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Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “This Land of Ours”
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. Missouri has a proud agricultural tradition. In fact, the statue adorning the dome of the state capitol in Jefferson City, often mistaken as Lady Liberty, is actually Ceres, goddess of growing vegetation. The first farms in Missouri were established around 1725 by French settlers near St. Louis and of course the …
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. Between the Civil War and the end of World War II, the Midwest transitioned from a rural economy to an industrial agricultural economy as the Midwest rapidly industrialized. The expansion of railroads to the west transformed Kansas City into a major transportation hub. The growth of the Texas cattle industry along …
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. Robert Thomas is part of American agriculture history. He was born in 1766 near Boston. He took to writing in those early years and became a school teacher, teaching English writing and literature. He eventually became a seller of books and also an amateur astronomer, and it would be a combination …
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. The importance of St. Louis when looking at the history of American agriculture cannot be overstated. With railroads just beginning to be important in the late 1850s, the riverboat traffic dominated transportation and trade, and St. Louis flourished as the center, connections east along the Illinois, Ohio, Cumberland and Tennessee rivers, …
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. Henry C. Groseclose is an important part of American agricultural history. Groseclose was an ag education teacher at Blacksburg Virginia High School. In March of 1920, he organized a club for any high school boy who was interested in making agriculture a career. Word spread across the state to other high …
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. Agricultural development flourish in most Midwestern states, including Missouri. But the Missouri Bootheel remains swampy and subject to flooding and remain heavily forested, remain underdeveloped, underpopulated. But, beginning in the 1880s, railroads opened up the Bootheel to logging. 1905, Little River Drainage District constructed elaborate ditches, canals, and levees to drain …
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. Missouri was admitted to the Union in 1821, the 24th state. State capital was temporarily located in St. Charles until a permanent capital could be built. Missouri was noted to be the first state entirely west of the Mississippi to be admitted to the Union. The state capital eventually moved to …
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. Once the California Gold Rush began in 1848, Missouri cities like St. Louis, Kansas City, Independence, and especially St. Joseph became departure points for those joining wagon trains to the west. They bought supplies and all that they needed in those cities to make the six-month journey to California. And that …
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. Agriculture has a rich history in the state of Missouri in the late 1700s and early 1800s. The agricultural surplus produced by Missouri farmers was often sold downriver to plantation societies in the lower Mississippi Valley. The best agricultural lands at that time lay along the Missouri River. They attracted wealthy …
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. Many people assume the longest river in the U.S. is the Mississippi, but that title belongs to the Missouri and part of American agriculture history. Rising from the Rocky Mountains in southwestern Montana, the Missouri flows east and south for 2,341 miles before entering the Mississippi north of St. Louis. The …
