Once Missouri was on the edge of the nation's last frontier and served as the stepping-stone to unknown country. Its role in American history is symbolized by the Gateway Arch, part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. A developer's dream of restoring the blighted St. Louis riverfront during the Great Depression, the project eventually became a national salute to the Louisiana Purchase. Sometimes criticized as an oversized croquet wicket, Eero Saarinen's stainless-steel vision of the Gateway to the West nevertheless was the beginning of an urban renewal project that grew far beyond the memorial site.
Two great rivers--the Missouri and the Mississippi--played prominent roles in the early development of the region. In the 1700s they were the pathways traveled by missionaries and white settlers. Boats plied both rivers in the 1800s to transport farm products out of Missouri and bring in manufactured goods. During the era of territorial expansion, Missouri was the eastern terminus of the Santa Fe and Oregon trails. Given its location as the national crossroads, it became a major railroad center.
Part of President Thomas Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase of 1803, Missouri was one of 13 states carved out of the land between the Mississippi and the Rockies. It was still a wilderness in Daniel Boone's waning years, when the trailblazer ran out of land in Kentucky and returned to his Missouri cabin to hunt and trap. Later the wilderness was tamed by farmers. Now more than two thirds of the Missouri people live in urban areas; more than a quarter reside in St. Louis and Kansas City, the eastern and western border cities.
Missouri shares its name with the river that cuts across the center of the state, entering the Mississippi above St. Louis. The name means canoe possessor and was given to the state by an American Indian tribe that lived in the area. The state's nickname is the Show Me State. This expression of skepticism is usually traced to a speech in 1899 in Philadelphia by Willard D. Vandiver, a Missouri congressman: I come from a country that raises corn, cotton, cockleburs, and Democrats. I'm from Missouri, and you've got to show me. It has also been called the Bullion State, the Lead State, and the Ozark State.
The chief reason for Missouri's importance as a transportation crossroads is its central position--about halfway between the Atlantic Ocean and the Rocky Mountains and midway between Canada and the Gulf of Mexico. It extends farther south than Virginia yet reaches farther north than Kansas. Missouri is the southernmost of the North Central states. It is bounded on the north by Iowa and on the west by Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma. The Missouri River forms the northern half of this boundary line. On the south is Arkansas. To the east, and separated from Missouri by the Mississippi River, are Tennessee, Kentucky, and Illinois. The longest east-west distance in the state is 305 miles (491 kilometers). From north to south the greatest distance is 285 miles (459 kilometers). Missouri has a total area of 69,697 square miles (180,514 square kilometers), including 752 square miles (1,948 square kilometers) of inland water surface.
