SAINT LOUIS AND ST LOUIS ARE THE SAME PLACE ST IS AN ABBREVIATION OR A SHORT WAY OF WRITING SAINT 4
Gateway to the West Look out Where is that school bus going Why is that gigantic EYEBALL staring at you How tall is that ENORMOUS arch and how do you get to the top Are you ready to explore all this and more Welcome to St Louis Missouri Located in the middle of the country St Louis is on the eastern side of Missouri and alongside the mighty Mississippi River People here are called Saint Louisans and the city is called the Gateway to the West How did St Louis get its nickname We can thank the third president of the United States for that St Louis Notes Long before the U S Was formed two French fur traders set up a trading post along the Mississippi River In 1764 they began building St Louis naming the city after a famous French King IX Louis 5
When Thomas Jefferson was elected president in 1800 the country was much smaller than it is now It started at the Atlantic Ocean in the east and ended at the Mississippi River in the west But in 1803 President Jefferson bought more land A lot more land This was called the Louisiana Purchase Overnight the U S nearly doubled in size Thomas Jefferson 1743 1826 Part or all of 15 states were later created from the Louisiana Purchase ALBERTA SASKATCHEWAN CANADA MONTANA NORTH DAKOTA MINNESOTA SOUTH DAKOTA WYOMING MESSEsse IOWA NEBRASKA Denver COLORADO St Louis KANSAS MISSOURI NEW MEXICO OKLAHOMA ARKANSAS ATLANTIC OCEAN TEXAS LOUISIANA New Orleans MEXICO 6
Now St Louis was in the middle of the country It was also at the entrance or gateway to the new western territory But what did all that land look like In 1804 Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led a team of explorers to find out They started their journey near St Louis and were gone for more than two years When they returned Lewis and Clark became American heroes Their travels inspired many people to go west THE EXPLORERS DISCOVERED 178 NEW PLANTS AND 122 ANIMALS INCLUDING THE GRIZZLY BEAR AND THE PRAIRIE 7 DOG Lewis and Clark's team called the Corps of Discovery explored 7 689 miles 12 374 25 kilometers of wilderness and traveled for days 863
