On August 10, 1821, President James Monroe signed legislation adding Missouri to the Union as our 24th state.
Long before Europeans came to Missouri, a group of Indians known as the Mound Builders constructed large earthworks throughout the region. Many of these mounds can still be found there. However, this culture had disappeared by the time of European exploration.
The first European explorers in Missouri found Missouri Indians living in the east-central portion of the state, the Osage in the south and west, and the Fox, Sauk and other tribes living in the north.
The French explorers Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet were probably the first white people to see the mouth of the Missouri River. In 1673, they discovered the point where the Missouri joins the mighty Mississippi River. René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, sailed down the Mississippi in 1682 and claimed the entire river valley for France. He named it Louisiana, in honor of King Louis XIV.
Soon after, Frenchmen involved with the fur-trading business began to settle in the region, founding trading posts along the river. Around 1700, Jesuit missionaries founded the first European settlement in Missouri, the Mission of St. Francis Xavier, near today’s St. Louis. This mission was abandoned three years later due to its proximity to an unhealthful swamp. Settlers from what is now Illinois founded the first permanent white settlement at Ste. Genevieve. In 1764, Pierre Laclède Liguest and René Auguste Chouteau founded St. Louis.
In 1762, France sold to Spain all of its land west of the Mississippi. Spain encouraged many settlers in the East to take land in Missouri. Among these pioneers was the legendary Daniel Boone. In 1800, Napoleon Bonaparte of France forced Spain to give these lands back to France. Then, to raise badly needed funds, Napoleon sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States in 1803.
When the U.S. took ownership of Missouri, most of the land had already been explored. Many communities had already been founded, and farming and mineral industries had been developed. Missouri was made a part of Upper Louisiana; then, in 1812, the Missouri Territory was organized.