MO Senate Candidates for Missouri Senator Election Race

History of Missouri. Information that every Missouri Election Candidates for US Senate Should Know:

Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet, who descended the Mississippi from the north in 1673, supplied the first written accounts of exploration in Missouri. The early Indians in Missouri were the Osages, Sacs, Foxes, Otos, Iowas, Missouris, Miamis, Kickapoos, Delawares, Shawnees and Kansas. As part of the Louisiana Purchase territory, Missouri has belonged to three nations: France, Spain and the United States.

The early development of Missouri was closely associated with lead mining. Galena, a lead ore, was first discovered in 1701 near Potosi and began to be mined in earnest in 1720 upon the discovery of significant deposits at Mine La Motte. Mining, the earliest commercial activity in Missouri, lured early French settlers and continues to be a major enterprise today.

The French were responsible for the first permanent settlement of Ste. Genevieve in the mid 1730s. This settlement survived alone in the huge Upper Louisiana Territory until the establishment of St. Louis as a fur trading post in 1764. Because of its excellent location where the Missouri River flows into the Mississippi, St. Louis became the largest settlement in the state and today is one of the nation's larger cities.

By secret treaty in 1802, Spain ceded the Louisiana Territory back to France. Napoleon Bonaparte, anxious to rid himself of the vast and troublesome frontier, sold it to the United States in 1803 for a total of $15,000,000. About this time President Jefferson organized the Lewis and Clark Expedition which was the first extensive exploration of the northwestern part of the new territory. The expedition left St. Louis in 1804.