Humans have inhabited present-day Missouri for at least 12,000 years. TheMississippian culture, which emerged in the ninth century, built cities with pyramidal and other ceremonialmounds before declining in the 14th century. The IndigenousOsage andMissouria nations inhabited the area when European people arrived in the 17th century. The French incorporated the territory intoLouisiana, foundingSte. Genevieve in 1735 andSt. Louis in 1764. After a brief period ofSpanish rule, the United States acquired Missouri as part of theLouisiana Purchase in 1803. Americans from theUpland South rushed into the newMissouri Territory, taking advantage of its productive agricultural plains; Missouri played a central role in the westward expansion of the United States.[7] Missouri was admitted as a slave state as part of theMissouri Compromise of 1820. As aborder state,Missouri's role in theAmerican Civil War was complex, and it was subject to rival governments, raids, and guerilla warfare. After the war, bothGreater St. Louis and theKansas City metropolitan area became large centers of industrialization and business.
The state is named for theMissouri River, which was named after the indigenousMissouria, aSiouan-language tribe. French colonists adapted a form of theIllinois language-name for the people:Wimihsoorita. Their name means 'one who has dugout canoes'.[12]
The nameMissouri has several different pronunciations even among its present-day inhabitants,[13] the two most common being/mɪˈzɜːri/ⓘmih-ZUR-ee and/mɪˈzɜːrə/ⓘmih-ZUR-ə.[14][15] Further pronunciations also exist in Missouri or elsewhere in the United States, involving the realization of the medial consonant as either/z/ or/s/; the vowel in the second syllable as either/ɜːr/ or/ʊər/;[16] and the third syllable as/i/ or/ə/.[15] Any combination of these phonetic realizations may be observed coming from speakers ofAmerican English. In BritishReceived Pronunciation, the preferred variant is/mɪˈzʊəri/, with/mɪˈsʊəri/ being a possible alternative.[17][18]
Donald M. Lance, a professor of English at theUniversity of Missouri, stated that no pronunciation could be declared correct, nor could any be clearly defined as native or outsider, rural or urban, southern or northern, educated or otherwise.[19] Politicians often employ multiple pronunciations, even during a single speech, to appeal to a greater number of listeners.[13] In informal contexts respellings of the state's name, such as "Missour-ee" or "Missour-uh", are occasionally used to distinguish pronunciations phonetically.
Nicknames
There is no official state nickname.[20] However, Missouri's unofficial nickname is the "Show Me State", which appears on itslicense plates. This phrase has several origins. One is popularly ascribed to a speech by CongressmanWillard Vandiver in 1899, who declared that "I come from a state that raises corn and cotton,cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I'm from Missouri, and you have got to show me." This is in keeping with the saying "I'mfrom Missouri", which means "I'm skeptical of the matter and not easily convinced."[21] However, according to researchers, the phrase "show me" was already in use before the 1890s.[22] Another one states that it is a reference to Missouri miners who were taken toLeadville, Colorado, to replace striking workers. Since the new miners were unfamiliar with the mining methods, they required frequent instruction. Pit bosses began saying, "That man is from Missouri. You'll have to show him."[20]
Other nicknames for Missouri include "The Lead State", "The Bullion State", "The Ozark State", "The Mother of the West", "The Iron Mountain State", and "Pennsylvania of the West".[23] It is also known as the "Cave State"[24]: 53 because there are more than 7,300 recorded caves in the state (second toTennessee).Perry County is the county with the most caves and the single longest cave.[25][26]
The official state motto is "Salus Populi Suprema Lex Esto",Latin for "Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law."[27]
Archaeological excavations along river valleys have shown continuous habitation since about 9000 BCE.[28] Beginning before 1000CE, the people of theMississippian culture created regional political centers at present-daySt. Louis and across theMississippi River atCahokia, near present-dayCollinsville, Illinois. Their large cities included thousands of individual residences. Still, they are known for their surviving massiveearthwork mounds, built for religious, political and social reasons, inplatform,ridgetop andconical shapes. Cahokia was the center of a regional trading network that reached from theGreat Lakes to theGulf of Mexico. The civilization declined by 1400 CE, and most descendants left the area long before the arrival of Europeans. St. Louis was at one time known as Mound City by the European Americans because of the numerous surviving prehistoric mounds since lost to urban development. The Mississippian culture left mounds throughout the middle Mississippi and Ohio river valleys, extending into the southeast and the upper river.
The land that became the state of Missouri was part of numerous different territories, possessed changing and often indeterminate borders, and had many differentNative American and European names between the 1600s and statehood. For much of the first half of the 1700s, the west bank of theMississippi River that would become Missouri was mostly uninhabited, something of a no man's land that kept peace between theIllinois on the east bank of the Mississippi River and to the North, and the Osage and Missouri Indians of the lower Missouri Valley. In the early 1700s, French traders and missionaries explored the whole of the Mississippi Valley, and named the region "Louisiana". Around the same time, a different group of French Canadians established five villages on the east bank of the Mississippi River and identified their settlements as being in le pays des Illinois, "the country of the Illinois". When settlers ofFrench Canadian descent began crossing the Mississippi River to establish settlements such as Ste. Genevieve, they continued to identify their settlements as being in the Illinois Country. At the same time, the French settlements on both sides of the Mississippi River were part of the French province ofLouisiana. To distinguish the settlements in the Middle Mississippi Valley from French settlements in the lower Mississippi Valley around New Orleans, French officials and inhabitants referred to the Middle Mississippi Valley as La Haute Louisiane, "The High Louisiana", or "Upper Louisiana".
The first European settlers were mostly ethnicFrench Canadians, who created their first settlement in Missouri at present-daySte. Genevieve, about 45 miles (72 km) south of St. Louis. They had migrated in about 1750 from theIllinois Country. They came from colonial villages on the east side of the Mississippi River, where soils were becoming exhausted and there was insufficient river bottom land for the growing population. The early Missourisettlements included many enslaved Africans and Native Americans, and slave labor was central to both commercial agriculture and the fur trade. Sainte-Geneviève became a thriving agricultural center, producing enough surplus wheat,corn and tobacco to ship tons of grain annually downriver to Lower Louisiana for trade. Grain production in the Illinois Country was critical to the survival of Lower Louisiana and especially the city of New Orleans.
St. Louis was founded on February 14, 1764, by French fur tradersGilbert Antoine de St. Maxent,Pierre Laclède, andAuguste Chouteau.[29] From 1764 to 1803, European control of the area west of the Mississippi to the northernmost part of the Missouri River basin, called Louisiana, was assumed by the Spanish as part of the Viceroyalty ofNew Spain, due toTreaty of Fontainebleau[30] (in order to have Spain join with France in the war against England). The arrival of the Spanish in St. Louis was in September 1767.
St. Louis became the center of a regionalfur trade with Native American tribes that extended up the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, dominating the regional economy for decades. Trading partners of major firms shipped their furs from St. Louis by river down to New Orleans for export to Europe. They provided a variety of goods to traders for sale and trade with their Native American clients. The fur trade and associated businesses made St. Louis an early financial center and provided the wealth for some to build fine houses and import luxury items. Its location near the confluence of the Illinois River meant it also handled produce from the agricultural areas. River traffic and trade along the Mississippi were integral to the state's economy. As the area's first major city, St. Louis expanded greatly after the invention of thesteamboat and the increased river trade.
19th century
Areas ofSpanish Louisiana around 1803 overlaid over the current American states that it encompassed.
Part of the 1803Louisiana Purchase by the United States, Missouri earned the nicknameGateway to the West because it served as a significant departure point for expeditions and settlers heading to the West during the 19th century.St. Charles, just west of St. Louis, was the starting point and the return destination of theLewis and Clark Expedition, which ascended the Missouri River in 1804, to explore the western lands to the Pacific Ocean. For decades,St. Louis was a major supply point for parties of settlers heading west.
Missouri was historically a Southern state. As many of the early settlers in western and southeastern Missouri migrated from theUpper South includingKentucky,Tennessee, andVirginia, they brought enslavedAfrican Americans as agricultural laborers, and they desired to continue their culture and the institution ofslavery. They settled predominantly in 17 counties along theMissouri River, in an area of flatlands that enabledplantation agriculture and became known as "Little Dixie".
The states and territories of the United States as a result of Missouri's admission as a state on August 10, 1821. The remainder of the formerMissouri Territory became unorganized territory.
In 1821, the former Missouri Territory was admitted as aslave state, under theMissouri Compromise, and with a temporary state capital in St. Charles. In 1826, thecapital was shifted to its permanent location ofJefferson City, also on the Missouri River.
Originally the state's western border was a straight line, defined as the meridian passing through the Kawsmouth,[31] the point where theKansas River enters the Missouri River. The river has moved since this designation. This line is known as the Osage Boundary.[32] In 1836 thePlatte Purchase was added to the northwest corner of the state after purchase of the land from the native tribes, making the Missouri River the border north of the Kansas River. This addition increased the land area of what was already the largest state in the Union at the time (about 66,500 square miles (172,000 km2) to Virginia's 65,000 square miles, which then included West Virginia).[33]
In the early 1830s,Mormon migrants from northern states and Canada began settling nearIndependence and areas just north of there. Conflicts over religion and slavery arose between the 'old settlers' (mainly from the South) and the Mormons (mainly from the North). TheMormon War erupted in 1838. By 1839, with the help of an "Extermination Order" by GovernorLilburn Boggs, the old settlers forcibly expelled the Mormons from Missouri and confiscated their lands.
Conflicts over slavery exacerbated border tensions among the states and territories. From 1838 to 1839, a border dispute withIowa over the so-calledHoney Lands resulted in both states' calling-up ofmilitias along the border.
With increasing migration, from the 1830s to the 1860s, Missouri's population almost doubled with every decade. Most newcomers were American-born and Southern, but many later arrivals were Northern migrants as well as Irish and German immigrants who arrived in the late 1840s and 1850s. As a majority wereCatholic, they set up their own religious institutions in the state, which had been mostlyProtestant. Many settled in cities, creating a regional and then state network of Catholic churches and schools. 19th-century German immigrants created the wine industry along the Missouri River and the beer industry in St. Louis.
While many German immigrants were strongly anti-slavery,[34][35] many Irish immigrants living in cities were pro-slavery, fearing that liberating African-American slaves would create a glut of unskilled labor, driving wages down.[35]
Most Missouri farmers practicedsubsistence farming before theAmerican Civil War. The majority of those who held slaves had fewer than five each.Planters, defined by some historians as those holding 20 slaves or more, were concentrated in the counties known as "Little Dixie", in the central part of the state along theMissouri River as well as southeastern Missouri. The tensions over slavery chiefly had to do with the future of the state and nation. In 1860, enslavedAfrican Americans made up less than 10% of the state's population of 1,182,012.[36] In order to control the flooding of farmland and low-lying villages along the Mississippi, the state had completed construction of 140 miles (230 km) oflevees along the river by 1860.[37]
After the secession of Southern states began in 1861, the Missouri legislature called for the election of a special convention on secession. This convention voted against secession, but also qualified their support of the Union. In the aftermath ofBattle of Fort Sumter Pro-Southern GovernorClaiborne F. Jackson ordered the mobilization of several hundred members of the state militia who had gathered in a camp inSt. Louis for training. In secret, he also requested Confederate arms and artillery to help take theSt. Louis Arsenal. Alarmed at this action, and discovering the Confederate aid, GeneralNathaniel Lyon struck first, encircling the camp and forcing the state troops to surrender. Lyon directed his soldiers, largely non-English-speaking Germanimmigrants, to march the prisoners through the streets, and this led to riot by pro-secession citizens. While it is disputed how it started, this riot led to violence and Union soldiers killed by St. Louis civilians. The event as a whole, is called theCamp Jackson Affair.
These events sharpened the divisions within the state. Governor Jackson appointedSterling Price, president of the convention on secession, as head of the newMissouri State Guard. In the face of Union General Lyon's rapid advance through the state, Jackson and Price were forced to flee the capital ofJefferson City on June 14, 1861. InNeosho, Missouri, Jackson called the state legislature into session to call for secession. However, the elected legislative body was split between pro-Union and pro-Confederate. As such, few of the pro-unionist attended the session called in Neosho, and the ordinance of secession was quickly adopted. The Confederacy recognized Missouri secession on October 30, 1861.
With the elected governor absent from the capital and the legislators largely dispersed, the state convention was reassembled with most of its members present, save twenty who fled south with Jackson's forces. The convention declared all offices vacant and installedHamilton Gamble as the new governor of Missouri. President Lincoln's administration immediately recognized Gamble's government as the legal Missouri government. The federal government's decision enabled raising pro-Union militia forces for service within the state and volunteer regiments for the Union Army.
Fighting ensued between Union forces and a combined army of General Price's Missouri State Guard and Confederate troops fromArkansas and Texas under GeneralBen McCulloch. After winning victories at thebattle of Wilson's Creek and the siege ofLexington, Missouri and suffering losses elsewhere, the Confederate forces retreated to Arkansas and laterMarshall, Texas, in the face of a largely reinforced Union Army.
Though regular Confederate troops staged some large-scale raids into Missouri, the fighting in the state for the next three years consisted chiefly ofguerrilla warfare. "Citizen soldiers" or insurgents such as CaptainWilliam Quantrill,Frank andJesse James, theYounger brothers, andWilliam T. Anderson made use of quick, small-unit tactics. Pioneered by the Missouri Partisan Rangers, such insurgencies also arose in portions of the Confederacy occupied by the Union during the Civil War. Historians have portrayed stories of the James brothers' outlaw years as an American "Robin Hood" myth.[38] The vigilante activities of theBald Knobbers of the Ozarks in the 1880s were an unofficial continuation of insurgent mentality long after the official end of the war, and they are a favorite theme inBranson's self-image.[39]
Union Station in St. Louis was the world's largest and busiest train station when it opened in 1894.
Missouri remained electorally competitive during theJim Crow era, and did not disenfranchise African Americans, who comprised less than 10% of the state's population from 1870 to 1960. In particular, Missouri never implemented apoll tax as a requirement to vote.[40]
However, Missouri did enact racial segregation. Democratic PresidentHarry S. Truman grew up in Missouri, where segregation was practiced and largely accepted. Truman would later issueExecutive Order 9981 in July 1948, prohibiting racial segregation in the armed forces.[41]
TheProgressive Era (1890s to 1920s) saw numerous prominent leaders from Missouri trying to end corruption and modernize politics, government, and society.Joseph "Holy Joe" Folk was a key leader who made a strong appeal to the middle class and rural evangelical Protestants. Folk was elected governor as a progressive reformer andDemocrat in the1904 election. He promoted what he called "the Missouri Idea", the concept of Missouri as a leader in public morality through popular control of law and strict enforcement. He successfully conducted antitrust prosecutions, ended free railroad passes for state officials, extended bribery statutes, improved election laws, required formal registration for lobbyists, made racetrack gambling illegal and enforced the Sunday-closing law. He helped enact Progressive legislation, including an initiative and referendum provision, regulation of elections, education, employment and child labor, railroads, food, business, and public utilities. Several efficiency-oriented examiner boards and commissions were established during Folk's administration, including many agricultural boards and the Missouri library commission.[42]
Between the Civil War and the end of World War II, Missouri transitioned from a rural southern state to a hybrid industrial-service-agricultural midwestern state as the Midwest rapidly industrialized and expanded into Missouri. The expansion of railroads to the West transformed Kansas City into a major transportation hub within the nation, and led to major Midwestern migration after the war overtaking the state's original Southern population. The growth of the Texas cattle industry along with this increased rail infrastructure and the invention of therefrigerated boxcar also made Kansas City a majormeatpacking center, as largecattle drives from Texas brought herds of cattle toDodge City and other Kansas towns. There, the cattle were loaded onto trains destined for Kansas City, where they were butchered and distributed to the eastern markets. The first half of the 20th century was the height of Kansas City's prominence, and its downtown became a showcase for stylishArt Decoskyscrapers as construction boomed.
In 1930, there was adiphtheria epidemic in the area around Springfield, which killed approximately 100 people. Serum was rushed to the area, and medical personnel stopped the epidemic.
During the mid-1950s and 1960s, St. Louis and Kansas City suffered deindustrialization and loss of jobs in railroads and manufacturing, as did otherMidwestern industrial cities.St. Charles claims to be the site of the firstinterstate highway project in 1956.[43] Such highway construction made it easy for middle-class residents to leave the city for newer housing developed in the suburbs, often former farmland where land was available at lower prices. These major cities have gone through decades of readjustment to develop different economies and adjust to demographic changes. Suburban areas have developed separate job markets, both in knowledge industries and services, such as major retail malls.
21st century
In 2014, Missouri received national attention for theprotests and riots that followed theshooting of Michael Brown by a police officer ofFerguson,[44][45][46] which led GovernorJay Nixon to call out theMissouri National Guard.[47][48] Agrand jury declined toindict the officer, and theU.S. Department of Justice concluded, after careful investigation, that the police officer legitimately feared for his safety.[49] However, in a separate investigation, the Department of Justice also found that the Ferguson Police Department and the City of Ferguson relied on unconstitutional practices in order to balance the city's budget through racially motivated excessive fines and punishments,[50] that the Ferguson police "had used excessive and dangerous force and had disproportionately targeted blacks,"[51] and that the municipal court "emphasized revenue over public safety, leading to routine breaches of citizens' constitutional guarantees of due process and equal protection under the law."[52]
On June 7, 2017, theNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People issued a warning to prospective African-American travelers to Missouri. This is the first NAACP warning ever covering an entire state.[55][56] According to a 2018 report by theMissouri Attorney General's office, for the past 18 years, "African Americans, Hispanics and other people of color are disproportionately affected by stops, searches and arrests."[57] The same report found that the biggest discrepancy was in 2017, when "black motorists were 85% more likely to be pulled over in traffic stops".[58]
In 2018, the USDA announced its plans to relocate Economic Research Service (ERS) and National Institute of Food & Agriculture (NIFA) to Kansas City. They have since decided on a specific location in downtown Kansas City, Missouri.[59] With the addition of the KC Streetcar project and construction of the Sprint Center Arena, the downtown area in KC has attracted investment in new offices, hotels, and residential complexes. Both Kansas City and St. Louis are undergoing a rebirth in their downtown areas with the addition of the new Power & Light (KC) and Ballpark Village (STL) districts and the renovation of existing historical buildings in each downtown area.[60] The 2019 announcement of an MLS expansion team in St. Louis is driving even more development in the downtown west area of St. Louis.[61] Kansas City has experienced a boom in population, with new developments such as Three Light apartments being centered inDowntown Kansas City,[62][63] as well as suburban development in theNorthland.[64]
Missouri borders eight different states, a figure equaled only by its neighbor, Tennessee. Missouri is bounded byIowa on the north; byIllinois,Kentucky, andTennessee across the Mississippi River on the east; on the south byArkansas; and byOklahoma,Kansas, andNebraska (the last across the Missouri River) on the west. Whereas the northern and southern boundaries are straight lines, theMissouri Bootheel extends south between theSt. Francis and theMississippi rivers. The two largest rivers are the Mississippi (which defines the eastern boundary of the state) and the Missouri River (which flows from west to east through the state), essentially connecting the two largest metros of Kansas City and St. Louis.
Although today it is usually considered part of theMidwest,[65] Missouri was historically seen by many as aborder state, chiefly because of the settlement of migrants from the South and its status as a slave state before the Civil War, balanced by the influence of St. Louis. The counties that made up "Little Dixie" were those along the Missouri River in the center of the state, settled by Southern migrants who held the greatest concentration of slaves.
In 2005, Missouri received 16,695,000 visitors to its national parks and other recreational areas totaling 101,000 acres (410 km2), giving it $7.41 million in annual revenues, 26.6% of its operating expenditures.[66]
Topography
A physiographic map of Missouri
North of, and in some cases just south of, the Missouri River lie the Northern Plains that stretch into Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas. Here, rolling hills remain from theglaciation that once extended from the Canadian Shield to the Missouri River. Missouri has many large river bluffs along the Mississippi, Missouri, andMeramec Rivers. Southern Missouri rises to theOzark Mountains, adissected plateau surrounding thePrecambrianigneousSt. Francois Mountains. This region also hostskarst topography characterized by high limestone content with the formation of sinkholes and caves.[67]
The southeastern part of the state is known as theMissouri Bootheel region, which is part of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain orMississippi embayment. This region is the lowest, flattest, warmest, and wettest part of the state. It is also among the poorest, as the economy there is mostly agricultural.[68] It is also the most fertile, with cotton and rice crops predominant. The Bootheel was the epicenter of the fourNew Madrid Earthquakes of 1811 and 1812.
Missouri generally has ahumid continental climate with cool, sometimes cold, winters and hot, humid, and wet summers. In the southern part of the state, particularly in theBootheel, the climate becomeshumid subtropical. Located in the interior United States, Missouri often experiences extreme temperatures. Without high mountains or oceans nearby to moderate temperature, its climate is alternately influenced by air from the cold Arctic and the hot and humid Gulf of Mexico. Missouri's highest recorded temperature is 118 °F (48 °C) atWarsaw andUnion on July 14, 1954, while the lowest recorded temperature is −40 °F (−40 °C) also at Warsaw on February 13, 1905.
Located inTornado Alley, Missouri also receives extreme weather in the form of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. On May 22, 2011, amassive EF-5 tornado killed 158 people and destroyed roughly one-third of the city ofJoplin. The tornado caused an estimated $1–3 billion in damages, killed 159 people and injured more than a thousand. It was the first EF5 to hit the state since 1957 and the deadliest in the U.S. since 1947, making it the seventh deadliest tornado in American history and 27th deadliest in the world.St. Louis and its suburbs also have a history of experiencing particularly severe tornadoes, the most recent one of note being an EF4 that damagedLambert-St. Louis International Airport on April 22, 2011.One of the worst tornadoes in American history struck St. Louis on May 27, 1896, killing at least 255 people and causing $10 million in damage (equivalent to $3.9 billion in 2009 or $5.72 billion in today's dollars).
Monthly normal high and low temperatures for various Missouri cities in °F (°C).
Recreational and commercial uses of public forests, including grazing, logging, and mining, increased after World WarII. Fishermen, hikers, campers, and others started lobbying to protect forest areas with a "wilderness character". During the 1930s and 1940s,Aldo Leopold,Arthur Carhart andBob Marshall developed a "wilderness" policy for the Forest Service. Their efforts bore fruit with theWilderness Act of 1964, which designated wilderness areas "where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by men, where man himself is a visitor and does not remain." This includedsecond growth public forests like theMark Twain National Forest.[71]
Missouri has 114 counties and oneindependent city, St. Louis, which is Missouri's most densely populated—5,140 people per square mile. The largest counties by population areSt. Louis (1,004,125),Jackson (717,204), andSt. Charles (406,262).Worth County is the smallest (1,973). The largest counties by size areTexas (1,179 square miles) andShannon (1,004). Worth County is the smallest (266).
Jefferson City is the capital city of Missouri, while the state's five largest cities are Kansas City, St. Louis, Springfield,Columbia, and Independence.[72]
Springfield is Missouri's third-largest city and the principal city of theSpringfield-Branson Metropolitan Area, which has a population of 549,423 and includes seven counties in southwestern Missouri.Branson is a major tourist attraction in theOzarks in southwest Missouri. Some of the other major cities comprising the Springfield-Branson metro area includeNixa,Ozark, andRepublic.
Missouri had a population of 5,988,927, according to the 2010 census; an increase of 137,525 (2.3 percent) since the year 2010. From 2010 to 2018, this includes a natural increase of 137,564 people since the last census (480,763 births less 343,199 deaths) and an increase of 88,088 people due to netmigration into the state.Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 50,450 people, and migration within the country produced a net increase of 37,638 people. More than half of Missourians (3,294,936 people, or 55.0%) live within the state's two largest metropolitan areas—St. Louis and Kansas City. The state's population density of 86.9 people per square mile in 2009, was alsocloser to the national average (86.8 in 2009) than any other state. The top countries of origin for Missouri's immigrants in 2018 wereMexico,China,India,Vietnam andBosnia and Herzegovina.[75]
Missouri – Racial and ethnic composition Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos may be of any race.
In 2004, the population included 194,000 foreign-born people (3.4 percent of the state population).
The five largest ancestry groups in Missouri are:German (27.4 percent),Irish (14.8 percent),English (10.2 percent),American (8.5 percent) andFrench (3.7 percent).
Ethnic origins in Missouri
German Americans are an ancestry group present throughout Missouri. African Americans are a substantial part of the population in St. Louis (56.6% of African Americans in the state lived inSt. Louis orSt. Louis County as of the 2010 census), Kansas City, Boone County and in the southeastern Bootheel and some parts of the Missouri River Valley, where plantation agriculture was once important. MissouriCreoles of French ancestry are concentrated in theMississippi River Valley south of St. Louis (seeMissouri French). Kansas City is home to large and growing immigrant communities from Latin America esp.Mexico andColombia, Africa (i.e.Sudan, Somalia andNigeria), and Southeast Asia including China and thePhilippines; and Europe like the formerYugoslavia (seeBosnian American). A notableCherokee Indian population exists in Missouri, and 30,518 identified as being Native American alone in 2020, while 152,917 did in combination with one or more other races.[88]
In 2004, 6.6 percent of the state's population was reported as younger than5, 25.5 percent younger than 18, and 13.5 percent 65 or older. Females were approximately 51.4 percent of the population. 81.3 percent of Missouri residents were high school graduates (more than the national average), and 21.6 percent had a bachelor's degree or higher. 3.4 percent of Missourians were foreign-born, and 5.1 percent reported speaking a language other than English at home.
In 2010, there were 2,349,955 households in Missouri, with 2.45 people per household. The homeownership rate was 70.0 percent, and the median value of an owner-occupied housing unit was $137,700. The median household income for 2010 was $46,262, or $24,724 per capita. There was 14.0 percent (1,018,118) of Missourians living below the poverty line in 2010.
The mean commute time to work was 23.8 minutes.
Map of counties in Missouri by racial plurality, per the 2020 U.S. census
Legend
Non-Hispanic White
50–60%
60–70%
70–80%
80–90%
90%+
Black or African American
40–50%
Birth data
In 2011, 28.1% of Missouri's population younger than age1 were minorities.[89]
Note: Births in table do not add up, because Hispanics are counted both by their ethnicity and by their race, giving a higher overall number.
Since 2016, data for births ofWhite Hispanic origin are not collected, but included in oneHispanic group; persons of Hispanic origin may be of any race.
Language
The population center for the United States has been in Missouri since 1980. As of 2020, it is nearInterstate 44 in Missouri as it approachesSpringfield.
The vast majority of people in Missouri speak English. Approximately 5.1% of the population reported speaking a language other than English at home. The Spanish language is spoken in small Latino communities in the St. Louis and Kansas City Metro areas.[101]
Missouri is home to an endangered dialect of the French language known asMissouri French. Speakers of the dialect, who call themselvesCréoles, are descendants of the French pioneers who settled the area then known as theIllinois Country beginning in the late 17th century. It developed in isolation from French speakers in Canada andLouisiana, becoming quite distinct from the varieties ofCanadian French andLouisiana French. Once widely spoken throughout the area, Missouri French is now nearly extinct, with only a few elderly speakers able to use it.[102][103]
According to a Pew Research study[104] conducted in 2014, 80% of Missourians identify with a religion. 77% affiliate with Christianity and its various denominations and the other 3% are adherents of non-Christian religions. The remaining 20% have no religion, with 2% specifically identifying as atheists and 3% identifying as agnostics (the other 15% do not identify as "anything in particular").
The religious demographics of Missouri are as follows:
Among the other denominations there are approximately 93,000 Mormons in 253 congregations, 25,000 Jewish adherents in 21synagogues, 12,000 Muslims in 39masjids, 7,000 Buddhists in 34 temples, 20,000 Hindus in 17 temples, 2,500Unitarians in nine congregations, 2,000 of theBaháʼí Faith in 17 temples, fiveSikh temples, aZoroastrian temple, aJain temple and an uncounted number ofneopagans.[106]
The agriculture products of the state are beef,soybeans, pork,dairy products,hay,corn, poultry,sorghum,cotton,rice, andeggs. Missouri is ranked sixth in the nation for the production of hogs and seventh for cattle. Missouri is ranked in the top five states in the nation for production of soy beans, and it is ranked fourth in the nation for the production of rice. In 2001, there were 108,000 farms, the second-largest number in any state after Texas. Missouri actively promotes its rapidly growingwine industry. According to the Missouri Partnership, Missouri's agriculture industry contributes $33 billion in GDP to Missouri's economy, and generates $88 billion in sales and more than 378,000 jobs.[113]
Missouri has vast quantities oflimestone. Other resources mined are lead, coal, and crushedstone. Missouri produces the most lead of all the states. Most of the lead mines are in thecentral eastern portion of the state. Missouri also ranks first or near first in the production oflime, a key ingredient inPortland cement.
Missouri also has a growing science, agricultural technology, and biotechnology field.Monsanto, formerly one of the largest biotech companies in America, was based inSt. Louis until it was acquired byBayer AG in 2018. It is now part of the Crop Science Division ofBayer Corporation, Bayer's U.S. subsidiary.
Tourism, services, and wholesale/retail trade follow manufacturing in importance; tourism benefits from the many rivers, lakes, caves, and parks throughout the state. In addition to a network of state parks, Missouri is home toGateway Arch National Park in St. Louis and theOzark National Scenic Riverways. A much-visited show cave isMeramec Caverns, nearStanton.
Missouri is the only state in the Union to have twoFederal Reserve Banks: one inKansas City (serving western Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Colorado, northern New Mexico, and Wyoming) and one inSt. Louis (serving eastern Missouri, southern Illinois, southern Indiana, western Kentucky, western Tennessee, northern Mississippi, and all of Arkansas).[114]
The state's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in April 2017 was 3.9 percent.[115] In 2017, Missouri became a right-to-work state,[116] but in August 2018, Missouri voters rejected aright-to-work law with 67% to 33%.[117][118][119]
Personalincome is taxed in ten different earning brackets, ranging from 1.5% to 6.0%. Missouri'ssales tax rate for most items is 4.225%, with some additional local levies. More than 2,500 Missouri local governments rely onproperty taxes levied on real property (real estate) andpersonal property.
Most personal property is exempt, except for motorized vehicles. Exempt real estate includes property owned by governments and property used as nonprofit cemeteries, exclusively for religious worship, for schools and colleges, and purely charitable purposes. There is noinheritance tax and limited Missouriestate tax related tofederal estate tax collection.
In 2017, the Tax Foundation rated Missouri as having the fifth-best corporate tax index,[120] and the 15th-best overall tax climate.[120] Missouri's corporate income tax rate is 6.25%; however, 50% of federal income tax payments may be deducted before computing taxable income, leading to an effective rate of 5.2%.[121]
Energy
In 2012, Missouri had roughly 22,000 MW of installed electricity generation capacity.[122] In 2011, 82% of Missouri's electricity was generated bycoal.[123] Ten percent was generated from the state's onlynuclear power plant,[123] theCallaway Plant in Callaway County, northeast ofJefferson City. Five percent was generated bynatural gas.[123] One percent was generated byhydroelectric sources,[123] such as the dams forTruman Lake andLake of the Ozarks. Missouri has a small but growing amount of wind and solar power—wind capacity increased from 309 MW in 2009 to 459 MW in 2011, while photovoltaics have increased from 0.2 MW to 1.3 MW over the same period.[124][125] As of 2016, Missouri's solar installations had reached 141 MW.[126]
TheKansas City Symphony and theSt. Louis Symphony Orchestra are the state's major orchestras. The latter is the nation's second-oldest symphony orchestra and achieved prominence in recent years under conductorLeonard Slatkin.Branson is well known for its music theaters, most of which bear the name of a star performer or musical group.
The Constitution of Missouri, the fourth constitution for the state, was adopted in 1945. It provides for three branches of government: the legislative, judicial, and executive branches. The legislative branch consists of two bodies: theHouse of Representatives and theSenate. These bodies comprise theMissouri General Assembly.
The House of Representatives has 163 members apportioned based on the lastdecennial census. The Senate consists of 34 members from districts of approximately equal populations. The judicial department comprises theSupreme Court of Missouri, which has seven judges, theMissouri Court of Appeals (an intermediateappellate court divided into three districts), sitting in Kansas City, St. Louis, and Springfield, and 45 Circuit Courts which function as local trial courts. The executive branch is headed by theGovernor of Missouri and includes five other statewide elected offices. Following the departure from office of State AuditorNicole Galloway on January 9, 2023, there are no Democrats holding statewide elected positions in Missouri.[133]
Harry S Truman (1884–1972), the 33rd President of the United States (Democrat, 1945–1953), was born inLamar. He was a judge inJackson County and thenrepresented the state in theUnited States Senate for ten years, before being elected vice-president in1944. He lived in Independence after retiring as president in 1953.
In a 2020 study, Missouri was ranked as 48th on theCost of Voting Index with only Texas and Georgia ranking higher.[134]
2024 United States presidential election results by county
Democratic
Republican
Prior to 2008, Missouri had been widely regarded as a bellwether in American politics, often making it aswing state. The state had a longer stretch of supporting the winning presidential candidate than any other state, having voted for the winning candidate in every election from 1904 to 2004 with a single exception:1956 when Democratic candidateAdlai Stevenson of neighboring Illinois lost the election despite carrying Missouri. However, since 2000, Missouri has always voted for the Republican presidential candidate, with the last Democrat winning the state beingBill Clinton in 1996. Missouri voted forJohn McCain andMitt Romney over DemocratBarack Obama of neighboring Illinois, despite Obama being elected to the Presidency in both 2008 and 2012. Missouri voted forMitt Romney by nearly 10% in 2012 and voted forDonald Trump by over 18% in 2016 and 2024, and 15% in 2020.
On October 24, 2012, there were 4,190,936 registered voters.[137] At the state level, both Democratic SenatorClaire McCaskill and Democratic GovernorJay Nixon were re-elected.
On November 3, 2020, there were 4,318,758 registered voters, with 3,026,028 voting (70.1%).[138] By this time, the state had favored more Republican candidates for federal offices. The offices held by Democratic party officials a decade before were subsequently held by Republican SenatorJosh Hawley and Republican GovernorMike Parson.
Missouri's accuracy rate for the last 29 presidential elections is now 89.66%. This percentage is on par with that of Ohio, which has voted for the winner of every presidential election since 1896, except in1944,1960 and2020.
Missouri has been known for its population's generally "stalwart, conservative, noncredulous" attitude toward regulatory regimes, which is one of the origins of the state's unofficial nickname, the "Show-Me State".[20] As a result, and combined with the fact that Missouri is one of America's leading alcohol states, regulation of alcohol and tobacco in Missouri is among the mostlaissez-faire in America. In 2013, theMercatus Center ranked Missouri third for alcohol freedom and first for tobacco freedom.[139] The state's alcohol laws are notably lax, with no blue laws, low taxes, and broad access to alcohol in locations like drugstores and gas stations. Additionally, Missouri's tobacco laws are equally permissive, including the lowest cigarette excise tax in the nation.[139] Missouri law makes it "an improper employment practice" for an employer to refuse to hire, to fire, or otherwise to disadvantage any person because that person lawfully uses alcohol or tobacco products outside of work.[140]
With a large German immigrant population and the development of a brewing industry, Missouri always has had among the most permissivealcohol laws in the United States. It has never enacted statewideprohibition. Missouri has no statewideopen container law or prohibition ondrinking in public, no alcohol-relatedblue laws, nolocal option, no precise locations for selling liquor by the package (allowing evendrug stores andfilling stations to sell any kind of liquor), and no differentiation of laws based on alcohol percentage. State law protects persons from arrest or criminal penalty forpublic intoxication.[141]
Missouri law expressly prohibits any jurisdiction from goingdry.[142] Missouri law also expressly allows parents and guardians to serve alcohol to their children.[143] ThePower & Light District in Kansas City is one of the few places in the United States where a state law explicitly allows persons over 21 to possess and consume open containers of alcohol in the street (as long as the beverage is in a plastic cup).[144]
Missouri had the lowest cigarette excise taxes in the United States in 2016, at 17 cents per pack,[145] and the state electorate voted in 2002, 2006, 2012, and twice in 2016 to keep it that way.[146][147] According to theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2008 Missouri had the fourth highest percentage of adult smokers among U.S. states, at 24.5%.[148] Although federal law prohibits the sale of tobacco to persons under 21, tobacco products can be distributed to persons under 21 by family members on private property.[149]
No statewidesmoking ban ever has been seriously entertained before theMissouri General Assembly, and in October 2008, a statewide survey by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services found that only 27.5% of Missourians support a statewide ban on smoking in all bars and restaurants.[150] Missouri state law permits restaurants seating less than 50 people, bars, bowling alleys, and billiard parlors to decide their own smoking policies, without limitation.[151]
In 2014, a Republican-led legislature and Democratic governorJay Nixon enacted a series of laws to partially decriminalize possession of cannabis by making first-time possession of up to 10 grams no longer punishable with jail time and legalizingCBD oil. In November 2018,66% of voters approved a constitutional amendment that established a right to medical marijuana and a system for licensing, regulating, and taxing medical marijuana.
Missouri, Westminster College Gymnasium in Fulton, Missouri
TheMissouri State Board of Education has general authority over all public education in the state of Missouri. It is made up of eight citizens appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Missouri Senate.
Education is compulsory from ages seven to seventeen. It is required that any parent, guardian, or another person with custody of a child between the ages of seven and seventeen, the compulsory attendance age for the district, must ensure the child is enrolled in and regularly attends public, private, parochial school, home school or a combination of schools for the full term of the school year. Compulsory attendance also ends when children complete sixteen credits in high school.
Children in Missouri between the ages of five and seven are not required to be enrolled in school. However, if they are enrolled in a public school, their parent, guardian, or custodian must ensure they regularly attend.
Missouri schools are commonly but not exclusively divided into three tiers of primary and secondary education: elementary school,middle school orjunior high school and high school. The public school system includes kindergarten to 12th grade. District territories are often complex in structure. In some cases, elementary, middle, and junior high schools of a single district feed into high schools in another district. As another example, special education and related services for students in the twenty-two school districts of St. Louis County are provided by staff employed by a special school district, a local education agency that serves students county-wide. High school athletics and competitions are governed by theMissouri State High School Activities Association (MSHSAA).
Homeschooling is legal in Missouri and is an option to meet the compulsory education requirement. It is neither monitored nor regulated by the state's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.[152]
The state funds a $3000, renewable merit-based scholarship,Bright Flight, given to the top three percent of Missouri high school graduates who attend a university in-state.
The 19th-century border wars between Missouri and Kansas have continued as a sports rivalry between theUniversity of Missouri andUniversity of Kansas. The rivalry was chiefly expressed through football and basketball games between the two universities, but since Missouri left theBig 12 Conference in 2012, the teams no longer regularly play one another. It was the oldest college rivalry west of theMississippi River and the second-oldest in the nation. Each year when the universities met to play, the game was coined the "Border War". Following the game, an exchange occurred where the winner took a historic Indian War Drum, which had been passed back and forth for decades. Though Missouri and Kansas no longer have an annual game after the University of Missouri moved to theSoutheastern Conference, rivalry still exists between them.
Transportation
Parts of this article (those related to reference from 2010 about Chicago Hub Network high-speed rail) need to beupdated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(June 2023)
Two of the nation's three busiest rail centers are in Missouri.Kansas City is a major railroad hub forBNSF Railway,Norfolk Southern Railway,Kansas City Southern Railway, andUnion Pacific Railroad, and every class1 railroad serves Missouri. Kansas City is the second-largest freight rail center in the U.S. (but is first in the amount of tonnage handled). Like Kansas City, St. Louis is a major destination for train freight. Springfield remains an operational hub for BNSF Railway.
The only urban light rail/subway system operating in Missouri isMetroLink, which connects the city of St. Louis with suburbs in Illinois and St. Louis County. It is one of the largest systems (by track mileage) in the United States. TheKC Streetcar in downtown Kansas City opened in May 2016.[158]
TheGateway Multimodal Transportation Center in St. Louis is the largest active multi-use transportation center in the state. It is in downtown St. Louis, next to the historicUnion Station complex. It serves as a hub center/station for MetroLink, theMetroBus regional bus system,Greyhound, Amtrak, and taxi services.
In 2018, aMissouri Hyperloop was proposed to connect St. Louis, Kansas City, and Columbia, reducing travel time across the entire state to around a half hour.[159] The project stalled in December 2023, with the shutdown of the corporate partnerHyperloop One.
Bus
Many cities have regular fixed-route systems, and many rural counties have rural public transit services.Greyhound andTrailways provide inter-city bus service in Missouri.Megabus serves St. Louis, but discontinued service to Columbia and Kansas City in 2015.[160]
The Mississippi River and Missouri River are commercially navigable over their entire lengths in Missouri. The Missouri was channelized through dredging and jetties, and the Mississippi was given a series oflocks and dams to avoid rocks and deepen the river. St. Louis is a major destination for barge traffic on the Mississippi.
Following the passage of Amendment 3 in late 2004, theMissouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) began its Smoother, Safer, Sooner road-building program with a goal of bringing 2,200 miles (3,500 km) of highways up to good condition by December 2007. From 2006 to 2011 traffic deaths have decreased annually from 1,257 in 2005, to 1,096 in 2006, to 992 in 2007, to 960 in 2008, to 878 in 2009, to 821 in 2010, to 786 in 2011.[161]
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