarely more than 40 ft. deep, but in some localities it reaches a thickness of 200 ft., or even more. Modified drift and erratics were also widely deposited. The loess, however—reddish-brown, buff or grey in colour, according to the varying proportions of iron oxide—is almost everywhere spread above the drift. It is exposed in very deep cuts along the bluffs of the Missouri. Southern Missouri is covered, generally speaking, with residuary rocks. The embayment region is of Tertiary origin, containing deposits of both neocene and eocene periods. Regarding now the outcrops of bed-rock, there are exposures of Algonkian (doubtful, and at most a mere patch on Pilot Knob), Archean, Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, sub-Carboniferous and Carboniferous. The St François Mountains and the neighbouring portion of the Ozark region are capped with Archean rocks. All the rest of the Ozark region except the extreme south-western corner of the state is Cambro-Ordovician. Along the margin of this great deposit, on the Mississippi river below St Louis and along the northern shore of the Missouri near its mouth, is an outcrop of Silurian. Parallel to this in the latter locality, and lying also along the Mississippi near by to the north, as well as in the intervening country between the two rivers, are strips of Devonian. Both this and the Silurian are mere fringes on the great area of Cambro-Ordovician. Next, covering the north-eastern and south-western corners of the state, and connecting them with a narrow belt, are the lower Carboniferous measures (which also appear in a very narrow band along the Mississippi for some distance below St Louis), The western edge of these follows an irregular line from Schuyler county, on the northern border, to Barton county, on the western border, of the state, but with a great eastward projection north of the Missouri river, to Montgomery county. This line defines the eastern limit of the Coal Measures proper, which cover a belt 20 to 80 m. in width. Finally, to the west of these, and covering the north-western corner of the state, are the upper coal measures. Thus the state is to be conceived, in geological history, as gradually built up around an Archean island in successive seas, the whole of the state becoming dry land after the post-Carboniferous uplift. Until the post-Mesozoic uplift of the Rocky Mountain region the north-western portion of the state drained westward.
Fauna.—Excepting the embayment region, Missouri lies wholly within the Carolinian area of the Upper Austral life-zone; the ​embayment lies in the Austro-riparian area of the same zone. Among wild animals, deer and bear are not uncommon. Opossums, raccoons, woodchucks, foxes, grey squirrels and fox-squirrels are common. The game birds include quail (“Bob White”) and partridges. Prairie chickens (pinnated grouse), pheasants and wild turkeys, all very common as late as 1880, are no longer to be found save in remote and thinly-settled districts. A state fish commission has laboured to increase the common varieties of river fish. So far as these are an article of general commerce, they come, like frogs, terrapin and turtles, mainly from the counties of the embayment region. Mussel fisheries, an industry confined to the Mississippi river counties from Lincoln to Lewis, are economically important, as the shells are used in the manufacture of pearl buttons. There are state fish-hatcheries at St Louis and St Joseph.
Flora.—The most valuable forests are in the southern half of the state, which, except where cleared for farms, is almost continuously wooded. An almost entire absence of underbrush is characteristic of Missouri forests. The finest woods are on the eastern upland and on the Mississippi lowlands. The entire woodland area of the state was estimated at 41,000 sq. m. by the national census of 1900. Ash, oaks, black and sweet gums, chestnuts, hickories, hard maple, beech, walnut and short-leaf pine are noteworthy among the trees of the Carolinian area; the tupelo and bald cypress of the embayment region, and long-leaf and loblolly pines, pecans and live oaks of the uplands, among those characteristic of the Austro-riparian. But the habitats overlap, and persimmons and magnolias of different species are common and notable in both areas. The heavy timber in the south-eastern counties (cypress, &c.), and even scattered stands of such valuable woods as walnut, white oak and red-gum, have already been considerably exploited.
Climate.—Missouri has a continental climate, with wide range of moisture and temperature. The Ozark uplift tempers very agreeably the summers in the south, but does not affect the climate of the state as a whole. The normal mean annual temperature for the entire state is about 54° F.; the normal monthly means through the year are approximately 29·6, 30·3, 42, 55·4, 64·6, 73·2, 77·1, 75·7, 68·2, 57, 42·8 and 33·1° F. The south-eastern corner is crossed by an annual isotherm of 60°, the north-western by one of 50°; and although in the former region sometimes not a day in the year may show an average temperature below freezing-point, at Jefferson City there are occasionally two months of freezing weather, and at Rockport three. Nevertheless, the yearly means of the five districts into which the state is divided by the national weather service exhibit very slight differences: approximately 52·1, 52·7, 54·4, 56·1 and 55·7° F. respectively for the north-west, north-east, central, south-east and south-west. On the other hand, the range in any month of local absolute temperatures over the state is habitually great (normally about 50° in the hottest and 100° or more in the coldest months), and likewise the annual range for individual localities (90° to 140°). Temperatures as high as 100° to 105° and as low as −20° or −30° are recorded locally almost every year, and the maximum range of extremes shown by the records is from 116° at Marble Hill, Bollinger county, in July 1901, to −40° at Warsaw, Benton county, in February 1905. The average fall of snow, which is mostly within the months from November to March inclusive, ranges from about 8 in. in the south-east counties to 30 in. in the north-west counties. The Missouri river is often closed by ice, and the Mississippi at St Louis, partly because it is obstructed by bridges, sometimes freezes over so that for weeks together horses and wagons can cross on the ice.
The average yearly rainfall for the state as a whole is about 39 in., ranging from 53·7 in. in 1898 to 25·3 in. in 1901. The prevailing winds are southerly, although west winds are common in winter. Winds from the north and west are generally dry, cool, clear and invigorating; winds from the south and east warm, moist and depressing. Rainfall comes from the Gulf of Mexico. The south-east winds blow from the arid lands and carry rising temperatures across the state; and the winter anti-cyclones from the north-west carry low temperatures even to the southern border. Missouri lies very frequently in the dangerous quadrant of the great cyclonic storms passing over the Mississippi valley—indeed, northern Missouri lies in the area of maximum frequency of tornadoes.
Agriculture.—Few states have so great a variety of soils. This variety is due to the presence of different forms of glacial drift, and to the variety of surface rocks. The northern half of the state is well watered and extremely fertile. The south-eastern embayment is rich to an exceptional degree. Speaking generally, the Ozark region is characterized by reddish clays, mixed with gravels and stones, and cultivable in inverse proportion to the amount of these elements; northern Missouri by a generally black clay loam over a clay subsoil, with practically no admixture of stones; the southern prairies, above referred to, share the characteristics of those north of the Missouri. The Mississippi embayment is in parts predominantly sandy, in others clayey; it is mainly under timber. The state as a whole is devoted predominantly to agriculture. Within its borders or close about them are the centres of total and of improved farm acreage, of total farm values, of gross farm income, of the growth of Indian corn, of wheat, and of oats. In 1900 agriculture absorbed the labour of 41·3% of the total working population of the state. Of the area of the state 77·3% was included in that year in farm land (33,997,873 acres); and of this, 67·4% was improved. The average size of a farm was 119·3 acres; 39·9% of all farm families owned a home clear of all incumbrance; and the percentages of farms operated by owners, cash tenants and share tenants were respectively 69·5, 11·0 and 19·5. Negroes worked 1·7% of the total acreage. The total value of farm-property was $1,033,121,897. The aggregate values of farm products in 1899 was $219,296,970, and this total consisted of $117,012,895 in crops (area in crops, 14,827,620 acres), $97,841,944 in animal products, and $4,442,131 of forest by-products of farm operations. Indian corn is the most prominent single crop; in 1899 it was valued at $61,246,305. Of other cereals none except wheat is produced in any quantity as compared with other states. Tobacco is grown over half the area of the state, but especially in the central and north-central counties, and cotton along the Arkansas border counties, but especially in the embayment lowlands. Orchard fruits, small fruits and grapes are produced in large quantities, and a fruit experiment station, the only institution of its kind in the country in 1900, is maintained by the state at Mountain Grove, in Wright county. To a slight extent it is possible to grow fruit of distinctively southern habitat, but even pears (a prominent and valuable crop) are uncertain in returns. Apples are grown to best advantage in the north-west quarter; peaches on the Arkansas border; pears along the Mississippi; melons in the sandy regions of the embayment; small fruits in the south-west. Grapes are mainly grown in the Ozark region, and wine is produced in Gasconade and other central and north-central counties in amounts sufficient to place Missouri, California aside, in the front rank of wine states in the Union. Indian corn and abundant grasses give to Missouri, as to the other central prairie states, a sound basis for her livestock interests. In 1900 the value of her live stock was $160,540,004. Two of the four remount purchasing stations of the United States Army are at St Louis and Kansas City. As a mule market Missouri has no rival. Sheep are herded in the southern Ozarks.
Minerals.—Coal, lead, zinc, clays, building stones and iron are the most important minerals. Cobalt and nickel are associated with lead in the St François field; but though the American output is almost exclusively derived from Missouri the production is small in comparison with the amount derived from abroad. Practically the whole comes from Mine La Motte, in Madison county. Missouri is also the largest producer in the Union of tripoli and of barytes. Copper occurs in various localities, but is of economic importance only in the Ozark uplift; it was first mined in small quantities in 1837. The value of the copper mined in 1906 (based on smelter returns) was $54,347. Mineral waters—muriatic, alkaline chalybeate and sulphuric—occur widely. Various mineral paint bases (apart from lead, zinc, baryta and kaolin) are produced in small quantities. Iron, once an extremely important product, has ceased since about 1880 to be significant in the general production of the country. But it is of great importance to the state, nevertheless, and its production has possibilities much beyond present realization. The ore occurs in two forms, haematites and limonites; the specular hematites often being grouped, for practical purposes, into two classes—those occurring in porphyry and those occurring in sandstone. The haematites are found not only in the archean porphyries but in Cambrian limestone and sandstone, and in the sub-Carboniferous formations; while the limonites are confined almost exclusively to the Cambrian. The bedded haematites and limonites have been little exploited. Mining was begun in Iron and Crawford counties in the second decade of the 19th century; at Iron Mountain in 1846, and at Pilot Knob in the next year. Since 1880 the output of the state has been falling, and the total production up to 1902 did not exceed 9,000,000 tons of ore; in 1906 the output was 80,910 tons. Iron pyrites, which occurs widely and abundantly, has become of value as material for the preparation of sulphuric acid.
The limits of the coal belt have already been defined. The area of the Coal Measures is about 23,000 sq. m., and that of those classed by the National Geological Survey as probably productive is about 14,000 sq. m., or nearly the entire area of the lower measures. The coal is almost wholly bituminous, with very little cannelite. The seams are generally from one to five feet in thickness. Macon, Lafayette and Adair are the leading counties in output; Lexington and Bevier are the leading mining centres. The total output from 1840 to 1902 was about 78,500,000 short tons; the annual output first passed 1,000,000 tons in 1876, and 2,000,000 tons in 1882; and from 1901 to 1905 the yearly output, steadily increasing, averaged 4,196,688 tons, of a value at the mines of $6,266,154; the output in 1908 was 3,317,315 tons, with a Spot value of $5,444,907. Superficial evidences of natural gas and petroleum are abundant in western and north-western Missouri, but these have not been found in commercially profitable quantities. The total value of natural gas from wells in Missouri in 1908 was $22,592. A few small oil wells are open near the Kansas line. Both crude oil and natural gas are drawn from Kansas for the supply of Kansas City and other parts of western Missouri.
Lead occurs in three areas in southern Missouri. In the first, of which St François county is the centre, it occurs generally alone disseminated in Cambrian limestone; in the second, of which the counties immediately south-west of Jefferson City are the centre, ​it occurs with zinc in reticulated deposits and fissure veins in clays and clastic limestones; and in the third, of which Jasper county is much the most important county, the two metals occur in pockets and joints in the Burlington-Keokuk beds of the sub-Carboniferous. The first is the great lead area, the third the great zinc area; the second is no longer of relative importance. The lead ores are galena and carbonate; the zinc ores, calamine, smithsonite and blende. The mines in the St François field were worked by the French from early in the 18th century. The oldest, Mine La Motte (Madison county), discovered in 1715 by De la Motte Cadillac, is still a heavy producer. St François county alone produces about nine-tenths the yield of the field; Madison, Washington, Jefferson and Franklin counties furnish most of the remainder. Large quantities of lead are also obtained from the zinc field of the south-west. Both the St François and Jasper ores yield from 70 to 75% of metal in final product, and assay even higher. It has been estimated that down to 1893 1,100,000 tons of ore, yielding metal worth $74,000,000, had been taken from the state, fully half of this having been mined in the preceding twenty years. The total output for the state in 1908 was 114,459 tons, valued at $12,134,556; of this 116,531 tons came from the central and south-east field, and of the remainder 15,240 tons from the Webb City—Prosperity camp. Zinc was originally a hindering by-product of lead mining in the south-west, and was thrown away; but it long ago became the chief product in value in this field. The so-called “Joplin district” of south-western Missouri and south-eastern Kansas—three-fourths of it being in Missouri—produces nine tenths of all the zinc mined in the United States. Mining in south-western Missouri began about 1851, but zinc was of no importance in the output until 1872. In the next thirty-one years the aggregate product was about 3,000,000 tons of ore, worth some $100,000,000. The output from 1894 to 1905 averaged 219,874 tons of ore yearly; in 1908 it was 107,404 tons. The history of the St François, Granby and Joplin districts has been sensational. The fortunes of the last have largely revolutionized the conditions and prospects of the south-western counties. Silver is found in connexion with lead and zinc mining; in 1908 the total output was 49,131 oz., valued at $26,039. Clays occur in amounts and varieties surpassed by the deposits in very few if any states of the Union. They are in every form from the rare to the common—glass pot clay, ball clays, kaolins, flint fireclays, plastic fireclays, stone-ware clays, paving-brick shales, building-brick and gumbo clays. Plastic fireclays, paving and brick clays are available in seemingly limitless quantities. The loess, the re-sorted residual clays, and the glacial clays are all used for the production of brick. Clays occur, in short, all over the state; and their use is almost as general. In 1905 and 1907 the rank of Missouri was sixth in the Union in the value of clay products—namely, $6,203,411 in 1905 and $6,898,871 in 1907. There has been no more than the slightest beginning made in the utilization of these resources. Stone resources are also large. Limestones are by far the most important; red and gray granites, sandstones and marble (Ste Genevieve county) being of little more than local importance. In 1908 the total value of stone quarried was $2,306,058. Tripoli is quarried particularly in Newton county, where it has been produced since 1872, and though not produced in great quantities has value from its general scarcity. This Missouri tripoli is a finely decomposed light rock, about 98% silica, and is used for filter stones and as an abrasive. “Chat”—finely crushed flint and limestone yielded as tailings in the lead and zinc mines—finds many uses. Limestone is quarried all over the state (except in the embayment region). There are unlimited supplies of clay, shale and limestone, the three essential constituents of Portland cement, and the manufacture of this, begun in 1902, at once assumed important proportions. Quicklime manufacture is also an important industry. In 1908 the product of quicklime was 167,060 tons.
Manufactures.—Manufacturing and mechanical pursuits absorbed in 1900 the labours of 19·5% of all persons engaged in gainful occupations, less than half as many as were engaged in agriculture. Though an agricultural state, Missouri had in 1900 three cities with populations of above 100,000, whose wealth is based on manufactures and trade. Missouri is the leading manufacturing state west of the Mississippi. Between 1880 and 1900 the value of the product increased from $165,386,205 to $385,492,784, of which $316,304,095 was the value of products of the “factory system”; in 1905 the factory product was valued at $439,548,957. Of the total output in 1900, three-fourths were made up by the output of St Louis ($233,629,733; of which $193,732,788 was from establishments under the “factory system”), Kansas City ($36,527,392; $23,588,653 being “factory product”), St Joseph ($31,690,736, including the product of some establishments outside the city limits; $11,361,939 being “factory product” within the city limits), and Springfield ($4,126,871; $3,433,800 being “factory product”); for the same four cities in 1905 the proportion of the state’s total product ($439,548,957) manufactured under the “factory system” is smaller, and less than three-fourths was made up by the following seven cities: St Louis ($267,307,038), Kansas City ($35,573,049), St Joseph ($11,573,720), Springfield ($5,293,315), Hannibal ($4,442,099), Jefferson City ($3,926,632), and Joplin ($3,006,203). In 1905 the eleven municipalities with a population of at least 8000 each (including the seven above, and Carthage, Moberly, Sedalia and Webb City) produced, under the “factory system,” goods valued at $335,431,978. Eighteen industries in 1905 employed nearly three-fifths of the wage-earners in factories and were represented by nearly two-thirds ($293,882,705) of the total product. The most prominent items in this were slaughtering and meat-packing products (value $60,031,133 in 1905); tobacco (in 1905, $30,884,182), flour and grist-mill products (in 1905, $38,026,142), malt liquors (in 1905, $24,154,264), boots and shoes (in 1905, $23,493,552), lumber and timber products (in 1905, $10,903,783), men’s factory-made clothing (in 1905, $8,872,831), and cars and general shop construction and repairs by steam railways (1905, $8,720,433). The increase in the slaughtering industry between 1890 and 1900 (134·9%) was chiefly due to remarkable growth in St Joseph—or, to be more precise, just outside the city limits of St Joseph; between 1900 and 1905 the increase was 39·5%. Although Missouri is not a great tobacco state, St Louis is one of the greatest centres of the country in the output of tobacco products. It is also, for the state, the great centre of all the leading interests with the exception of slaughtering. The boot and shoe industry is new west of the Mississippi, but Missouri holds in it a high and rising rank. In the Joplin mining region a considerable amount of ores is smelted, but the bulk of the ores is sent into Kansas for smelting. The finer clays, also, are mainly shipped from the state in natural form, but in the manufacture of sewer-pipe and fire-brick, Missouri is a very prominent state. St Louis and Kansas City are the centres of the clay industries.
Communications.—In 1900 rather under a fifth of the working population were engaged in trade and transportation. In commerce as well as in manufactures St Louis is first among the cities of the state, but Kansas City also is one of the greatest railway centres of the country, and the trade with the south-west, which St Louis once held almost undisputed, has been greatly cut into by Kansas City, as well as by Galveston and other ports on the Gulf. There is still considerable commerce on the Mississippi from St Louis to New Orleans, and a few passenger steamers are still in service. In 1906–1907 there was a notable agitation for improvement, following trial voyages that proved the navigability of the Missouri up to Kansas City. For this part of the river the maximum draft at mean low water was 4 ft. in 1908. In 1907 the amount of freight carried from the mouth of the Missouri to Sioux City, Iowa, was 843,863 tons, and river rates were about 60% of railway rates. In 1907 estimates were made for 6 ft. and 12 ft. channels from Sioux City to Kansas City, and from Kansas City to the mouth of the river. The improvement of the Missouri—which is far more difficult to navigate than the Mississippi—was begun by Congress in 1832, and (in addition to large joint appropriations for the Missouri, Mississippi, Arkansas and Ohio rivers from 1832 to 1882) cost $11,130,560 between 1876 and 1900. Also $65,000 was expended from 1852 to 1876. In nothing except the freighting of bulky and imperishable products, like cotton, coal and cereals, was the river ever able to contest the monopoly of the railways. The mileage of these within the state rose from 3960 in 1880 to 6142 in 1890, and to 8023·94 in 1908; the Missouri Pacific being far the greatest system of the state. St Louis, Kansas City and St Joseph are ports of entry for foreign commerce.
Population.—The total population of Missouri in 1900 was 3,106,665 and in 1910, 3,293,335. The population in 1810 was 20,845; in 1820, 66,586; in 1830, 140,455; in 1840, 383,702; in 1850, 682,044; in 1860, 1,182,012; in 1870, 1,721,295; in 1880, 2,168,380; and in 1890, 2,679,184. Thus, even in the years of the Civil War, there was no apparent set-back. Of the aggregate of 1900, 63·7% lived in “rural districts” (i.e. those outside all places of a population of 2500 or upwards), and 27·1% in the three great cities of the state, St Louis (pop. 575,238), Kansas City (163,752) and St Joseph (102,979); 5·2% were negroes—their increase from 1890 to 1900 being less than half as rapid as that of the whites; and 7·0% only were foreign-born. Slightly more than half of all foreigners are Germans; Irish, English and Scotch, French and English Canadians, Swiss and Scandinavians following. The German element is, and has been since about 1850, of great importance—an importance not indicated at all by its apparently small strength in the population to-day. The German immigration began about 1845, and long ago passed its maximum, so that in 1900 more than half of all the foreign-born (not only the Germans, but also the later-coming nationalities) had lived within Missouri for more than twenty years, and more than three-fourths of all had been residents of the state for ten ​years or more. Thus the foreign element is an old one, and other statistics show that it is being effectively absorbed into the native mass by intermarriage. The German influence has been felt in education and in the anti-slavery cause. The early settlers of the state were practically all from Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and the old slave-states of the south-east, and their influence was easily dominant in the state until well after the Civil War (about 1875), when northerners first began to enter the state in large numbers. The south-western Ozarks were settled originally by mountaineers from Kentucky and Tennessee, and retained a character of social primitiveness and industrial backwardness until after the Civil War. This region has been industrially regenerated by the mine development. In addition to St Louis, Kansas City and St Joseph, the leading cities in 1900 were Joplin, Springfield, Sedalia, Hannibal, Jefferson City, Carthage, Webb City and Moberly.
As Missouri was originally a French colony the Roman Catholic is its oldest church; and it is still the strongest with 382,642 communicants in 1906 out of a total of 1,199,239 for all denominations. In the same year there were 218,353 Baptists, 214,004 Methodists, 166,137 Disciples of Christ, 71,599 Presbyterians, 45,018 Lutherans, and 32,715 members of the German Evangelical Synod of North America.
Administration.—Three constitutions, framed by conventions in 1820, 1865 and 1875, have been adopted by the people of the state, and a fourth (1845) was rejected, principally because it provided for popular election of the state judiciary, which was then appointed. In addition to these four constitutional conventions, mention should be made of the special body chosen in 1861 to decide the question of secession, which retained supreme though irregular control of the state during the Civil War, and some of whose acts had all the force of promulgated constitutional amendments. Universal manhood suffrage was established by the first constitution. The constitution of 1865 was a partisan and intolerant document, a part of the evil aftermath of war; it was adopted by an insignificant majority and never had any strength in public sentiment. The present constitution (that of 1875) was a notable piece of work when framed. The term of the governor and other chief executive officers, which had been four years until the adoption of the constitution of 1865, under which it was two years, was restored to the long term (unusual in American practice). The legislature (or, as it is called in Missouri, General Assembly) had been permitted to hold adjourned sessions under the constitution of 1865. This expensive practice was abolished; various checks were placed upon legislative extravagance, and upon financial, special and local legislation generally; and among reform provisions, common enough to-day, but uncommon in 1875, were those forbidding the General Assembly to make irrevocable grants of special privileges and immunities; requiring finance officials of the state to clear their accounts precedent to further eligibility to public office; preventing private gain to state officials through the deposit of public moneys in banks, or otherwise; and permitting the governor to veto specific items in general appropriation bills. The grand jury was reduced to twelve members, and nine concurring may indict. The township system may be adopted by county option, but has not been widely established, though purely administrative (not corporate) “townships” are an essential part of state administration. St Louis and Kansas City have adopted their own charters under constitutional provision. Up to 1909 37 constitutional amendments were submitted to the people for adoption or rejection, and 22 were adopted. Three of these (1900) restrict the calling of the grand jury, permit two-thirds of a petit jury to render verdicts in courts not of record, and three-fourths to give verdict in civil cases in courts of record. Cities have been allowed (1892), upon authorization by the General Assembly, to organize pension systems for disabled firemen, but not allowed (1904) to organize the same for police forces. An amendment which was adopted (177,615 for; 147,290 against) in November 1908, and came in effect on the 4th of December 1908, provides for initiative and referendum applying to statutory law and to constitutional amendments, but emergency measures, and appropriations for the state government, for state institutions, and for public schools are exempt from referendum. Initiative petitions, signed by at least 8% of the legal voters in each of two-thirds (at least) of the congressional districts of the state, must be filed not later than four months before the election at which the measure is to be voted upon. The referendum may be ordered by the legislature or by a petition signed by at least 5% of the legal voters in each of two-thirds (at least) of the congressional districts of the state; such petition must be filed not more than 90 days after the final adjournment of the legislature; referred measures become law upon receiving a favourable majority of the popular vote. Among defeated amendments that are indicative of socio-political tendencies was one (1896) to authorize cities of a population of 30,000 or more to purchase, erect or maintain waterworks or lighting plants.
There is nothing extraordinary in the general judicial system. The civil law seems to have had only a tacit, and as soon as American immigration began a limited, application. The common law was introduced with the American settler, and after 1804 was the explicitly declared basis of judicature. Practically no trace of French and Spanish administration was left except in the land registers. The metropolitan primacy of St Louis and Kansas City is reflected in the general organization of the courts. The Bureau of Labor Statistics maintains free employment-bureaus in St Louis, Kansas City and St Joseph. There is also a State Board of Mediation and Arbitration to settle labour disputes. A Board of Railroad and Warehouse Commissioners, elected by the people, was established in 1875, under a provision of the constitution requiring the General Assembly to establish maximum rates and provide against discriminations.
The homestead of a housekeeper or head of a family, together with the rents and products of the same, is exempt from levy and attachment except to satisfy its liabilities at the time he acquired it. A homestead so exempted is, however, limited to 18 sq. rods of ground and to $3000 in value if it is in a city having a population of 40,000 or more, to 30 sq. rods and $1500 in value if it is in a city having a population of 10,000 and less than 40,000, to 5 acres and $1500 in value if it is in an incorporated place having a population of less than 10,000, and to 160 acres and $1500 in value if it is in the country. A husband owning a homestead is debarred from selling or mortgaging it without the joinder of his wife, and if the husband dies leaving a widow or minor children the homestead passes to either or to both jointly, and may be so held until the youngest child is twenty-one years of age or until the marriage or death of the widow. The principal grounds for divorce are impotence, bigamy, adultery, conviction of felony or other infamous crime subsequent to the marriage or before the marriage if unknown to the other party, desertion or habitual drunkenness for one year, such cruel or barbarous treatment as to endanger the life of the other, such conduct as to render the condition of the other intolerable, and vagrancy of the husband; but before applying for a divorce the plaintiff must reside in the state for one year immediately preceding, unless the cause of action was given within the state or while the plaintiff was a resident of the state. A married woman may hold and manage property as if she were single. She is entitled to the wages for her separate labour and that of her children, and is not liable for her husband’s debts. A widow has a dower right to one-third of her husband’s real estate and to the share of a child in his personal estate. If a husband dies without leaving children or other descendants, the widow is entitled to all the real and personal estate which came to him by marriage, to what remains of the personal property which came into his possession by the written consent of his wife, and to one-half his other real and personal property at the time of his death. If a husband dies leaving descendants only by a former marriage, the widow may take in lieu of dower the personal property that came to him by means of marriage, or if there be children by both marriages she may take in lieu of her dower right to his real estate an absolute right therein equivalent to the share of a child. Her dower is not lost by a divorce resulting from the fault or misconduct of the husband. A widower is entitled to a share in his wife’s personal estate equal to the share of a child, and if there are ​no descendants he has an absolute right to one-half of her property, both real and personal.
Finance.—Revenue is drawn mainly from a general property tax. In 1904 the gross valuation of all taxable wealth was put at $1,155,402,647, and taxation for state purposes aggregated $0·17 per $1000. In the years 1851–1857 a debt of $23,701,000 was incurred in aiding railways, and all the roads made default during the Civil War. The state could not meet its guarantee obligations (hence the strict bonding provisions of the constitution of 1875), and in 1865 had a bonded debt of above $36,000,000 This was reduced to $21,675,000 by 1869, and in 1903 was wholly extinguished, every obligation having been fully discharged. A small debt (at the close of 1906, $4,398,839) is carried in the form of non-negotiable state certificates of indebtedness issued in exchange for money taken from the educational funds of the state, and is intended as a permanent obligation to those funds. An amendment to the constitution adopted in 1908 permitted counties to make an extra levy of 25 cents on each 100 dollars valuation for the construction and repair of roads and bridges.
Charitable and Penal Institutions.—The charitable and penal institutions of the state include the penitentiary at Jefferson City, opened in 1836, which is self-supporting; a training school for boys at Boonville (opened 1889), an industrial home for girls at Chillicothe (established 1887), hospitals for the insane at Fulton (1847), St Joseph (opened 1874), Nevada (1887), and Farmington (1899); a school for the blind at St Louis (opened 1851); a school for the deaf at Fulton (opened 1851); a colony for the feeble-minded and epileptic at Marshall (established 1899); a state sanatorium, for consumptives, at Mount Vernon (established 1905, opened 1907); a Federal soldiers’ home at St James, and a Confederate soldiers’ home at Higginsville (both established 1897).
Education.—The expenditure upon public schools is much greater in Missouri than in any other of the old slave states. Most of the total expenditure (in 1908, $12,769,690) is made possible by local taxation. The percentage of the enumerated school-population (children 6 to 20 years of age) attending school in 1908 was 48, and the percentage of the total enumeration enrolled was about 71; the general showing being excellent, and that for negroes remarkably so. Blacks and whites are segregated in all schools. Various high-schools scattered over the state are given over to the negroes; and in 1904 the number of pupils attending these was exceeded only by the corresponding numbers in Texas and Mississippi—states with five- and sixfold the negro population of Missouri. Illiterate persons above 10 years of age constituted in 1900 6·4% of the total population—28·1% of the negroes, 7·1% of the natives, 6·9% of the foreign-born. The idea of providing a university and free local schools as parts of a public school system occurs in the constitution of 1820 (and in the Acts of Congress that prepared the way for statehood), and the occurrence is noteworthy; but the real beginnings of the system scarcely go back further than 1850. Nor was very much progress made until a law was passed in 1853 requiring a quarter of the general yearly revenue of the state to be distributed among the counties for schools. This appropriation was made regularly after 1855 (save in 1861–1867), and since 1875 has rested on a constitutional provision. The maintenance of a free public school system was placed on a firm and broad foundation by the constitution adopted in that year. In the years after 1887 one-third of the total revenue was appropriated to the public common schools; and in 1908 the total appropriation for public schools, normal schools and the state university was about three-fifths of the entire state revenue. Local taxation is another source of the school funds. In 1908 the total school fund, including state, county, township and special district funds, was about $14,000,000, of which the state fund was nearly one-third. The schools of St Louis have a very high reputation.
Among institutions of higher learning the university of Missouri at Columbia is the chief one maintained by the state. It was opened to students in 1841, received aid for the first time from the state in 1867; women were first admitted to the normal department in 1869, to the academic department in 1870, and soon afterwards to all departments. In addition to the academic department or college proper, the university embraces special schools of pedagogics (1868), agriculture and mechanic arts (1870), mines and metallurgy (1870, at Rolla), law (1872), medicine (1873), fine arts (1878), engineering (1877), military science, commerce, a graduate school of arts and sciences (1896), and a department of journalism (1908). An experiment station supported by the national government was established in 1888, and is part of the school of agriculture. The state Board of Agriculture organizes educational farmers’ institutes; and agriculture is taught, moreover, in the normal schools of the state. Of these five are maintained as follows: at Kirksville (1870), at Warrensburg (established 1870), at Cape Girardeau (established 1873), at Springfield (established 1905), at Maryville (established 1905), and there is a normal department in connexion with the Lincoln Institute, for negroes, at Jefferson City. Lincoln Institute (opened in 1866) is for negro men and women. The basis of its endowment was a fund of $6379 contributed in 1866 by the 62nd and 65th regiments U.S. Colored Infantry upon their discharge from the service; it has agricultural, industrial, sub-normal, normal and collegiate departments. Among privately endowed schools the greatest is Washington University in St Louis; it is non-sectarian and was opened in 1857. Noteworthy, too, is the St Louis University, opened in 1829, the oldest institution for higher learning west of the Mississippi; it is a Jesuit college and the parent school of six other Jesuit institutions in the states of the middle west. There are many minor colleges and schools, most of them co-educational, and special colleges or academies for women are maintained by different religious sects. Finally, there are various professional schools, most of them in St Louis and Kansas City.
History.—The early French explorers of the Mississippi valley left the first trace of European connexion in the history of Missouri. Ste Genevieve was settled in 1735; Fort Orleans, two-thirds of the way across the state up the Missouri river, had been temporarily established in 1720; the famous Mine La Motte, in Madison county, was opened about the same time; and before the settlement of St Louis, the Missouri river was known to trappers and hunters for hundreds of miles above its mouth. It was in 1764 that St Louis (q.v.) was founded. Two years before, the portion of Louisiana west of the Mississippi had secretly passed to Spain, and in 1763 the portion east passed to England. When the English took possession a large part of the people in the old French settlements removed west of the river. Not until 1770, after O’Reilly had established Spanish rule by force at New Orleans, did a Spanish officer at St Louis take actual possession of the upper country; another on the ground, in 1768–1769, had forborne to assert his powers in the face of the unfriendly attitude of the inhabitants. Spanish administration began in 1771. French remained the official language, and administration was so little altered that the people quickly grew reconciled to their changed allegiance. Settlement was confined to a fringe of villages along the Mississippi. French-Canadian hunters and trappers, and soon the river boatmen, added an element of adventure and colour in the primitive life of the colony. Lead and salt and peltries were sent to Montreal, New Orleans, and up the Ohio river to the Atlantic cities.
The Americans were hospitably received; the immigrants, even Protestant clergymen, enjoyed by official goodwill complete religious toleration; and after about 1796 lavish land grants to Americans were made by the authorities, who wished to strengthen the colony against anticipated attacks by the British, from Canada. Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia furnished most of the new-comers. The French had lived in villages and maintained considerable communal life; the Americans scattered on homesteads. With them came land speculation, litigiousness, the development of mines and mining-camp law, and the passion of politics, of which duels were one feature of early days. In 1804 there were some 10,000 inhabitants in Upper Louisiana (mainly in Missouri), and of these three-fifths were Americans and their negroes. Racial antipathies were unimportant, and all parties were at least passively acquiescent when Louisiana became a part of the United States. On the 9th of March 1804, at St Louis, Upper Louisiana was formally transferred. In 1818, after passing meanwhile through four stages of limited self-government, that portion of the Purchase now included in the state of Missouri made application for admission to the Union as a state. In 1812–1813 a remarkable earthquake devastated the region about New Madrid. A large region was sunken, enormous fissures were opened in the earth, the surface soil was displaced ​and altered, and great lakes were formed along the Mississippi. One of these, Reelfoot Lake, east of the river, is 20 m. long and 7 wide, and so deep that boats sail over the submerged tops of tall trees. Indian troubles again disturbed the peace during the second war with Great Britain. By 1808 the Indian title was extinguished to two-thirds of the state, though actual settlement did not extend more than a few miles westward from the Mississippi; in 1825, by a treaty with the Shawnee made at St Louis on the 7th of November, the title to the rest of the state was cleared, and a general removal of the Indians followed. Meanwhile, after the peace of 1815 a great immigration had set in, many settlers coming from the free states north of the Ohio. The application for statehood precipitated one of the most famous and significant episodes of national history—the Missouri Compromise (q.v.). In August 1821, after three years of bitter controversy, Missouri was formally admitted to statehood.
In the four decades before the Civil War, two matters stand out as most distinctive in the history of the state: the trouble with the Mormons, and the growth of river and prairie trade. In 1831–1832 Joseph Smith, the Mormon leader, selected a tract at the mouth of the Kansas river as the site of the New Jerusalem, to which his followers came from Ohio in 1832. They were not welcome. Their “revelations” in their papers predicted dire things for the Gentiles; they were thrifty and well-to-do, and were rapidly widening their lands: they were accused of disregard for Gentile property titles, and they obstructed the processes of Gentile law within their lands. In 1833 the Missourians, in mass meeting, resolved to drive them from the country. The five years thereafter were marked by plunder and abuse of the sect. The militia and the courts gave them no protection. They were driven out, and went to Illinois, but continued to hold part of their abandoned lands. First St Louis, and then other towns on the Missouri river in succession westward, as they were settled and became available as dépôts, served as the outfit points for the Indian trade up the Missouri and the trade with Mexico through Santa Fé. The trail followed by the latter had its beginning about 1812, and (beginning in 1825) was surveyed by the national government. In early days Mexican and American military detachments escorted the caravans on either side of the international line. Independence, Missouri (after about 1831) and Kansas City (after 1844) were the great centres of this trade, which by 1860 was of national importance. After the Civil War the railways gradually destroyed it, the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fé railroad running along the old wagon trail. No steamer traversed the Mississippi above the Ohio until 1817, nor was a voyage made between New Orleans and St Louis, nor the lower Missouri entered, until 1819. In 1832 a steamer ran to the mouth of the Yellowstone, and in 1890 the last commercial trip was made to old Fort Benton (Great Falls), Montana. The interval of years witnessed the growth of a river trade and its gradual decline as point after point on the river—Kansas City, St Joseph, Council Bluffs (Iowa), Sioux Falls (South Dakota) and Helena (Montana)—was reached and commanded by the railways. In 1906–1907 an active campaign was begun at Kansas City for improving the channel of the Missouri and stimulating river freighting below that point.
Among events leading up to the Civil War, first the annexation of Texas and then the war with Mexico left special impress on Missouri history. Since 1828, when national political parties were first thoroughly organized in the state, the Democrats had been supreme, and carried Missouri on the pro-slavery side of every issue of free and slave territory. But there was always a strong body of anti-slavery sentiment, nevertheless; and this took organized form in 1849, when Senator Benton repudiated certain ultra pro-slavery instructions, breathing a secession spirit, passed by the General Assembly for the guidance of the representatives of the state in Congress. From that time until his death he organized and led the anti-disunion party of the state, Francis Preston Blair, jun., succeeding him as leader. The struggle over Kansas (q.v.) aroused tremendous passion in Missouri. Her border counties furnished the bogus citizens who invaded Kansas to carry the first territorial elections, and soon guerrilla forays back and forth gave over the border to a carnival of crime and plunder. Political conditions were chaotic. In the presidential election of 1860, Douglas received the electoral vote of the state, the only one he carried in the Union. The Republicans had little strength outside St Louis, where the German element was strong. A party led by Claiborne F. Jackson, the governor-elect, was resolved to carry the state out of the Union. Such secession, it was supposed, would carry the other border states out also. With equal blindness the Secessionists favoured, and the Republicans opposed, the calling of a special state convention to decide the issue of secession. The election showed that popular sentiment was overwhelmingly hostile to secession; and the convention, by a vote of 80 to 1, resolved (March 4, 1861) that Missouri had “no adequate cause” therefor. Governor Jackson thereupon sought to attain his ends by intrigue, and the national arsenal at St Louis became the objective of both parties. It was won by the unconditional-union men, but a smaller arsenal at Liberty was seized by the Secessionists. Governor Jackson refused point-blank to contribute the quota of troops from Missouri called for by President Lincoln. Aggressive conflict really opened at St Louis on the 10th of May, and armed hostilities began in June. On the 10th of August 1861 at Wilson’s Creek, near Springfield, General Nathaniel Lyon was defeated by a superior Confederate force in one of the bloodiest battles of the war. After this the Confederates held much of southern Missouri until the next spring, when they were driven into Arkansas, never afterward regaining foothold in the state. In the autumn of 1864 Sterling Price led a brilliant but rather bootless Confederate raid across the state, along the Missouri River, and was only forced to retreat southward by defeat at Westport (Kansas City). The western border was rendered desolate and deserted by guerrilla forays throughout the war. Probably 25,000 or 30,000 soldiers served in the Confederate armies, and 109,111 were furnished to the Union arms. This was a remarkable showing. There was more or less internecine conflict throughout the war, and local disaffection under Union rule; and Confederate recruiting was carried on even north of the Missouri.
Altogether, the state offered a difficult civil and military problem throughout the Civil War. An emancipation proclamation issued by General J. C. Frémont at St Louis in August 1861, though promptly disavowed by President Lincoln, precipitated the issue. The state convention, after voting against secession, had adjourned, and after various sessions was dissolved in October 1863. Assuming revolutionary powers, it deposed Governor Jackson and other state officers, appointed their successors, declared vacant the seats of members of the Assembly, and abrogated the disloyal acts of that body. In October 1861 a rump of the deposed Assembly passed an act of secession, which the Confederate States saw fit to regard as legitimate, and under which they admitted Missouri to their union by declaration of the 28th of November. In 1862 the convention rejected the President’s suggestion of gradual emancipation, disfranchised Secessionists, and prepared a strong oath of allegiance. In the summer of 1863 the convention decreed emancipation with compensation to owners. This did not satisfy the Radical Republicans, and on the issue of ​immediate and unconditional emancipation they swept the state in November 1864. By the constitution of 1865 slavery was abolished outright. The convention of 1861, by maintaining continuous government, had saved the state from anarchy and from reconstruction by the national power; but an ironclad test oath (it required denial of forty-five distinct offences) was provided, to be taken by all voters, state, county and municipal officers, lawyers, jurors, teachers and clergymen. Its attempted enforcement was a grave error of judgment, and was attended by great abuses, and it was finally held unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court. The legislature, however, maintained its ends by registration laws that reduced to impotence the Democratic electorate. The Radical Republicans held control until 1870, when they were defeated by a combination of Liberal Republicans and Democrats, and the test-oath and the rest of the intolerant legislation of the war period were swept away. In 1872, the Democrats gained substantial control, and after 1876 their power was established beyond challenge. The constitution of 1875 closed the war period with blanket amnesties. Though in politics habitually Democratic, Missouri has generally had a strong opposition party—Whig in antebellum days, and since the war, Republican—which in recent years has made political conditions increasingly unstable. This instability is shown in congressional and local rather than in general state elections. In 1908 a Republican governor was elected, the first for more than thirty years.
The Governors of Missouri since 1804 have been as follow:— :
| Territorial Period. |||
| | Party Affiliation. | Service. |
| James Wilkinson | Appointed | 1805–1806 |
| Joseph Brown (acting governor) | | 1806–1807 |
| Frederick Bates (acting governor) | | 1807 |
| Meriwether Lewis | Appointed | 1807–1809 |
| Frederick Bates (acting governor) | | 1809–1810 |
| Benjamin Howard | Appointed | 1810–1812 |
| Frederick Bates (acting governor) | | 1812–1813 |
| William Clark | Appointed | 1813–1820 |
| State Period. |||
| Alexander McNair | Democrat | 1820–1824 |
| Frederick Bates (died in office) | ,, | 1824–1825 |
| Abraham J. Williams (acting governor) | | 1825 |
| John Miller (special election to fill out term) | Democrat | 1825–1828 |
| John Miller | ,, | 1828–1832 |
| Daniel Dunklin (resigned office) | ,, | 1832–1836 |
| Lilburn W. Boggs (acting governor) | | 1836 |
| Lilburn W. Boggs | Democrat | 1836–1840 |
| Thomas Reynolds (died in office) | ,, | 1840–1844 |
| M. M. Marmaduke (acting governor) | | 1844 |
| John C. Edwards | Democrat | 1844–1848 |
| Austin A. King | ,, | 1848–1853 |
| Sterling Price | ,, | 1853–1857 |
| Trusten Polk (elected to United States Senate) | ,, | 1857 |
| Hancock Jackson (acting governor) | | 1857 |
| Robert M. Stewart (elected to serve out term) | Democrat | 1857–1861 |
| Claiborne F. Jackson (deposed by state convention) | ,, | 1861 |
| Hamilton R. Gamble (appointed by state convention;  died in office), provisional governor | | 1861–1864 |
| Willard P. Hall (Lieut.-governor by same power,  acting provisional governor) | | 1864–1865 |
| Thomas C. Fletcher | Republican | 1865–1869 |
| Joseph W. McClurg | ,, | 1869–1871 |
| B. Gratz Brown | Liberal Republican (and Democrat) | 1871–1873 |
| Silas Woodson | ,, | 1873–1875 |
| Charles H. Hardin | Democrat | 1875–1877 |
| John S. Phelps | ,, | 1877–1881 |
| Thomas T. Crittenden | ,, | 1881–1885 |
| John S. Marmaduke (died in office) | ,, | 1885–1887 |
| Albert P. Morehouse (acting governor) | | 1887–1889 |
| David R. Francis | Democrat | 1889–1893 |
| William J. Stone | ,, | 1893–1897 |
| Lon V. Stephens | ,, | 1897–1901 |
| Alexander M. Dockerey | ,, | 1901–1905 |
| Joseph W. Folk | ,, | 1905–1909 |
| Herbert S. Hadley | Republican | 1909 |
Bibliography.—For Physiography: See Surface Features of Missouri (in Missouri Geological Survey Reports, vol. x., Jefferson City, 1896); publications of the State Bureau of Geology and Mines, including bulletins and reports of the Missouri Geological Survey (1853 seq.; new series, 15 vols., 1891–1904); publications of United States Geological Survey, particularly Bulletins 132, 213, 267, the 22nd Annual Report, part ii. pp. 23–227, &c.; and reports of state departments. On administration: the annual Official Manual of the State of Missouri (really private, Jefferson City); also F. N. Judson, Law and Practice of Taxation in Missouri (Columbia, 1900); M. S. Snow, Higher Education in Missouri (U.S. Bureau of Education, Washington, 1898). On History: Lucian Carr, Missouri (“American Commonwealths” Series, Boston, 1892); L. Houck, Spanish Régime in Missouri (3 vols., Chicago, 1910); T. L. Snead, The Fight for Missouri (New York, 1886); Wiley Britton, The Civil War on the Border (2 vols., New York, 1891–1899; 3rd ed. of vol. 1, revised, 1899); H. M. Chittenden, History of Early Steamboat Navigation on the Missouri River (2 vols., New York, 1903); W. B. Davis and D. S. Durrie, An Illustrated History of Missouri (St Louis, 1876); Encyclopedia of the History of Missouri . . . ed. by H. L. Conrad (6 vols., New York, St Louis, 1901).
* ↑ Counting the St Francis projection the length is 328 m.
* ↑ Both the Ozark region and the prairie region are divided by minor escarpments into ten or twelve sub-regions.
* ↑ There has been some controversy as to whether this condition is due to the elevation and corrosion of original flood-plain meanders after their development in a past base-level condition—which theory is probably correct—or to the natural, simultaneous lateral and vertical cut of an originally slightly sinuous stream, under such special conditions of stream declivity and horizontal bed strata (conditions supposed by some to be peculiarly fulfilled in this region) as would be favourable to the requisite balance of bank cutting and channel incision.
* ↑ Omitting here printing and publishing, and foundry and machine shop products, which (like carpentering, bakery products, &c., in cities) have little distinctive in them to set Missouri off from other states. But it is to be noted that St Louis is one of the leading producers of street-railway cars.
* ↑ In 1900 only one person in six had both parents of foreign birth.
* ↑ St Louis was the capital in 1812–1820, St Charles in 1820–1826, and Jefferson City since 1826.
* ↑ After the proscriptive features of this constitution were abolished by amendments in 1870, however, there was no great discontent, and the vote for holding a constitutional convention in 1875 was very close: 111,299 to 111,016.
* ↑ In 1907, in Missouri, as in various other states, passenger rates were reduced by law to 2 cents per mile; but this law was declared unconstitutional in 1909.
* ↑ The constitutional provision requiring assessments at cash valuations is not at all observed; according to the State Revenue Commission of 1902 the average tax valuation was 40 to 50% of the real value. The national censuses of 1880 and 1890 (no estimate being made in 1900) put the total value of all property at $1,562,000,000 and $2,397,902,945 respectively.
* ↑ In 1902 the bonded debts of counties and townships aggregated $8,066,878; that of towns and cities (mostly that of St Louis), $31,193,370.
* ↑ In 1804, the District of Louisiana, in the administrative system of the Territory of Indiana; in 1805, an independent government, renamed the Territory of Louisiana; in 1812, the Territory of Missouri; in 1816, another grade of territorial government.
* ↑ Until 1836 the state boundary in the north-west was the meridian of the mouth of the Kansas river drawn due north to the Iowa line. The addition of the triangle west of that line—the so-called Platte Purchase—violated the Missouri Compromise.
* ↑ In 1855 its value was estimated at $5,000,000. In 1860 it was much greater. In the latter year the trade employed 3000 wagons, 62,000 oxen and mules, and 7000 men.
* ↑ Under the constitution of 1820 the General Assembly had power to emancipate the slaves with the consent of their masters. In 1828 Senator T. H. Benton and others prepared a plan for educating the slaves and gradually emancipating them under state law; and undoubtedly a considerable party would have supported such a project, for the Whigs and Democrats were not then divided along party lines on the slavery issue; but nothing came of the plan, and the manner of its defeat proves that it could not possibly have been pushed to success. The trouble over Lovejoy’s printing office at St Louis (1833–1836) put an effectual end to the movement for emancipation.
* ↑ Compare the vote of 1861. The Union death-roll of Massachusetts (troops furnished, 159,165) was 13,942, that of Missouri 13,887.
* ↑ Thus liberating about 114,000 blacks, of a tax valuation of $40,000,000.
* ↑ The Liberals were those who thought unjust the proscriptionary legislation passed against the Secessionists and Democrats; and to this issue of local politics were added the issues of national reform which the course of President Grant’s administration had forced upon his party. A convention of Liberals that met at Jefferson City in January 1872 issued to all Republicans favourable to reform within the party an invitation to meet at Cincinnati in May; and this was the convention of revolters against General Grant that nominated Horace Greeley of New York and B. Gratz Brown of Missouri as Liberal Republican candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency respectively. The first definite organization of the Liberal Republican party may therefore be said to have been made in Missouri in 1870.
* ↑ From 1820–1844 the elections were in August and inaugurations in November; Governor King served from the 27th of December 1848 till January 1853; thereafter the inauguration was in January, and beginning with 1864 the election was in November. The term was four years except under the constitution of 1865.