1.
Missouri
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Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, achieving statehood in 1821. With over six million residents, it is the eighteenth most populous state, the largest urban areas are St. Louis, Kansas City, Springfield, and Columbia. The capitol is in Jefferson City on the Missouri River, the state is the twenty-first most extensive by area and is geographically diverse. The Northern Plains were once covered by glaciers, then tallgrass prairie, in the South are the Ozarks, a forested highland, providing timber, minerals, and recreation. The Mississippi River forms the border of the state, eventually flowing into the swampy Missouri Bootheel. Humans have inhabited the land now known as Missouri for at least 12,000 years, the Mississippian culture built cities and mounds, before declining in the 1300s. When European explorers arrived in the 1600s they encountered the Osage, the French established Louisiana, a part of New France, and founded Ste. Genevieve in 1735 and St. Louis in 1764, after a brief period of Spanish rule, the United States acquired the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Americans from the Upland South, including enslaved African Americans, rushed into the new Missouri Territory, many from Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee settled in the Boonslick area of Mid-Missouri. Soon after, heavy German immigration formed the Missouri Rhineland, Missouri played a central role in the westward expansion of the United States, as memorialized by the Gateway Arch. The Pony Express, Oregon Trail, Santa Fe Trail, as a border state, Missouris role in the American Civil War was complex and there were many conflicts within. After the war, both Greater St. Louis and the Kansas City metropolitan area became centers of industrialization and business, today, the state is divided into 114 counties and the independent city of St. Louis. Missouris culture blends elements from the Midwestern and Southern United States, the musical styles of ragtime, Kansas City jazz, and St. Louis Blues, developed in Missouri. The well-known Kansas City-style barbecue, and lesser known St. Louis-style barbecue can be found across the state, St. Louis is also a major center of beer brewing, Anheuser-Busch is the largest producer in the world. Missouri wine is produced in the nearby Missouri Rhineland and Ozarks, Missouris alcohol laws are among the most permissive in the United States. Outside of the large cities popular tourist destinations include the Lake of the Ozarks, U. S. President Harry S. Truman is from Missouri. Other well known Missourians include Mark Twain, Walt Disney, Chuck Berry, some of the largest companies based in the state include Express Scripts, Monsanto, Emerson Electric, Edward Jones, and OReilly Auto Parts. Missouri has been called the Mother of the West and the Cave State, however, Missouris most famous nickname is the Show Me State, the state is named for the Missouri River, which was named after the indigenous Missouri Indians, a Siouan-language tribe
2.
Rolla, Missouri
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Rolla /ˈrɒlə/ is a city in and the county seat of Phelps County, Missouri, United States. The population in the 2010 United States Census was 19,559, Rolla is located approximately midway between St. Louis and Springfield along I-44. The Rolla, Mo Micropolitan Statistical area consists of Phelps County and it is the home of the Missouri University of Science and Technology, well known, both nationally and internationally, for its many engineering departments and computer science department. The headquarters of the Mark Twain National Forest is located in Rolla, in addition, this is part of the Ozark Highlands American Viticultural Area, with vineyards established first by Italian immigrants to the area. In 1844, John Webber built the first house in what became the City of Rolla, nine years later, railroad contractor Edmund Ward Bishop, considered to be the founder of Rolla, settled in the area. The state officially established Rolla as a town in 1858, two stories account for how Rolla was named. When Rolla was made the county seat in 1861, the residents of Dillon, having lost a round, were allowed to choose the name of the new city and named it Rolla, the more widely accepted story came from a citizens meeting about naming the town. Webber was said to prefer the name Hardscrabble and Bishop pushed for the name Phelps Center, new settlers from North Carolina voted to name the community after Raleigh their hometown but chose to spell the Missouri version phonetically. With numerous settlers from the South, many residents of Rolla leaned toward the Confederacy during the American Civil War and they built two minor forts — Fort Wyman and Fort Dette — during their occupation. Rolla was also the location of Camp Glover and Camp Davies, from 1863 to 1865, Rolla was the regimental headquarters of the 5th Missouri State Militia. For most of its history, Rolla has served as a transportation and it was the original terminus of the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway, colloquially known as the Frisco Line. Today, the BNSF Railway directly runs through the town, Rolla was also a regular stop along U. S. Route 66, as it is almost located exactly halfway between the larger cities of St. Louis and Springfield. Today, Interstate 44, U. S. Route 63, Rolla is located at 37°56′56″N 91°45′47″W. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 11.85 square miles. Running through the city is the line that separates the vast Missouri watershed from the substantially smaller Meremec watershed. Rolla has a mix of a subtropical and humid continental climate. As of the census of 2010, there were 19,559 people,7,574 households, the population density was 1,653.3 inhabitants per square mile. There were 8,339 housing units at a density of 704.9 per square mile
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
United States Forest Service
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The United States Forest Service is an agency of the U. S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nations 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands, which encompass 193 million acres. Major divisions of the include the National Forest System, State and Private Forestry, Business Operations. Managing approximately 25% of federal lands, it is the major national land agency that is outside the U. S. Department of the Interior. The concept of the National Forests was born from Theodore Roosevelt’s conservation group, Boone and Crockett Club, in 1876, Congress created the office of Special Agent in the Department of Agriculture to assess the quality and conditions of forests in the United States. Hough was appointed the head of the office, in 1881, the office was expanded into the newly formed Division of Forestry. The Forest Reserve Act of 1891 authorized withdrawing land from the domain as forest reserves. In 1901, the Division of Forestry was renamed the Bureau of Forestry, gifford Pinchot was the first United States Chief Forester in the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. As of 2009, the Forest Service has a budget authority of $5.5 billion. The Forest Service employs 34,250 employees in 750 locations, including 10,050 firefighters,737 law enforcement personnel, and 500 scientists. The mission of the Forest Service is To sustain the health, diversity and its motto is Caring for the land and serving people. As the lead agency in natural resource conservation, the US Forest Service provides leadership in the protection, management, and use of the nations forest, rangeland. The agencys ecosystem approach to management integrates ecological, economic, and social factors to maintain and enhance the quality of the environment to meet current, the everyday work of the Forest Service balances resource extraction, resource protection, and providing recreation.5 billion trees per year. Further, the Forest Service fought fires on 2,996,000 acres of land in 2007, the Forest Service organization includes ranger districts, national forests, regions, research stations and research work units and the Northeastern Area Office for State and Private Forestry. Each level has responsibility for a variety of functions, the Chief of the Forest Service is a career federal employee who oversees the entire agency. The Chief reports to the Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment in the U. S. Department of Agriculture, there are five deputy chiefs for the following areas, National Forest System, State and Private Forestry, Research and Development, Business Operations, and Finance. The Forest Service Research and Development deputy area includes five stations, the Forest Products Laboratory. Station directors, like regional foresters, report to the Chief, Research stations include Northern, Pacific Northwest, Pacific Southwest, Rocky Mountain, and Southern. There are 92 research work units located at 67 sites throughout the United States, there are 80 Experimental Forests and Ranges that have been established progressively since 1908, many sites are more than 50 years old
5.
United States National Forest
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National Forest is a classification of protected and managed federal lands in the United States. The National Forest System was created by the Land Revision Act of 1891, abbot Kinney and forester Theodore Lukens were key spokesmen for the effort. In the United States there are 155 National Forests containing almost 190 million acres of land and these lands comprise 8.5 percent of the total land area of the United States, an area about the size of Texas. Some 87 percent of National Forest land lies west of the Mississippi River in the ranges of the Western United States. Alaska has 12 percent of all National Forest lands, the U. S. Forest Service also manages all of the United States National Grasslands, and around half of the United States National Recreation Areas. There are two different types of forests within the National Forest system. Those east of the Great Plains in the Midwestern and Eastern United States were primarily acquired by the government since 1891. The land had long been in the domain and sometimes repeatedly logged since colonial times. These are mostly lands that were kept in the domain, with the exception of inholdings. Land management of these areas focuses on conservation, timber harvesting, livestock grazing, watershed protection, wildlife, unlike national parks and other federal lands managed by the National Park Service, extraction of natural resources from national forests is permitted, and in many cases encouraged. National Forests are categorized by the U. S. as IUCN Category VI protected areas, however, the first-designated wilderness areas, and some of the largest, are on National Forest lands. There are management decision conflicts between conservationists and environmentalists, and natural resource extraction companies and lobbies, over the protection and/or use of National Forest lands, many ski resorts and summer resorts operate on leased land in National Forests
6.
Mark Twain
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Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. Among his novels are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain was raised in Hannibal, Missouri, which later provided the setting for Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. He served an apprenticeship with a printer and then worked as a typesetter and he later became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River before heading west to join Orion in Nevada. He referred humorously to his lack of success at mining, turning to journalism for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, the short story brought international attention and was even translated into classic Greek. His wit and satire, in prose and in speech, earned praise from critics and peers, and he was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty. He filed for bankruptcy in the wake of financial setbacks. He chose to pay all his creditors in full, even though he had no legal responsibility to do so. Twain was born shortly after an appearance of Halleys Comet, and he predicted that he would go out with it as well and he was lauded as the greatest American humorist of his age, and William Faulkner called him the father of American literature. His parents met when his father moved to Missouri, and they were married in 1823, Twain was of Cornish, English, and Scots-Irish descent. Only three of his siblings survived childhood, Orion, Henry, and Pamela and his sister Margaret died when Twain was three, and his brother Benjamin died three years later. His brother Pleasant died at six months of age, slavery was legal in Missouri at the time, and it became a theme in these writings. His father was an attorney and judge, but he died of pneumonia in 1847, the next year, Twain left school after the fifth grade to become a printers apprentice. In 1851, he working as a typesetter, contributing articles and humorous sketches to the Hannibal Journal. He educated himself in libraries in the evenings, finding wider information than at a conventional school. Twain describes his boyhood in Life on the Mississippi, stating there was but one permanent ambition among his comrades. Pilot was the grandest position of all, the pilot, even in those days of trivial wages, had a princely salary – from a hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars a month, and no board to pay. As Twain describes it, the pilots prestige exceeded that of the captain, bixby took Twain on as a cub pilot to teach him the river between New Orleans and St. Louis for $500, payable out of Twains first wages after graduating. It was more than two years before he received his pilots license, piloting gave also him his pen name from mark twain, the leadsmans cry for a measured river depth of two fathoms, which was safe water for a steamboat
7.
Greer Spring
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Greer Spring is a first magnitude spring located in the southeast portion of the Ozark Plateau, in Oregon County in south-central Missouri within the boundaries of the Mark Twain National Forest. The spring is the second largest spring in the Ozarks, with a discharge of 360 cubic feet of water per second. Greer Spring was designated a National Natural Landmark in 1980, the spring emerges at the bottom of a narrow chasm. An upper outlet flowing from a cavern is only a fraction of Greer Springs large flow, about 100 feet downstream the main outlet boils to the surface in a mixture of deep, aqua-blue water, moss covered rocks, and frothy whitewater. The newly formed surface stream then races down a small, steep, Greer Spring greatly increases the flow of the river, ensuring ample water for recreational activities, such as boating, even in the dry months. The vast amount of spring water changes the Eleven Point River into a stream for several miles downstream. The springs cold water also creates ideal conditions for trout, the mouth of the spring branch is roughly 0.5 miles upstream of the Missouri Route 19 bridge over the Eleven Point River. Greer Spring may be the most secluded and undisturbed big spring in the Ozarks, the spring has been owned by the U. S. National Forest Service since 1993. Before 1993 the spring was in the hands of private ownership. The area surrounding the spring has been retaken by nature, but had a fish hatchery and roads many years ago. The United States National Forest Service maintains a trail to the spring, a parking area on the side of Highway 19 provides parking for the trail. Visitors to the spring are common despite a mile-long hike, the first gristmill on the spring branch was built by Captain Samuel Greer in 1859. The spring was named after the Confederate captain. The mill was destroyed during the American Civil War, however the mill was rebuilt. Sometime after 1883, the old mill was removed to make way for a new roller mill completed sometime before 1899, the mill changed ownership until 1922, when it ceased operation. Very few remains of mill operations exist today near the spring, the mill itself is still standing near the top of east side of the gorge, despite very little attention. As of 2016, work is underway with help from the U. S. Forest Service. Difficult access, private ownership, and a remote location have all aided in protecting this karst location
8.
Boston Mountains
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The Boston Mountains range is a high and deeply dissected plateau located in northern Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma. The Oklahoma portion of the range is referred to as the Cookson Hills. The range covers an area of 5,770 square miles, the rocks of the region are essentially little disturbed, flat-lying sedimentary layers of the Paleozoic age. The highest ridges and peaks are capped by Pennsylvanian sandstone and shale, the deeply eroded valleys are cut into Mississippian limestones and below that layer Ordovician dolomites. Summits can reach elevations of just over 2,560 feet with valleys 500 feet to 1,550 feet deep, Turner Ward Knob is the highest named peak. Located in western Newton County, Arkansas, its elevation is 2,463 feet, nearby, five unnamed peaks have elevations at or slightly above 2,560 feet. Two of these highest peaks are located 2.2 miles west of Turner Ward Knob, the other three highest peaks are located 4–5 miles southsouthwest of Turner Ward Knob along Arkansas Highway 16. The Boston Mountains are the source of rivers and streams flow out from the mountains in all directions. Within a 3 miles radius of a point just west of the summits discussed above are located the sources of the White River, the Buffalo River, the Kings River, War Eagle Creek, and Little Mulberry Creek. To the south, the Arkansas River valley separates the Boston Mountains from the Ouachita Mountains, in Oklahoma, the Boston Mountains are found in these counties, Adair, Cherokee, Muskogee, Sequoyah, and Wagoner. The Boston Mountains are a section of the larger Ozark Plateaus province. The area is underlain by Pennsylvanian sandstone, shale, and siltstone, the sandstone beds become thinner, but more shaly in the west as the mountains decline in elevation. Cookson Hills Sams Throne Boston Mountain MLRA description, encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture - Boston Mountains U. S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System, Boston Mountains
9.
Arkansas
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Arkansas is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. Its name is of Siouan derivation from the language of the Osage denoting their related kin, the states diverse geography ranges from the mountainous regions of the Ozark and the Ouachita Mountains, which make up the U. S. Interior Highlands, to the forested land in the south known as the Arkansas Timberlands, to the eastern lowlands along the Mississippi River. Arkansas is the 29th largest by area and the 33rd most populous of the 50 United States, the capital and most populous city is Little Rock, located in the central portion of the state, a hub for transportation, business, culture, and government. The northwestern corner of the state, such as the Fayetteville–Springdale–Rogers Metropolitan Area and Fort Smith metropolitan area, is a population, education, the largest city in the eastern part of the state is Jonesboro. The largest city in the part of the state is Pine Bluff. The Territory of Arkansas was admitted to the Union as the 25th state on June 15,1836, in 1861 Arkansas withdrew from the United States and joined the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. Upon returning to the Union in 1868, the state would continue to suffer due to its reliance on slavery. White rural interests continued to dominate the politics until the Civil Rights Movement. Arkansas began to diversify its economy following World War II and relies on its service industry, aircraft, poultry, steel, tourism, cotton, and rice. The culture of Arkansas is observable in museums, theaters, novels, television shows, restaurants, wright, and physicist William L. McMillan, who was a pioneer in superconductor research, have all lived in Arkansas. The name Arkansas derives from the root as the name for the state of Kansas. The Kansa tribe of Native Americans are closely associated with the Sioux tribes of the Great Plains, the word Arkansas itself is a French pronunciation of a Quapaw word, akakaze, meaning land of downriver people or the Sioux word akakaze meaning people of the south wind. In 2007, the legislature passed a non-binding resolution declaring the possessive form of the states name to be Arkansass which has been followed increasingly by the state government. Arkansas borders Louisiana to the south, Texas to the southwest, Oklahoma to the west, Missouri to the north, as well as Tennessee, the United States Census Bureau classifies Arkansas as a southern state, sub-categorized among the West South Central States. The state line along the Mississippi River is indeterminate along much of the border with Mississippi due to these changes. Arkansas can generally be split into two halves, the highlands in the northwest half and the lowlands of the southeastern half, the highlands are part of the Southern Interior Highlands, including The Ozarks and the Ouachita Mountains. The southern lowlands include the Gulf Coastal Plain and the Arkansas Delta and this dual split can yield to general regions named northwest, southwest, northeast, southeast, or central Arkansas
10.
Ozark Trail (hiking trail)
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The Ozark Trail is a hiking, backpacking, and, in many places, biking and equestrian trail under construction in the Missouri Ozarks in the United States. It is intended to reach from St. Louis to Arkansas, over 350 miles of the trail have been completed as of 2008, and the estimated length when finished will be at least 500 miles. When joined to the Ozark Highlands Trail in Arkansas, the hiking distance from end to end will be at least 700 miles. The trail is composed of thirteen sections, most of which are joined to other sections. The sections vary in length from 8 to 40 miles, the longest continuous stretch available for hiking in as of 2008 is 225 miles, from Onondaga Cave State Park to the Eleven Point River. The exact routes for incomplete sections have not been established, so the length of the trail when completed remains undetermined. Some sections have restrictions on their use in order to be compatible with the goals and purposes of the various public, horseback riding, mountain biking, or trail side camping may be restricted in certain environmentally sensitive areas. The Ozark Trail had its beginnings in the 1970s when a group of public land managers, land owners, a comprehensive state outdoor recreation plan prepared by the state of Missouri in 1975 showed a need for an addition of 500 to 900 miles of hiking trails. A first meeting in 1976 at Meramec State Park lead to the first draft of the proposal in February 1977. Plus several environmental groups and a landowner with significant holdings. The land manager for each parcel held by these constituents is responsible for the trail within its holdings, in 2008, the mileage stands at over 350 miles. As the route over contiguous public lands is completed further progress will likely be slowed by the process of acquiring private land. Volunteers formed the Ozark Trail Association in 2002 to work with the Ozark Trail Council to develop, the Ozark Trail Association and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources mapped out a new route to replace the damaged section, which was completed in mid-2009. Within months several sections were repaired and reopened through the work of volunteer and paid forest service crews. All access was restored, though as of May,2013
