Thomas Allen portrait

Thomas Allen was among the most prominent and powerful individuals who led St. Louis in its transition from…

A 1911 State Highway Department map of the Boone’s Lick Road and Santa Fe Trail. [State Historical Society of Missouri Map Collection, 850 M691h 1911]

The Boone’s Lick Road was the first major conduit to the trans-Mississippi West after the 

James Eads. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Photographs and Prints Collection, P0004-1016]

Born in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, on May 23, 1820, James Buchanan Eads became an engineer of…

A muddy road in Lafayette County, Missouri, circa 1910s. At the dawn of the automobile era, the predicament of drivers in Missouri and elsewhere sparked a nationwide Good Roads Movement. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Leonard D. and Marie H. Rehkop Collection of Algert T. Peterson Photographs, C3888-G0043]

Two convoys of army trucks left St. Louis and Kansas City on September 27, 1920. Their mission was to travel…

Hooker Cut as it looked upon completion in 1945. This view is looking east on Route 66. [Courtesy of Missouri State Archives, Missouri Department of Transportation Collection]

By the middle of 1940, Europe was engulfed in war. On September 16, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed legislation…

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 in Jasper…

Albert Bond Lambert with Orville Wright in St. Louis, circa 1910. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Photographs and Prints Collection, P0059-00002]

Important in the history of business in Missouri, Albert Bond Lambert made even larger…

Log City, circa 1942. [State Historical Society of Missouri, John F. Bradbury Jr. Postcard Collection, R1551]

Log City was a filling station, tourist camp, store, and café on Route 66 in Jasper County, Missouri.…

Alexander Majors. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Kansas City Research Center]

Those familiar with the Pony Express recognize Russell, Majors, and Waddell as the…

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…