Interstate 10 in Texas
Interstate 10 is the major east–west Interstate Highway in the Southern United States. In the U. S. state of Texas, it runs east from Anthony, at the border with New Mexico, through El Paso, San Antonio and Houston to the border with Louisiana in Orange, Texas. At just under 880 miles, the Texas segment of I-10, maintained by the Texas Department of Transportation, is the longest continuous untolled freeway in North America, operated by a single authority, it is the longest stretch of highway with a single designation within a single state. Mile marker 880 and its corresponding exit number in Orange, are the highest numbered mile marker and exit on any freeway in North America. After widening was completed in 2008, a portion of the highway west of Houston is now believed to be the widest in the world, at 26 lanes. There is a wider section in China on the G4 Beijing–Hong Kong–Macau Expressway. More than a third of I-10's entire length is located in Texas alone. El Paso, near the Texas–New Mexico state line, is 785 miles from the western terminus of I-10 in Santa Monica, making it closer to Los Angeles than it is to Orange, Texas, 857 miles away at the Texas–Louisiana state line.
Orange is only 789 miles from the eastern terminus of I-10 in Jacksonville, Florida. I-10 replaced and runs concurrently with U. S. Highway 85 from the New Mexico border up until the two diverge at mile marker 13; the two highways parallel each other for several miles until US 85 continues to head south to the border with Mexico and I-10 turns east towards Downtown El Paso. Prior to the Interstate Highway system, US 85 ran concurrent with US 80 from the New Mexico border until the two diverged in Downtown El Paso; when I-10 was constructed in downtown El Paso, several blocks were demolished, a sub-grade trench was built for the freeway. A series of overpasses now carry the preexisting north-south surface streets over the east-west stretch of I-10 through downtown. I-10 replaced US 80 through El Paso and to the southeast and east to the present day junction of I-10 and I-20. US 80 along this route has been removed from the highway system in favor of I-10. At the junction with I-20, I-10 replaced US 290 eastward to the present day junction of I-10 and US 290 southeast of Junction.
This section of US 290 was deleted from the highway system. From this point to near Comfort, I-10 replaced State Highway 27. SH 27 still exists along this stretch paralleling I-10 to the south. From Comfort southeast to San Antonio, I-10 directly replaced US 87. I-10 follows the alignment of US 87 on the northwest side of San Antonio into downtown. A new alignment was built to the south of downtown for the freeway since it was impossible to upgrade the surface streets in downtown that US 87 and US 90 followed prior to the Interstate Highway System. Southeast of downtown, I-10 curves back to the northeast to connect with the pre-interstate alignment of US 90. Construction of portions of I-10 were well underway and completed prior to the commissioning of the highway in 1959; the section from Culebra Road to Woodlawn Avenue opened as the first freeway in San Antonio in 1949, but was signed as US 87. Expansion and construction continued in the 1950s, but the bulk of the construction occurred in the 1960s after the interstate was commissioned.
The current alignment was completed by 1968. Rapid growth in San Antonio has resulted in the original highway becoming inadequate, resulting in the highway being in perpetual construction and expansion. In the 1980s the portion just northwest of downtown was reconstructed to add a double deck feature to expand the freeway to five lanes in each direction. In 1990, the interstate had only two lanes in each direction from Loop 1604 to where the double-deck freeway begins near downtown. Recent construction has expanded the freeway to five lanes in each direction from just outside the I-410 loop all the way into downtown; the I-10/I-410 interchange was reconstructed into a four-level stack interchange. When constructed during the 1960s, the I-10 Katy from Houston, known as the Katy Freeway, was built with six to eight lanes wide barring side lanes, being modest by Houston standards because existing traffic demand to the farming area of West Houston was low; as the population and economic activity increased in the area vehicular traffic increased, reaching an annual average daily traffic of 238,000 vehicles just west of the West Loop in 2001.
In 2000 increased traffic levels and congestion led to plans being approved for widening of the freeway to 16 lanes with a capacity for 200,000 cars per day. An old railway running along the north side of the freeway was demolished in 2002 in preparation for construction which began in 2004; the interior two lanes in each direction between SH 6 and west I-610, the Katy Freeway Managed Lanes or Katy Tollway, were built as high-occupancy toll lanes and are managed by the Harris County Toll Road Authority. The section just west of SH 6 to the Fort Bend–Harris county line opened in late June 2006. Two intersections were rebuilt, toll booths were added, together with landscaping as part of Houston's Highway Beautification Project. Most of the section between Beltway 8 and SH 6 had been laid by September 2006 and work was completed in October 2008. Tolls on the managed lanes vary by axle count and time of day. High occupancy vehicles may travel for free at certain times. Severe flooding of the Sabine River occurred in March 2016.
Days of continuous heavy rains, coupled with the controversial opening of the Toledo Bend Dam and the release of 207,000 to 208,000 cubic feet per second into the river, caused th
Lloyd Bentsen
Lloyd Millard Bentsen Jr. was an American politician, a four-term United States Senator from Texas and the Democratic Party nominee for vice president in 1988 on the Michael Dukakis ticket. He served as the 69th United States Secretary of the Treasury under President Bill Clinton. Born in Mission, Bentsen graduated from the University of Texas School of Law before serving in the Air Force during World War II, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his service in Europe. After the war, he won election to the United States House of Representatives, serving from 1948 to 1955, he defeated incumbent Senator Ralph Yarborough in the 1970 Democratic Senatorial primary and won the general election against George H. W. Bush, he was reelected in 1976, 1982, 1988, served as the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee from 1987 to 1993. In the Senate, he helped win passage of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act and played a role in the creation of the individual retirement account. Bentsen sought the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination but was unable to organize an effective national campaign.
Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis chose Bentsen as his running mate in the 1988 presidential election, while the Republicans nominated Vice President George H. W. Bush and Senator Dan Quayle. During the 1988 vice-presidential debate, Quayle responded to a question about his inexperience by comparing his time in office up to that point to that of John F. Kennedy, causing Bentsen to castigate Quayle, saying, "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy." Though Dukakis hoped that the selection of Bentsen would help the Democratic ticket win Texas, the Republican ticket won the state and prevailed by a wide margin in the nationwide electoral and popular vote. Bentsen considered running for president in 1992 but chose not to challenge Bush, popular after the Gulf War. After Bill Clinton defeated Bush in the 1992 general election, he offered Bentsen the position of Secretary of the Treasury. Bentsen accepted, as Treasury Secretary he helped win the ratification of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the passage of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993.
Bentsen was succeeded by Robert Rubin. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1999 and died in his home in Houston in 2006. Bentsen was born in Mission in Hidalgo County to Lloyd Millard Bentsen, Sr. a first-generation Danish-American, his wife, Edna Ruth. At age 15 he graduated from Sharyland High School in Mission. Bentsen was an Eagle Scout and recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America, he graduated from the University of Texas School of Law with an LL. B. degree in 1942 and was admitted to the bar, but soon afterwards joined the military for World War II. After brief service as a private in intelligence work in Brazil, he trained to be a pilot and in early 1944 began flying combat missions in B-24s from Foggia, with the 449th Bomb Group. At age 23, he was promoted to major and given command of a squadron of 600 men, overseeing the operations of 15 bombers, their crews, their maintenance units, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel before being discharged in 1947.
Bentsen flew thirty-five missions against many defended targets, including the Ploiești oil fields in Romania, which were critical to the Nazi war production. The 15th Air Force, which included the 449th Bomb Group, destroyed all petroleum production within its range, eliminating about half of Nazi Germany's sources of fuel. Bentsen's unit flew against communications centers, aircraft factories and industrial targets in Germany, Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria. Bentsen participated in raids in support of the Anzio campaign and flew missions against targets in preparation for the landing in southern France, he was shot down twice. Bentsen was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, one of the Air Force's highest commendations for achievement or heroism in flight. In addition to the Distinguished Flying Cross, Bentsen was awarded the Air Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters. Bentsen served in the United States Air Force Reserve from 1950 to 1959, was promoted to colonel in 1953. After the war, Bentsen returned to his native Rio Grande Valley.
He served the people of his home area from 1946 to 1955, first as Hidalgo County Judge. First elected in the Truman landslide of 1948, he served three successive terms in the United States House of Representatives. With the South, including Texas, still home to Yellow dog Democrats, winning the Democratic nomination was tantamount to election, Bentsen was unopposed by Republicans in each of his three House campaigns, he became a protégé of Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn and developed a reputation as an excellent poker player. Bentsen upset incumbent Ralph Yarborough, a liberal icon, in a bruising primary campaign for the 1970 Texas Democratic Senatorial nomination; the campaign came in the wake of Yarborough's politically hazardous votes in favor of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and his opposition to the Vietnam War. Bentsen made Yarborough's opposition to the war a major issue, his television adv
Interstate 94
Interstate 94 is an east–west Interstate Highway connecting the Great Lakes and northern Great Plains regions of the United States. Its western terminus is in Billings, Montana, at a junction with I-90, it thus lies along the primary overland route from Seattle to Toronto, is the only east–west Interstate highway to form a direct connection into Canada. I-94 intersects with I-90 several times: at its western terminus. Among the other major cities that I-94 connects to are North Dakota. I-94 begins at Billings and travels northeastward toward Glendive before exiting the state to the east. I-94 links seven counties, which are Yellowstone, Rosebud, Prairie and Wibaux counties and passes near or through Miles City, Glendive while connecting with I-90 in Billings; the highway is notable for following the Yellowstone River from Billings through Glendive. Beyond the western terminus of I-94, I-90 connects westbound I-94 travelers to points west such as Butte, Coeur d'Alene and Seattle, Washington; the route passes through the Badlands near Medora.
A public rest area about seven miles east of Medora provides an awe-inspiring view at sunset, an opportunity to hike through some of the scenery on the Painted Canyon Trail. Further east, I-94 provides access to the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park passes through the cities of Dickinson, Bismarck and Valley City on the way to West Fargo and Fargo, where it leaves the state and crosses into Minnesota. Throughout the state, the route travels straight east and west following both the railroad route and the former route of US Highway 10 where its western terminus is at exit 343 in West Fargo; the highway intersects with the Enchanted Highway 11 miles east of Dickinson at exit 72. At New Salem, it passes Salem Sue, a 38-foot-high sculpture of a Holstein cow and is visible from I-94 on the south side of the road. A drive up the road to Sue will take visitors to a vantage point where they can see a panoramic landscape for many miles. Between Mandan and Bismarck, I-94 crosses the Missouri River with a view of the Northern Pacific/BNSF Railroad Bridge on the south side of the road.
At Steele, it passes the world's largest sculpture of a sand hill crane, 40 feet tall and visible from I-94 on the south side of the road, just to the east of exit 200. At Jamestown, it passes the world's largest sculpture of the buffalo named "Dakota Thunder", 28 feet tall and is visible from I-94 on the north side of the road. At mile marker 275 on the westbound lanes between Jamestown and Valley City, there is a small green sign marking the Laurentian Divide, which marks a continental divide where rivers south of the divide drain into the Gulf of Mexico, while the rivers north flow into the Arctic Ocean; the highway reaches Fargo, before the Red River. Leaving Fargo and entering Moorhead, Minnesota, I-94 crosses the Red River. East of the Moorhead airport, the Interstate travels in a northwest–southeast trajectory past Fergus Falls, St. Cloud on the way to the Twin Cities, eastward out of the state; the road crosses the Mississippi River in Minneapolis between the Prospect Park and Seward neighborhoods.
The highway joins Minneapolis and St. Paul together where it meets Minnesota Highway 280. In the Twin Cities, the routing of the highway is politically charged through many historic working-class and African-American neighborhoods. In Saint Paul, the routing of I-94 is set through and displaces the historic Rondo neighborhood, which prior to the highway construction was the largest African-American community in Saint Paul. East of Saint Paul, I-94 leaves Minnesota between Lakeland and Hudson, while crossing the St. Croix River. I-94 enters Wisconsin east of the Twin Cities at Hudson, it passes Eau Claire before turning southeastward and joining with I-90 in Tomah and I-39 in Portage. I-94 leaves I-90 and I-39 near Madison and resumes its easterly path toward Milwaukee before turning south and heading to Chicago, entering Illinois at Pleasant Prairie. In the state of Illinois, I-94 runs south from Wisconsin to Indiana via downtown Chicago, it is tolled on the Tri-State Tollway to the I-94/I-294 split.
At I-80, I-94 runs east to Indiana on the Kingery Expressway. In the state of Indiana, I-94 runs east from Illinois concurrently with I-80, it crosses Interstate 90. I-94 continues northeasterly; the 55-mile-per-hour speed limit used to continue east of exit 26. Between mile markers 0.0 and 15.5, the highway is posted along with I-80. Between mile markers 15.6 and 19.0, I-94 is posted alone. I-94 runs north along Lake Michigan to St. Joseph and Benton Harbor before heading east toward Detroit, it turns northeast to Port Huron where it meets I-69 and ends at the Blue Water Bridge, where it becomes Ontario Highway 402 in Point Edward, Ontario. The first section of I-94 completed with Interstate funds (under the Federal-Aid H
Worthington, Minnesota
Worthington is a city in and the county seat of Nobles County, United States. The population was 12,764 at the 2010 census; the city's site was first settled in the 1870s as Okabena Station on a line of the Chicago, St. Paul and Omaha Railway the Chicago and North Western Railway where steam engines would take on water from adjacent Lake Okabena. More people entered along with one A. P. Miller of Toledo, under a firm called the National Colony Organization. Miller named the new city after his wife's maiden name; the first European to have visited the Nobles County area of southwestern Minnesota was French explorer Joseph Nicollet. Nicollet mapped the area between the Missouri Rivers in the 1830s, he called the region “Sisseton Country” in honor of the Sisseton band of Dakota Indians living there. It was a rolling sea of wide open prairie grass. One small lake in Sisseton Country was given the name “Lake Okabena” on Nicollet’s map, “Okabena” being a Dakota word meaning “nesting place of the herons.”The town of Worthington was founded by "Yankees".
In 1871, the St. Paul & Sioux City Railway Company began connecting its two namesake cities with a rail line; the steam engines of that time required a large quantity of water, resulting in water stations being needed every eight to twelve miles along their routes. One of these stations, at the site of present-day Worthington, was designated as “The Okabena Railway Station.”Meanwhile, in that same year, Professor Ransom Humiston of Cleveland, Dr. A. P. Miller, editor of the Toledo Blade, organized a company to locate a colony of New England settlers who had settled in Northern Ohio along the tracks of the Sioux City and St. Paul Railway; these people were "Yankee" settlers whose parents had moved to the region of Northeast Ohio known as the Connecticut Western Reserve from the six New England states. These settlers were members of the Congregational Church, though due to the Second Great Awakening, many of them had converted to Methodism and Presbyterianism, some had become Baptists before coming to what is now Minnesota.
This colony – the National Colony – was to be a village of temperance, a place where evangelical Methodists, Congregationalists, Baptists could live free of the temptations of alcohol. A town was plotted, the name was changed from the Okabena Railway Station to Worthington - Worthington being the maiden name of Dr. Miller’s mother-in-law. On April 29, 1872, regular passenger train service to Worthington was started, on that first train were the first of the National Colony settlers. One early arrival described the scene: We were among the first members of the colony to arrive at the station of an unfinished railroad… There was a good hotel and comfortably furnished, one or two stores neatly furnished and stocked with goods, several other in process of erection… The streets, scarcely to be defined as such, were full of prairie schooners, containing families waiting until masters could suit themselves with “claims,” the women pursuing their housewifely avocations meanwhile – some having cooking stoves in their wagons, others using gypsy fires to do their culinary work.
Some settlers from New England were however, drinking men, most of whom were civil war veterans from Massachusetts and Maine, who came into conflict with the temperance movement. A curious event took place on Worthington’s first Fourth of July celebration. Hearing that there was a keg of beer in the Worthington House Hotel, Professor Humiston entered the hotel, seized the keg, dragged it outside, destroyed it with an axe. A witness described what happened next:"Upon seeing this, the young men of the town thought it to be rather an imposition, collected together, procured the services of the band, under the direction of a military officer marched to the rear of the hotel, with a wheelbarrow and shovel took the empty keg, broken open, playing the dead march with flag at half staff marched to the flagpole in front of Humiston’s office where they dug a grave and gave the empty keg a burial with all the honors attending a soldier’s funeral, they with flag at full mast and with lively air, marched back to the ice house, procured a full keg of beer, returning to the grave, resting the keg thereon.
A general invitation was given to all who desired to partake, which many did until the keg was emptied… In the evening they reassembled, burning Prof. Humiston in effigy about 10 p.m. Thus ended the glorious Fourth at Worthington, Minn. —Sibley Gazette July 5, 1872In spite of tensions between pro-temperance and anti-temperance factions, the town grew rapidly. By the end of summer in 1872, eighty-five buildings had been constructed where just one year before there had been nothing but a field of prairie grass. Settlers poured into the region. At first they came exclusively from the six New England states due to issues of overpopulation combined with land shortages, which led to a stream of "Yankee" immigrants leaving that region; some had come from Upstate New York and had parents and grandparents who had moved to that region from New England during the early 1800s and late 1700s. Due to the large number of New Englanders and New England transplants from upstate New York the town of Worthington, like much of Minnesota at this time, was culturally continuous with early New England culture for much of its early history.
It was the age of the Homestead Act when 160 acres of government land could be claimed
Iowa
Iowa is a state in the Midwestern United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states. In colonial times, Iowa was a part of Spanish Louisiana. After the Louisiana Purchase, people laid the foundation for an agriculture-based economy in the heart of the Corn Belt. In the latter half of the 20th century, Iowa's agricultural economy made the transition to a diversified economy of advanced manufacturing, financial services, information technology and green energy production. Iowa is the 26th most extensive in land area and the 30th most populous of the 50 U. S states, its capital and largest city by population is Des Moines. Iowa has been listed as one of the safest states in, its nickname is the Hawkeye State. Iowa derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many Native American tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa is bordered by the Mississippi River on the east.
The southern border is the Des Moines River and a not-quite-straight line along 40 degrees 35 minutes north, as decided by the U. S. Supreme Court in Missouri v. Iowa after a standoff between Missouri and Iowa known as the Honey War. Iowa is the only state whose east and west borders are formed by rivers. Iowa has 99 counties; the state capital, Des Moines, is in Polk County. Iowa's bedrock geology increases in age from west to east. In northwest Iowa, Cretaceous bedrock can be 74 million years old. Iowa is not flat. Iowa can be divided into eight landforms based on glaciation, soils and river drainage. Loess hills lie along the western border of the state. Northeast Iowa along the Upper Mississippi River is part of the Driftless Area, consisting of steep hills and valleys which appear mountainous. Several natural lakes exist, most notably Spirit Lake, West Okoboji Lake, East Okoboji Lake in northwest Iowa. To the east lies Clear Lake. Man-made lakes include Lake Odessa, Saylorville Lake, Lake Red Rock, Coralville Lake, Lake MacBride, Rathbun Lake.
The state's northwest area has many remnants such as Barringer Slough. Iowa's natural vegetation is tallgrass prairie and savanna in upland areas, with dense forest and wetlands in flood plains and protected river valleys, pothole wetlands in northern prairie areas. Most of Iowa is used for agriculture; the Southern part of Iowa is categorised as the Central forest-grasslands transition ecoregion. The Northern, drier part of Iowa is categorised as the Central tall grasslands and is thus considered to be part of the Great Plains. There is a dearth of natural areas in Iowa; as of 2005 Iowa ranked 49th of U. S. states in public land holdings. Threatened or endangered animals in Iowa include the interior least tern, piping plover, Indiana bat, pallid sturgeon, the Iowa Pleistocene land snail, Higgins' eye pearly mussel, the Topeka shiner. Endangered or threatened plants include western prairie fringed orchid, eastern prairie fringed orchid, Mead's milkweed, prairie bush clover, northern wild monkshood.
There is little proof to suggest that the explosion in the number of high-density livestock facilities in Iowa has led to increased rural water contamination and a decline in air quality. In fact, covered manure storage in modern barns prevent that manure from washing away into surface water, as it does in open lots as snow melts and thunderstorms occur. Other factors negatively affecting Iowa's environment include the extensive use of older coal-fired power plants and pesticide runoff from crop production, diminishment of the Jordan Aquifer. Iowa has a humid continental climate throughout the state with extremes of both cold; the average annual temperature at Des Moines is 50 °F. Winters are harsh and snowfall is common. Spring ushers in the beginning of the severe weather season. Iowa averages about 50 days of thunderstorm activity per year; the 30 year annual average Tornadoes in Iowa is 47. In 2008, twelve people were killed by tornadoes in Iowa, making it the deadliest year since 1968 and the second most tornadoes in a year with 105, matching the total from 2001.
Iowa summers are known for heat and humidity, with daytime temperatures sometimes near 90 °F and exceeding 100 °F. Average winters in the state have been known to drop well below freezing dropping below −18 °F. Iowa's all-time hottest temperature of 118 °F was recorded at Keokuk on July 20, 1934. Iowa has a smooth gradient of var
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
Fergus Falls, Minnesota
Fergus Falls is a city in and the county seat of Otter Tail County, United States. The population was 13,138 at the 2010 census; the falls from which the city gets part of its name were discovered by Joe Whitford in 1856 and promptly named in honor of his employer, James Fergus. It is not known whether Fergus visited the city, but Whitford did not live to see the city develop, as he was killed during the 1862 Dakota war in western Minnesota. In 1867, George B. Wright was at the land office at St. Cloud and found Whitford's lapsed claim, purchased the land, built what is now the Central Dam in downtown Fergus Falls around 1871. After Wright died in 1882, his son Vernon moved from Boston to Minnesota and took over his father's interests in the town. Vernon Wright was one of the two people who established the Otter Tail Power Company in 1907; the city was incorporated in the late 1870s and is situated along the dividing line between the former great deciduous forest of the Northwest Territories to the east and the great plains to the west, in a region of gentle hills, where the recent geological history is dominated by the recession of the glaciers from the last great Ice Age, with numerous lakes and small rivers.
Two major tornadoes hit Fergus Falls during the early 20th century, the second, the 1919 Fergus Falls tornado, being the greater. The only church edifice left standing after the great cyclone was the predominantly black Baptist church. Fergus Falls features many different parks and other tourist attractions; the Union Avenue Bridge spans the Otter Tail River, was reconstructed in 2004. Just below the bridge is part of scenic River Walk Park, which spans about a mile of the river; the part nearest the Union Avenue Bridge was redone along with the bridge. The town hall was modeled after Independence Hall in Philadelphia, its west wing housed the city fire station until the 1970s. Other points of interest include the county museum, Lake Alice, George B. Wright Park, Pebble Lake Golf Course, Veteran's Memorial Park. Arts in Fergus Falls are booming with a community theater program downtown. Many local and professional artists perform at A Center for the Arts; the city lends its name to the song "Fergus Falls" by the band Field Report on its 2012 self-titled album.
Fergus Falls received international coverage in early 2017 and late 2018 after a news article in Der Spiegel falsely claimed there was an anti-Mexican sign at the city's entrance and fabricated other things about the town. The story's author, Claas Relotius, admitted to numerous instances of journalistic fraud. In December 2018 two residents of Fergus Falls, Michele Anderson and John Krohn, published a report pointing out the "11 most absurd lies" of the 2017 article; the same month Der Spiegel sent a reporter to Fergus Falls to investigate and apologize. A strong economic division between Scandinavian immigrant farmers and the earlier English and Scottish war veterans who retained control of the principal businesses of the city center, the banks, the important Otter Tail Power Company, persisted for decades until several generations of ethnic intermarriage and continuing inward and outward migration erased the divisions along ethnic lines; the small black community Baptist, which clustered in the Southeast section of the city dwindled.
The dams built on the Otter Tail River beginning in the 1880s were powerful economic forces that shaped the area's development. Returning soldiers from the American Civil War settled in the region as farmers; the importance of the Civil War experience to these early settlers is highlighted by the town's street names: the intersecting principal thoroughfares are Lincoln Avenue and Union Avenue. The oldest parts of the town have streets with names such as Sherman and Vernon; the early English wave of settlement claimed control of the falls along the Otter Tail River and established the first Episcopalian and Presbyterian churches. As soon as the foundational structure of the town was laid, an influx of Norwegian immigrants arrived, by way of the Scandinavian migration of Chicago and Minneapolis on the Great Northern Railway. Dairy farmers, they established numerous Lutheran churches in the area; the Lutheran Brethren established an academy in Fergus Falls, which today operates a private high school, theological seminary and mission society, with an office in Fergus Falls.
The pietistic, low-church Lutherans constituted one cultural center of the Norwegian-German community, while the high-church First Lutheran constituted a separate center, which attracted a more upwardly mobile class of parishioner. After the Interstate Defense Highway System built Interstate 94 along the western edge of Fergus Falls in the late 1950s, population mobility increased and high school graduates left the town to attend colleges in Morris, Fargo-Moorhead, or the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul; as farming declined as an occupation and lifestyle, with large-scale commercial farming replacing the family farm system during the second half of the 20th century, the city appeared destined to become a retirement and nursing community until a new migration of younger families was made possible by the Internet, which created opportunities for telecommuting and e-business. The bucolic environment, with abundant sporting opportunities that had long attracted summer vacationers, combined with the low cost of real estate and cost of living have brought people wishing to raise their children away from the comparatively co
Fed. 85D at Mexico–US border in Laredo, TX
PTH 59 at Canada–US border near Lancaster, MN
I-69W in Laredo. The highways travel concurrently through the city.
I-35 / US 83 in Laredo
Future I-69C / US 281 in George West
I-37 east of George West
US 181 in Beeville
US 183 in Goliad
Future I-69 / Future I-69E / Future I-69W / US 77 southwest of Victoria. I-69/US 59 will travel concurrently to Houston. US 59/US 77 travels concurrently to south-southwest of Victoria.
US 87 in Victoria
I-69 / I-610 in Houston
I-45 in Houston
I-10 / US 90 in Houston
US 190 in Livingston
US 287 in Corrigan
US 69 in Lufkin. The highways travel concurrently through the city.
US 259 in Redfield
US 84 in Timpson. The highways travel concurrently to Tenaha.
Future I-69 / Future I-369 / US 84 / US 96 in Tenaha. I-369/US 59 will travel concurrently to Texarkana.
US 79 in Carthage. The highways travel concurrently to north of Carthage.
I-20 in Marshall
US 80 in Marshall
I-369 in Texarkana. I-369/US 59 travels concurrently to I-30.
US 67 in Texarkana
US 82 in Texarkana
I-30 / US 71 in Texarkana. US 59/US 71 travels concurrently to Acorn.
I-49 north of Texarkana
US 371 in Lockesburg. The highways travel concurrently to De Queen.
US 70 in Saline Township. The highways travel concurrently to De Queen.
US 278 in Wickes
US 71 / US 270 in Acorn. US 59/US 270 travels concurrently to Heavener, Oklahoma.
US 271 in Poteau. The highways travel concurrently to west of Spiro.
I-40 in Sallisaw
US 64 in Sallisaw. The highways travel concurrently through the city.
US 62 in Westville
US 412 in West Siloam Springs. The highways travel concurrently to Kansas.
US 166 in Chetopa. The highways travel concurrently through the city.
US 160 in Oswego. The highways travel concurrently to the Mount Pleasant–Fairview township line.
US 400 in Parsons
US 54 in Moran
US 169 in Welda Township. The highways travel concurrently to Washington Township.
I-35 / US 50 in Ottawa. The highways travel concurrently to Ottawa Township.
US 56 in Willow Springs Township
US 40 in Lawrence. The highways travel concurrently through the city.
I-70 in Lawrence
US 73 in Shannon Township. The highways travel concurrently to Atchison.
I-229 in St. Joseph. The highways travel concurrently through the city.
US 36 in St. Joseph
US 159 in Hickory Township
US 136 in Tarkio Township. The highways travel concurrently to Tarkio.
US 34 in Indian Creek Township
US 6 in Belknap Township. The highways travel concurrently to Oakland.
I-80 in Avoca
US 30 in Denison. The highways travel concurrently through the city.
US 20 on the Logan–Griggs township line. The highways travel concurrently to Holstein.
US 18 on the Franklin–Lincoln township line. The highways travel concurrently to Sanborn.
I-90 in Worthington
US 14 in Custer Township
US 212 in Camp Release Township. The highways travel concurrently to Montevideo.
US 12 in Moyer Township
I-94 / US 52 on the Buse–Dane Prairie township line. The highways travel concurrently to Fergus Falls Township.
US 10 in Detroit Lakes
US 2 in Knute Township
PTH 59 at the Canada–US border on the Richardville–St. Joseph township line
SH 57
→
AR 58
→
SH-58
→
K-58
→
Route 58
→
Iowa 58
→
MN 58
→
