Jolly Mill circa 2022. [Photo by Ross Brown]

Jolly Mill, a grist mill and whiskey distillery, was built in the late 1840s on…

Nathaniel N. Kinney. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Rolla Research Center, William L. Vandeventer Papers (R1428)]

Nathaniel “Nat” N. Kinney has a popular image as a romantic, violent, swashbuckling…

Emma R. Knell, circa 1926. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Knell Family Photographs Collection, P0708-015517]

Emma R. Knell, a businesswoman and politician, was born in Moline, Illinois, on October 21…

The Figure 8 roller coaster at Lakeside Park, added in 1907, was a “huge reversing spiral” in which cars rushed down a half-mile curving track with “three figure eights in a descent of 50 feet.” [Courtesy of the Joplin Historical & Mineral Museum]

 “Once the most important and popular play place of the Tri-State district,” Lakeside Park…

Dorothy Leake in the 1920s

Dorothy Van Dyke Leake, an educator noted for her ecological work and her efforts to…

Mary Elizabeth Mahnkey. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Mary Kathy Dains Photograph Collection, P0300]

Mary Elizabeth Mahnkey was a lifelong newspaper and magazine journalist, and a regional…

John Malang. [Floyd Calvin Shoemaker, Missouri and Missourians: Land of Contrasts and People of Achievements, 1943]

John Malang, “The Father of Missouri Roads,” was born on September 9, 1866 or 1867. Sources provide…

Curtis Fletcher Marbut, circa 1930s. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Curtis F. Marbut Papers, C3720]

Curtis Fletcher Marbut revolutionized American thinking in soil science and had an…

Hanging rock

Located in the southwest corner of Missouri, McDonald County borders Arkansas and Oklahoma. Situated within the…

George Caleb Bingham’s depiction of the violence and tragedy of the Missouri-Kansas border war in his iconic painting Order No. 11. [State Historical Society of Missouri Art Collection, 1945.0003]

Civil war raged along the Kansas-Missouri border for nearly a…