Missouri Timeline History

Fur Traders Descending the Missouri by Missouri painter George Caleb Bingham

arrow Missouri Timeline History

arrow 1682: Explorer, Sieur de La Salle, Robert Cavalier, traveled the Mississippi River, claiming the valley for France. He named the region "Louisiana" in honor of King Louis XIV

arrow 1700: Jesuit missionaries established the first white settlement. The Mission of St. Francis Xavier erected near the site where St. Louis would eventually be built

arrow 1724: Fort Orleans built on the north bank of the Missouri River

arrow 1762: Spain gained control of the Louisiana Territory in the Treaty of Fontainebleau

arrow 1764: City of St. Louis founded by Pierre Laclede Liguest and Rene Auguste Chouteau

arrow 1769: City of St. Charles established by Louis Blanchette as a trading post

arrow 1770: The Spanish government officially assumed control of the Territory of Louisiana

arrow 1793: Louis Lorimer received trading privileges and the authority to establish a post at Cape Girardeau

arrow 1796: Daniel Morgan Boone moved to Missouri and built a cabin at Femme Osage Creek

arrow 1800 Napoleon Bonaparte forced Spain to return the territory west of the Mississippi to France

arrow 1803: Louisiana Purchase occurs

arrow 1804: The Lewis and Clark Expedition started out from St. Louis

arrow 1805: The Territory of Louisiana established with its seat of government in St. Louis

arrow 1808: The first newspaper, the Missouri Gazette, began publication in St. Louis

arrow 1808: Fort Osage established on the Missouri River

arrow 1811: The New Madrid earthquake occurred, the worst in US history

arrow 1812: A portion of the Territory of Louisiana became the Territory of Missouri; the first general assembly of the Territory of Missouri met and the five original counties were organized: Cape Girardeau, New Madrid, St. Charles, St. Louis, and Ste. Genevieve

arrow 1817: The steamboat Zebulon M. Pike reached St. Louis; the first steamboat to navigate the Mississippi River above the mouth of the Ohio River

arrow 1818: The U.S. House of Representatives presented the first petition to Congress requesting statehood

arrow 1820: Missouri's first Constitution adopted; first state elections held and Alexander McNair was elected the first governor and the first General Assembly met in St. Louis

arrow 1821: President James Monroe admitted Missouri as the 24th state; the state capitol was temporarily located in St. Charles

arrow 1826: Jefferson City designated Missouri's state capitol

arrow 1835: Writer Samuel L. Clemens Mark Twain: born in Florida, Missouri

arrow 1837: President Martin Van Buren issued a proclamation which completed the annexation of the Platte Purchase area to Missouri

arrow 1837: Missouri's first capitol in Jefferson City destroyed by fire

arrow 1838: Governor Lilburn Boggs issued the "Extermination Order" against Mormons living in Missouri, demanding that members of the Mormon church leave the state

arrow 1839: The University of Missouri founded

arrow 1847: St. Louis connected to the East by telegraph

arrow 1849: A cholera epidemic struck St. Louis - over 4000 people died

arrow 1854: President Franklin Pierce signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, allowing the notion of "popular sovereignty" in determining if a territory would be a slave state or a free state

arrow 1857: The Dred Scott decision handed down by U.S. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney; the case originated in St. Louis. Scott was allowed to sue for his freedom from slavery based on the fact that he had previously lived in a free territory

arrow 1860: The Pony Express started its first run from St. Joseph to Sacramento, California

arrow 1861: The Battle of Wilson's Creek resulted in a Union retreat and southwestern Missouri was left in Confederate hands; President Abraham Lincoln revoked John Fremont's emancipation proclamation for Missouri

arrow 1862: A three day battle at Pea Ridge ended the Confederate military control in Missouri

arrow 1865: Slavery abolished

arrow 1873: Susan Blow opened the first public kindergarten in the United States in St. Louis

arrow 1875: A grasshopper plague in Missouri caused an estimated $15 million worth of damages

arrow 1882: Jesse James killed by Bob Ford in St. Joseph

arrow 1901: First State Fair opened at Sedalia

arrow 1911: State Capitol building completely destroyed by fire after being struck by lightning

arrow 1919: Missouri became the eleventh state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment granting suffrage to women

arrow 1920: Marie Byrum became the first woman to vote in Missouri history

arrow 1922: Mellcene T. Smith and Sarah Lucille Turner became the first women elected to the Missouri state legislature

arrow 1927: Charles Lindbergh landed the "Spirit of St. Louis" in Paris

arrow 1931: Bagnell Dam completed, forming the Lake of the Ozarks

arrow 1945: U.S. Vice President Harry S. Truman became President upon the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt

arrow 1946: Winston Churchill delivered his "Iron Curtain" speech on the Westminster College campus in Fulton

arrow 1948: Harry S. Truman elected U.S. President

arrow 1965: The Gateway Arch Jefferson National Expansion Memorial: was completed in St. Louis

arrow 1968: Race riots occurred in Kansas City after the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

arrow 1992: Missouri voters approved riverboat gambling on the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers

arrow 1993: The Great Flood of 1993 devastated parts of Missouri and the Midwest

arrow 1995: Scientists, archeologists and descendants gathered in Kearney to dig up Jesse James' grave.

arrow 1996: Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher delivered a major address at Westminster College in Fulton

arrow 2000: Governor Mel Carnahan, his son and a campaign advisor died in a airplane crash just outside of St. Louis

arrow 2001: John Ashcroft became U.S. Attorney General
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