The Gateway Arch, in the Jefferson Expansion National Monument was conceived by architect Eero Saarinen to memorialize the concept of Missouri and particularly St. Louis, as the Gateway to the West. Many federal documents related to Missouri before the Civil War, focus on exploration and settlement of the West, or development of natural resources in Missouri. From Lewis and Clark until the Civil War many famous explorations of the West began in St. Louis or St. Joseph. Following in the footsteps of explorers, the wagon trains of settlers on the Oregon and Santa Fe Trails began their migration in Missouri. The first overland postal communication to California - the Butterfield Overland Stage in 1858 and the Pony Express in 1860 - had their eastern termini in Missouri.
The presence of lead for ammunition in Missouri added to the military importance of the Louisiana Purchase. Moses Austin, owner of Mine á Burton near St. Genevieve, authored the first government document on the history and production of Missouri lead mines in 1804. The role of St. Louis as the military and economic base for the westward expansion of the United States was firmly established when Jefferson Barracks was constructed in 1826. Fort Bellefontaine, constructed in 1805 on damp bottomland along the south bank of the Missouri River twelve miles from St. Louis, was constantly in danger of being cut away by the Missouri River. In March 1826, Generals Edmund P. Gaines and Henry Atkinson selected land on the west bank of the Mississippi River ten miles south of St. Louis for an Infantry School. The site's advantages included a limestone bank above the high water mark, which offered an excellent landing and a well-timbered, gentle slope with dry, sandy soil. The initial construction, completed in 1830, provided housing for 22 companies of infantry, making this the largest garrison in the United States at the time. 
Jefferson Barracks served as a major military installation until 1946, a staging point for troops and supplies bound for the Mexican War, the Civil War, various Indian conflicts, the Spanish-American War, the Philippine Wars, World War I and World War II, as well as the first Army Air Corps basic training site. Officers who served at Jefferson Barracks include Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, U.S. Grant, William T. Sherman and Philip Sheridan, James Longstreet, and Jeb Stuart.
Proximity to the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers made Jefferson Barracks an important supply and logistics location for the Army of the West during much of the 19th century. The 1837 Report of the Secretary of War, with Plans for the Defense and Protection of the Western Frontiers of the United States proposed a rapid response force, "To obviate a similar catastrophe [as happened in Florida during the winter of 1835-36] upon the western frontier, bordered as it is with savages, for the most part deeply wounded, and to some extent exasperated at what they deem to be our hostility and injustice, in urging them to abandon the lands of their ancestors; savages who have profited, as every portion of the human family have profited, by the lessons they have taken from us in the school of adversity, and thus prepared for a spirited attack on the frontier; savages sufficiently numerous, when combined, to lay waste hundreds of miles of our frontier settlements in a shorter time than the news of their hostility could possibly reach the seat of the federal government, and even before the State governments of the west could possibly provide the means of defence [sic]."
Commissioned by the War Department's Topographical Bureau to map the Oregon Trail, John C. Fremont started his 1842 and 1843 expeditions from Missouri, "Agreeably to your orders to explore and report upon the country between the frontiers of Missouri and the South Pass in the Rocky mountains, and on the line of the Kansas and Great Platte rivers, I sat out from Washington city on the 2d day of May, 1842, and arrived at St. Louis, by way of New York, the 22d of May, where necessary preparations were completed, and the expedition commenced. I proceeded by steamboat to Chouteau's landing, about four hundred miles by water from St. Louis, and near the mouth of the Kansas river, whence we proceeded twelve miles to Cyprian Chouteau's trading house, where we completed our final arrangements for the expedition... I had collected in the neighborhood of St. Louis twenty-one men, principally Creole and Canadian voyageurs, who had become familiar with prairie life in the service of the fur companies in the Indian country... and Christopher Carson (more familiarly known, for his exploits in the mountains, as Kit Carson) was our guide."
A decade later, the Army Appropriation Act of March 1853 directed Secretary of War Jefferson Davis to survey four possible routes to the Pacific. An ill-fated party under Captain John W. Gunnison explored a route west from St. Louis between the 38th and 39th parallels, advocated by Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton. After Gunnison's death at the hands of hostile Indians, Lt. Edward G. Beckwith continued the survey and submitted a report including this lithograph. The surveys showed that a railroad could follow any one of the four routes; however sectional disagreements prevented Congressional support for a transcontinental railroad until 1862.
Missouri became the 24th state in 1821. Under the terms of the Missouri Compromise, admission was paired with that of the non-slave state Maine in order to maintain the balance of slave and free states in the nation. Slavery was outlawed north of the northern border of Missouri. Originally the western boundary was a straight line; in 1837 the northern boundary line was extended to the Missouri River, adding the six northwestern counties, known as the Platt Purchase. 
This was made possible after the Sauk, Fox, and Pottawatomie Indians were persuaded to trade their land for land further to the west.
The forcible removal of native people from their homes in Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas began in the 1820s and culminated with the 1838-1839 removal of the Cherokee to the Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. This migration route, known as the Trail of Tears, crossed southern Missouri on the way to Tahlequah, Oklahoma.
As a slave state that nearly seceded from the Union, Missouri was the site of numerous battles and skirmishes during the Civil War. Missouri was vital to Union strategy not only for its location at the eastern terminus of communication lines to California and Oregon as well as the junctions of Ohio, Missouri, and Mississippi Rivers, but also its rich iron and lead deposits and significant agricultural production. Southwestern Missouri remained under Confederate control following the defeat and death of General Nathaniel Lyon at Wilson's Creek near Springfield, Missouri August 10, 1861. 
The battlefield is preserved as a National Monument, with a tour by the Army Command and General Staff College. Union strategy was to gain control of the Mississippi River thus splitting the Confederacy. The Confederate Army chose Island No. 10, near New Madrid, Missouri to be their strongpoint for defending the Mississippi River. Union troops under Brigadier General John Pope and iron-clad gunboats (built in Carondelet, today part of St. Louis) commanded by Flag-Officer Andrew H. Foote dislodged the Confederate forces in April 1862.
Washington University established the world's first manual-training high school in 1880 after Calvin Woodward discovered that his applied mechanics students did not know how to use simple tools. Noah Dean, the University carpenter and mechanic, outfitted a shop to teach students the basics of carpentry, wood turning, blacksmithing, and light machine work. Dean's shop became a required course in the Polytechnic Department. The "History of the Manual Training School of Washington University" was published in the 1923 Bureau of Education Bulletin.
Our neighbor to the north, also celebrating their centennial this year, was founded by the populist reformer Edward Gardner Lewis. A protracted struggle with the Post Office over his business practices led to an investigation that has preserved extensive records of Lewis and early University City businesses in Congressional testimony.
Mistrusting an unregulated banking industry, which did not insure depositor's savings accounts, E. G. Lewis established the People's United States Bank in 1904 as postal bank to serve the rural population who subscribed to his magazines. 
On July 5, 1905 Postmaster General George B. Cortelyou concluded that Lewis had engaged in mail fraud and issued Order Number 10 instructing the St. Louis postmaster "to return all letters, whether registered or not, and other mail matter, which shall arrive at your office directed to the said parties, to the postmasters at the offices at which they were originally mailed, to be delivered to the senders thereof, with the word 'Fraudulent' plainly written or stamped upon the outside of such letters or matter." With the inability to receive any mail, either personal or business, Lewis and the bank were out of business. After Lewis was acquitted in U.S. District Court in St. Louis, the Post Office revoked the second class mailing privileges for his magazines. The matter was brought to Congress with House Bill 138, introduced in the 62nd Congress to pay Lewis $1.5 million in compensation for his losses at the hands of the Post Office Department. House Resolution 109 "To Investigate the Post Office Department" resulted in over 10,000 pages of testimony regarding E. G. Lewis and his various business enterprises. Although Lewis did not receive compensation, he was partially vindicated when U.S. Postal Savings was established in 1911. Lewis wrote Order Number Ten telling his version of the events.
Ulysses S. Grant (18th President) came to Missouri in 1843 when he was posted to Jefferson Barracks after graduation from West Point. While in St. Louis, he met and married Julia Dent. White Haven, their home, is a National Historic site. During the first months of Grant's Presidency, financiers Jay Gould and Jim Fisk schemed with Grant's brother-in-law to manipulate the gold bullion market. When Grant realized he had been conned, he ordered the government to sell gold causing the market to crash. In the resulting investigation, loyal Republicans prevented testimony from Grant's wife and sister.
George Washington Carver was born to slave parents near Diamond, Missouri. As a botanist and agronomist, Carver revolutionized southern agriculture and brought national recognition to Tuskegee Institute. He explained the value of growing peanuts and other new crops during Congressional testimony. His birthplace is preserved as a National Monument.
Harry S. Truman (33rd President) shown in his Senate office, where he represented Missouri for a decade before becoming Vice-President. The Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri is administered by the National Archives and Records Administration. With these words, "SIXTEEN HOURS AGO an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima... It was an atomic bomb... The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East" President Truman announced the dawning of the atomic age. His speeches and papers have been collected Public papers of the presidents of the United States.
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