Missouri
Missouri is a state in the Midwestern United States. With over six million residents, it is the 18th-most populous state of the Union; the largest urban areas are St. Louis, Kansas City and Columbia; the state is the 21st-most extensive in area. In the South are the Ozarks, a forested highland, providing timber and recreation; the Missouri River, after which the state is named, flows through the center of the state into the Mississippi River, which makes up Missouri's eastern border. Humans have inhabited the land now known as Missouri for at least 12,000 years; the Mississippian culture built mounds, before declining in the 14th century. When European explorers arrived in the 17th century they encountered the Osage and Missouria nations; the French established Louisiana, a part of New France, 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.
Missouri was admitted as a slave state as part of the Missouri Compromise. Many from Virginia 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, California Trail all began in Missouri. As a border state, Missouri's 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 the independent city of St. Louis. Missouri's culture blends elements from Southern United States; the musical styles of ragtime, Kansas City jazz, St. Louis Blues developed in Missouri; the well-known Kansas City-style barbecue, lesser-known St. Louis-style barbecue, can be found across the state and beyond. Missouri is a major center of beer brewing.
Missouri wine is produced in Ozarks. Missouri's alcohol laws are among the most permissive in the United States. Outside of the state's major cities, popular tourist destinations include the Lake of the Ozarks, Table Rock Lake, Branson. Well-known Missourians include U. S. President Harry S. Truman, Mark Twain, Walt Disney, Chuck Berry, Nelly; some of the largest companies based in the state include Cerner, Express Scripts, Emerson Electric, Edward Jones, H&R Block, Wells Fargo Advisors, O'Reilly Auto Parts. Missouri has been called the "Mother of the West" and the "Cave State"; the state is named for the Missouri River, named after the indigenous Missouri Indians, a Siouan-language tribe. It is said that they were called the ouemessourita, meaning "those who have dugout canoes", by the Miami-Illinois language speakers; this appears to be folk etymology—the Illinois spoke an Algonquian language and the closest approximation that can be made in that of their close neighbors, the Ojibwe, is "You Ought to Go Downriver & Visit Those People."
This would be an odd occurrence, as the French who first explored and attempted to settle the Mississippi River got their translations during that time accurate giving things French names that were exact translations of the native tongue. Assuming Missouri were deriving from the Siouan language, it would translate as "It connects to the side of it," in reference to the river itself; this is not likely either, as this would be coming out as "Maya Sunni" Most though, the name Missouri comes from Chiwere, a Siouan language spoken by people who resided in the modern day states of Wisconsin, South Dakota, Missouri & Nebraska. The name "Missouri" has several different pronunciations among its present-day natives, the two most common being and. Further pronunciations exist in Missouri or elsewhere in the United States, involving the realization of the first syllable as either or. Any combination of these phonetic realizations may be observed coming from speakers of American English; the linguistic history was treated definitively by Donald M. Lance, who acknowledged that the question is sociologically complex, but that no pronunciation could be declared "correct", nor could any be defined as native or outsider, rural or urban, southern or northern, educated or otherwise.
Politicians employ multiple pronunciations during a single speech, to appeal to a greater number of listeners. Informal respellings of the state's name, such as "Missour-ee" or "Missour-uh", are used informally to phonetically distinguish pronunciations. There is no official state nickname. However, Missouri's unofficial nickname is the "Show Me State"; this phrase has several origins. One is popularly ascribed to a speech by Congressman Willard Vandiver in 1899, who declared that "I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and Democrats, frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I'm from Missouri, you have got to show me." This is in keeping with the saying "I'm from Missouri" which means "I'm skeptical of the matter and not convinced." However, according to researchers, the phrase "show me" was in use
Department store
A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different product categories known as "departments". In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic appearance in the middle of the 19th century, permanently reshaped shopping habits, the definition of service and luxury. Similar developments were under way in Paris and in New York. Today, departments include the following: clothing, home appliances, cosmetics, gardening, sporting goods, do it yourself and hardware. Additionally, other lines of products such as food, jewelry, stationery, photographic equipment, baby products, products for pets are sometimes included. Customers check out near the front of the store, although some stores include sales counters within each department; some stores are one of many within a larger retail chain retailers. In the 1970s, they came under heavy pressure from discounters, have come under heavier pressure from e-commerce sites since 2010. Big-box stores and discount stores are comparable to historical department stores.
The origins of the departmental store lay in the growth of the conspicuous consumer society at the turn of the 19th century. As the Industrial Revolution accelerated economy expansion, the affluent middle-class grew in size and wealth. Urbanized social groups, sharing a culture of consumption and changing fashions, were the catalyst for the retail revolution; as rising prosperity and social mobility increased the number of people women, with disposable income in the late Georgian period, window shopping was transformed into a leisure activity and entrepreneurs, like the potter Josiah Wedgwood, pioneered the use of marketing techniques to influence the prevailing tastes and preferences of society. Department stores often featured post services, childcare services and other services that appealed to female shoppers. One of the first department stores may have been Bennett's in Derby, first established as an ironmonger in 1734, it still stands to trading in the same building. However, the first reliably dated department store to be established, was Harding, Howell & Co, which opened in 1796 on Pall Mall, London.
An observer writing in Ackermann's Repository, a British periodical on contemporary taste and fashion, described the enterprise in 1809 as follows: The house is one hundred and fifty feet in length from front to back, of proportionate width. It is fitted up with great taste, is divided by glazed partitions into four departments, for the various branches of the extensive business, there carried on. At the entrance is the first department, appropriated to the sale of furs and fans; the second contains articles of haberdashery of every description, muslins, gloves, &etc. In the third shop, on the right, you meet with a rich assortment of jewelry, ornamental articles in ormolu, french clocks, &etc.. The fourth is set apart for millinery and dresses; this concern has been conducted for the last twelve years by the present proprietors who have spared neither trouble nor expense to ensure the establishment of a superiority over every other in Europe, to render it unique in its kind. This venture is described as having all of the basic characteristics of the department store.
This pioneering shop was closed down in 1820. All the major British cities had flourishing department stores by the mid-or late nineteenth century. Women became the main customers. Kendals in Manchester lays claim to being one of the first department stores and is still known to many of its customers as Kendal's, despite its 2005 name change to House of Fraser; the Manchester institution dates back to 1836 but had been trading as Watts Bazaar since 1796. At its zenith the store had buildings on both sides of Deansgate linked by a subterranean passage "Kendals Arcade" and an art nouveau tiled food hall; the store was known for its emphasis on quality and style over low prices giving it the nickname "the Harrods of the North", although this was due in part to Harrods acquiring the store in 1919. Other large Manchester stores included Lewis's. In London, department stores were established in Oxford Street and Regent Street in the mid 19th-century; these were distinctly modern stores with lavish displays of imported goods Oriental shawls and furniture and served a wealthy clientele.
Harrods of London can be traced back to 1834, while the current store on Brompton Road on a site they acquired in 1849, was constructed between 1894 and 1905. Liberty & Co. gained popularity in thre 1870s for selling Oriental goods. Gamages was founded in London's High Holborn by Arthur Walter Gamage in 1878. In Bayswater, the draper, William Whiteley established a department store with more of a mass market appeal. Bainbridge's dates back to 1838, when Emerson Muschamp Bainbridge went into partnership with William Alder Dunn and opened a drapers and fashion shop in Newcastle's Market Street. In 1849 there were 23 separate departm
Saint Louis Art Museum
The Saint Louis Art Museum is one of the principal U. S. art museums, with paintings, cultural objects, ancient masterpieces from all corners of the world. Its three-story building stands in Forest Park in St. Louis, where it is visited by up to a half million people every year. Admission is free through a subsidy from the cultural tax district for County. In addition to the featured exhibitions, the museum offers rotating installations; these include the Currents series, which features contemporary artists, as well as regular exhibitions of new media art and works on paper. The museum was founded in 1879 as the Saint Louis School and Museum of Fine Arts, an independent entity within Washington University in St. Louis, housed in a downtown building; the building was built by Wayman Crow as a memorial to honor his son, Wayman Crow Jr. Crow employed Boston architects Peabody & Stearns to design the building located at 19th and Lucas Place; the school, led by directory Halsey C. Ives, educated two generations of St. Louis artists and craftspeople and offered studio and art history classes supported by a museum collection.
After the school moved to Washington University's campus and the museum moved to Forest Park, the building fell into disrepair and was demolished in 1919. The museum moved after the 1904 World's Fair known as the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, to the Palace of Fine Arts, built for the fair from 1902 to 1903; the building was designed by architect Cass Gilbert, who took inspiration from the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, Italy. The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum remained part of Washington University, the collection was lent to the Saint Louis Art Museum for several years. In 1908, the museum's first director, Halsey Cooley Ives, arranged for a municipal tax to support the museum; the following year, the museum separated from Washington University and was renamed the City Art Museum. An organizing board was assigned to take control in 1912. During the 1950s, the museum added an extension to include an auditorium for films and lectures. In 1971, efforts to secure the museum's financial future led voters in St. Louis City and County to approve the creation of the Metropolitan Zoological Park and Museum District.
This expanded the tax base for the 1908 tax to include St. Louis County. In 1972, the museum was again renamed, to the Saint Louis Art Museum. Today, the museum is supported financially by the tax, donations from individuals and public associations, sales in the Museum Shop, foundation support. Plans to expand the museum, which existed in the 1995 Forest Park Master Plan and the museum's 2000 Strategic Plan, began in earnest in 2005, when the museum board selected the British architect Sir David Chipperfield to design the expansion; the St. Louis-based firm, Hellmuth and Kassabaum was the architect of record to work with the construction team. On November 5, 2007, museum officials released the design plans to the public and hosted public conversations about those plans. A model of the new building was displayed in the museum's Sculpture Hall throughout the construction project. In 2008, citing the declining state of the economy, the museum announced that it would delay the start of the expansion, whose cost was estimated at $125 million.
Construction began in 2009. The expansion added more than 224,000 square feet of gallery space, including an underground garage, within the lease lines of the property. Money for the project was raised through private gifts to the capital campaign from individuals and corporations, from proceeds from the sale of tax-exempt bonds; the fundraising campaigned covered the $130-million cost of construction and a $31.2 million increase to the museum's endowment to support incremental costs of operating the larger facility. The expanded facility opened in the summer of 2013; the collection of the Saint Louis Art Museum contains more than 30,000 art works dating from antiquity to the present. The collection is divided into eleven areas: African American Ancient and Islamic Asian Contemporary Decorative Arts and Design European Modern Oceanic Mesoamerican and American Indian Prints and PhotographsThe modern art collection includes works by the European masters Matisse, Monet, Giambattista Pittoni and Van Gogh.
The museum's strong collection of 20th-century German paintings includes the world's largest Max Beckmann collection, which includes Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery. In recent years, the museum has been acquiring post-war German art to complement its Beckmanns, such as works by Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, Martin Kippenberger and others; the collection includes Chuck Close's Keith. The collections of Oceanic and Mesoamerican works, as well as handwoven Turkish rugs, are among the finest in the world; the museum holds the Egyptian mummy Amen-Nestawy-Nakht, two mummies on loan from Washington University. Its collection of American artists includes the largest U. S.-museum collection of paintings by George Caleb Bingham. The collection contains at least six pieces that Nazis confiscated from their own museums as degenerate; these include Max Beckmann’s “Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery” which came to the museum through a New York art dealer, Curt Valentin, who specialized in Nazi confiscations, Matisse's “Bathers with a Turtle” which Joseph Pulitzer purchased at the Galerie Fischer auction held in the Grand Hôtel National, Switzerland, June 30, 1939.
In the context of the museum's 2013 expansion, British artist Andy Goldsworthy created Stone Sea, a site-specific work for a narrow space between the old and
Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville is the most populous city in Florida, the most populous city in the southeastern United States and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. It is the seat of Duval County, with which the city government consolidated in 1968. Consolidation gave Jacksonville its great size and placed most of its metropolitan population within the city limits; as of 2017 Jacksonville's population was estimated to be 892,062. The Jacksonville metropolitan area has a population of 1,523,615 and is the fourth largest in Florida. Jacksonville is centered on the banks of the St. Johns River in the First Coast region of northeast Florida, about 25 miles south of the Georgia state line and 328 miles north of Miami; the Jacksonville Beaches communities are along the adjacent Atlantic coast. The area was inhabited by the Timucua people, in 1564 was the site of the French colony of Fort Caroline, one of the earliest European settlements in what is now the continental United States. Under British rule, settlement grew at the narrow point in the river where cattle crossed, known as Wacca Pilatka to the Seminole and the Cow Ford to the British.
A platted town was established there in 1822, a year after the United States gained Florida from Spain. Harbor improvements since the late 19th century have made Jacksonville a major military and civilian deep-water port, its riverine location facilitates Naval Station Mayport, Naval Air Station Jacksonville, the U. S. Marine Corps Blount Island Command, the Port of Jacksonville, Florida's third largest seaport. Jacksonville's military bases and the nearby Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay form the third largest military presence in the United States. Significant factors in the local economy include services such as banking, insurance and logistics; as with much of Florida, tourism is important to the Jacksonville area tourism related to golf. People from Jacksonville may be called "Jacksonvillians" or "Jaxsons"; the area of the modern city of Jacksonville has been inhabited for thousands of years. On Black Hammock Island in the national Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve, a University of North Florida team discovered some of the oldest remnants of pottery in the United States, dating to 2500 BC.
In the 16th century, the beginning of the historical era, the region was inhabited by the Mocama, a coastal subgroup of the Timucua people. At the time of contact with Europeans, all Mocama villages in present-day Jacksonville were part of the powerful chiefdom known as the Saturiwa, centered around the mouth of the St. Johns River. One early map shows. French Huguenot explorer Jean Ribault charted the St. Johns River in 1562, calling it the River of May because, the month of his discovery. Ribault erected a stone column at his landing site near the river's mouth, claiming the newly discovered land for France. In 1564, René Goulaine de Laudonnière established the first European settlement, Fort Caroline, on the St. Johns near the main village of the Saturiwa. Philip II of Spain ordered Pedro Menéndez de Avilés to protect the interest of Spain by attacking the French presence at Fort Caroline. On September 20, 1565, a Spanish force from the nearby Spanish settlement of St. Augustine attacked Fort Caroline, killed nearly all the French soldiers defending it.
The Spanish renamed the fort San Mateo, following the ejection of the French, St. Augustine's position as the most important settlement in Florida was solidified; the location of Fort Caroline is subject to debate but a reconstruction of the fort was established on the St. Johns River in 1964. Spain ceded Florida to the British in 1763 after the French and Indian War, the British soon constructed the King's Road connecting St. Augustine to Georgia; the road crossed the St. Johns River at a narrow point, which the Seminole called Wacca Pilatka and the British called the Cow Ford; the British introduced the cultivation of sugar cane and fruits, as well the export of lumber. As a result, the northeastern Florida area prospered economically more than it had under the Spanish. Britain ceded control of the territory to Spain in 1783, after being defeated in the American Revolutionary War, the settlement at the Cow Ford continued to grow. After Spain ceded the Florida Territory to the United States in 1821, American settlers on the north side of the Cow Ford decided to plan a town, laying out the streets and plats.
They named the town Jacksonville, after President Andrew Jackson. Led by Isaiah D. Hart, residents wrote a charter for a town government, approved by the Florida Legislative Council on February 9, 1832. During the American Civil War, Jacksonville was a key supply point for hogs and cattle being shipped from Florida to feed the Confederate forces; the city was blockaded by Union forces. Though no battles were fought in Jacksonville proper, the city changed hands several times between Union and Confederate forces. In the Skirmish of the Brick Church in 1862, Confederates won their first victory in the state. However, Union forces captured a Confederate position at the Battle of St. Johns Bluff, occupied Jacksonville in 1862. Slaves escaped to freedom in Union lines. In February 1864 Union forces left Jacksonville and confronted a Confederate Army at the Battle of Olustee, going down to defeat. Union forces held the city for the remainder of the war. In Ma
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the United States, is the county seat of Allegheny County. As of 2018, a population of 308,144 lives within the city limits, making it the 63rd-largest city in the U. S; the metropolitan population of 2,362,453, is the largest in both the Ohio Valley and Appalachia, the second-largest in Pennsylvania, the 26th-largest in the U. S. Pittsburgh is located in the south west of the state, at the confluence of the Allegheny and Ohio rivers. Pittsburgh is known both as "the Steel City" for its more than 300 steel-related businesses and as the "City of Bridges" for its 446 bridges; the city features 30 skyscrapers, two inclined railways, a pre-revolutionary fortification and the Point State Park at the confluence of the rivers. The city developed as a vital link of the Atlantic coast and Midwest, as the mineral-rich Allegheny Mountains made the area coveted by the French and British empires, Whiskey Rebels, Civil War raiders. Aside from steel, Pittsburgh has led in manufacturing of aluminum, shipbuilding, foods, transportation, computing and electronics.
For part of the 20th century, Pittsburgh was behind only New York and Chicago in corporate headquarters employment. S. stockholders per capita. America's 1980s deindustrialization laid off area blue-collar workers and thousands of downtown white-collar workers when the longtime Pittsburgh-based world headquarters moved out; this heritage left the area with renowned museums, medical centers, research centers, a diverse cultural district. Today, Apple Inc. Bosch, Uber, Autodesk, Microsoft and IBM are among 1,600 technology firms generating $20.7 billion in annual Pittsburgh payrolls. The area has served as the long-time federal agency headquarters for cyber defense, software engineering, energy research and the nuclear navy; the area is home to 68 colleges and universities, including research and development leaders Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. The nation's eighth-largest bank, eight Fortune 500 companies, six of the top 300 U. S. law firms make their global headquarters in the area, while RAND, BNY Mellon, FedEx, Bayer and NIOSH have regional bases that helped Pittsburgh become the sixth-best area for U.
S. job growth. In 2015, Pittsburgh was listed among the "eleven most livable cities in the world"; the region is a hub for Environmental Design and energy extraction. In 2019, Pittsburgh was deemed “Food City of the Year” by the San Francisco-based restaurant and hospitality consulting firm af&co. Many restaurants were mentioned favorable, among them were Superior Motors in Braddock, Driftwood Oven in Lawrenceville, Spork in Bloomfield, Fish nor Fowl in Garfield and Bitter Ends Garden & Luncheonette in Bloomfield. Pittsburgh was named in 1758 by General John Forbes, in honor of British statesman William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham; as Forbes was a Scot, he pronounced the name PITS-bər-ə. Pittsburgh was incorporated as a borough on April 22, 1794, with the following Act: "Be it enacted by the Pennsylvania State Senate and Pennsylvania House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania... by the authority of the same, that the said town of Pittsburgh shall be... erected into a borough, which shall be called the borough of Pittsburgh for ever."
From 1891 to 1911, the city's name was federally recognized as "Pittsburg", though use of the final h was retained during this period by the city government and other local organizations. After a public campaign, the federal decision to drop the h was reversed; the area of the Ohio headwaters was long inhabited by the Shawnee and several other settled groups of Native Americans. The first known European to enter the region was the French explorer/trader Robert de La Salle from Quebec during his 1669 expedition down the Ohio River. European pioneers Dutch, followed in the early 18th century. Michael Bezallion was the first to describe the forks of the Ohio in a 1717 manuscript, that year European fur traders established area posts and settlements. In 1749, French soldiers from Quebec launched an expedition to the forks to unite Canada with French Louisiana via the rivers. During 1753–54, the British hastily built Fort Prince George before a larger French force drove them off; the French built Fort Duquesne based on LaSalle's 1669 claims.
The French and Indian War, the North American front of the Seven Years' War, began with the future Pittsburgh as its center. British General Edward Braddock was dispatched with Major George Washington as his aide to take Fort Duquesne; the British and colonial force were defeated at Braddock's Field. General John Forbes took the forks in 1758. Forbes began construction on Fort Pitt, named after William Pitt the Elder while the settlement was named "Pittsborough". During Pontiac's Rebellion, native tribes conducted a siege of Fort Pitt for two months until Colonel Henry Bouquet relieved it after the Battle of Bushy Run. Fort Pitt is notable as the site of an early use of smallpox for biological warfare. Lord Jeffery Amherst ordered blankets contaminated from smallpox victims to be distributed in 1763 to the tribes surrounding the fort; the disease spread into other areas, infected other tribes, killed hundreds of thousands. During this period, the powerful nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, based in New York, had maintained control of much of the Ohio Valley as hunting grounds by right of conquest after defeating other tribes.
By the terms of the 1768 Treaty of
St. Louis
St. Louis is an independent city and major inland port in the U. S. state of Missouri. It is situated along the western bank of the Mississippi River, which marks Missouri's border with Illinois; the Missouri River merges with the Mississippi River just north of the city. These two rivers combined form the fourth longest river system in the world; the city had an estimated 2017 population of 308,626 and is the cultural and economic center of the St. Louis metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in Missouri, the second-largest in Illinois, the 22nd-largest in the United States. Before European settlement, the area was a regional center of Native American Mississippian culture; the city of St. Louis was founded in 1764 by French fur traders Pierre Laclède and Auguste Chouteau, named after Louis IX of France. In 1764, following France's defeat in the Seven Years' War, the area was ceded to Spain and retroceded back to France in 1800. In 1803, the United States acquired the territory as part of the Louisiana Purchase.
During the 19th century, St. Louis became a major port on the Mississippi River, it separated from St. Louis County in 1877, becoming an independent city and limiting its own political boundaries. In 1904, it hosted the Summer Olympics; the economy of metropolitan St. Louis relies on service, trade, transportation of goods, tourism, its metro area is home to major corporations, including Anheuser-Busch, Express Scripts, Boeing Defense, Energizer, Enterprise, Peabody Energy, Post Holdings, Edward Jones, Go Jet and Sigma-Aldrich. Nine of the ten Fortune 500 companies based in Missouri are located within the St. Louis metropolitan area; this city has become known for its growing medical and research presence due to institutions such as Washington University in St. Louis and Barnes-Jewish Hospital. St. Louis has two professional sports teams: the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball and the St. Louis Blues of the National Hockey League. One of the city's iconic sights is the 630-foot tall Gateway Arch in the downtown area.
The area that would become St. Louis was a center of the Native American Mississippian culture, which built numerous temple and residential earthwork mounds on both sides of the Mississippi River, their major regional center was at Cahokia Mounds, active from 900 to 1500. Due to numerous major earthworks within St. Louis boundaries, the city was nicknamed as the "Mound City"; these mounds were demolished during the city's development. Historic Native American tribes in the area included the Siouan-speaking Osage people, whose territory extended west, the Illiniwek. European exploration of the area was first recorded in 1673, when French explorers Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette traveled through the Mississippi River valley. Five years La Salle claimed the region for France as part of La Louisiane; the earliest European settlements in the area were built in Illinois Country on the east side of the Mississippi River during the 1690s and early 1700s at Cahokia and Fort de Chartres. Migrants from the French villages on the opposite side of the Mississippi River founded Ste.
Genevieve in the 1730s. In early 1764, after France lost the 7 Years' War, Pierre Laclède and his stepson Auguste Chouteau founded what was to become the city of St. Louis; the early French families built the city's economy on the fur trade with the Osage, as well as with more distant tribes along the Missouri River. The Chouteau brothers gained a monopoly from Spain on the fur trade with Santa Fe. French colonists used African slaves as domestic workers in the city. France, alarmed that Britain would demand French possessions west of the Mississippi and the Missouri River basin after the losing New France to them in 1759–60, transferred these to Spain as part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain; these areas remained in Spanish possession until 1803. In 1780 during the American Revolutionary War, St. Louis was attacked by British forces Native American allies, in the Battle of St. Louis; the founding of St. Louis began in 1763. Pierre Laclede led an expedition to set up a fur-trading post farther up the Mississippi River.
Before Laclede had been a successful merchant. For this reason, he and his trading partner Gilbert Antoine de St. Maxent were offered monopolies for six years of the fur trading in that area. Although they were only granted rights to set-up a trading post and other members of his expedition set up a settlement; some historians believe that Laclede's determination to create this settlement was the result of his affair with a married woman Marie-Thérèse Bourgeois Chouteau in New Orleans. Laclede on his initial expedition was accompanied by Auguste Chouteau; some historians still debate. The reason for this lingering question is that all the documentation of the founding was loaned and subsequently destroyed in a fire. For the first few years of St. Louis's existence, the city was not recognized by any of the governments. Although thought to be under the control of the Spanish government, no one asserted any authority over the settlement, thus St. Louis had no local government; this led Laclede to assume a position of civil control, all problems were disposed i
