Ivory Perry addressing a crowd at a civil rights demonstration in front of St. Louis police headquarters on September 16, 1965. Photograph by Buel White, © St. Louis Post-Dispatch. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, St. Louis Post-Dispatch Collection, N22497]

A community organizer, civil rights campaigner, housing specialist, and antipoverty…

Homer G. Phillips. Painting by Vernon Smith. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Objects Collection, 2016-058-0001]

Homer G. Phillips was born in Sedalia, Missouri, on April 1, 1880. He was raised by an aunt…

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Pedro Joseph Piernas, the first Spanish lieutenant governor in St. Louis, occupied that…

A Union encampment in the Arcadia valley early in the war. Pilot Knob Mountain is at right. [Harper’s Weekly, September 21, 1861]

In September of 1864, Confederate army troops led by Major General

Pippin Place. [State Historical Society of Missouri, John F. Bradbury Jr. Postcard Collection, R1551]

Pippin Place was a legendary Gasconade River resort in the Missouri Ozarks. With the spread of railroads…

Trusten W. Polk. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Art Collection, 1960.0001]

Trusten W. Polk, governor of Missouri and a US senator, was born in Sussex County, Delaware…

Truman Marcellus Post. [T. A. Post, Truman Marcellus Post, D.D.: A Biography Personal and Literary, 1891]

Truman Marcellus Post, a religious and cultural leader of St. Louis, was born in Middlebury…

William Powell on a card distributed with packs of cigarettes. [New York Public Library Digital Collections, George Arents Collection, 1206072]

William Horatio Powell was the epitome of the suave, urbane leading man throughout his stage and film career…

Wayne Powers with his family in France. [© Francois Gragnon / Paris Match / Scoop, used by permission]

When Wayne E. Powers, a US Army private from Missouri, was arrested for desertion on March 22, 1958, it…

Bernard Pratte. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Photographs and Prints Collection, N46666]

Bernard Pratte’s father, Jean Baptiste, settled first on the east bank of the Mississippi.…

Emil Preetorius. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Photographs and Prints Collection, Portraits, N13088]

Emil Preetorius was a German-language journalist in St. Louis. Born in Alzey, Rheinhessen, Germany, on March…

Sterling Price. [Smithsonian Institution, National Portrait Gallery, NPG.2001.40]

Born in Prince Edward County, Virginia, on September 11, 1809, Sterling Price was the son…

Thomas Lawson Price. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Art Collection, 1977.0004]

Thomas Lawson Price was born on January 19, 1809, near Danville, Virginia. Although he was…

Vincent Price in the Broadway production Diversions and Delights, 1978. [New York Public Library Digital Collections, Billy Rose Theatre Division, swope_630152]

Vincent Price, a versatile actor of stage, screen, and television, was born in St. Louis,…

Red’s Giant Hamburg sometime after it closed in December 1984. [State Historical Society of Missouri, David Eslick Photograph Collection, SP0088, 1976-2001]

The original Red’s Giant Hamburg on Route 66 in Springfield, Missouri, was a legendary roadside spot for…

William Marion Reedy in 1904. Photo by J. C. Strauss. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Photographs and Prints Collection N35138]

William Marion Reedy discovered, promoted, and nurtured some of America’s most important writers during his almost…

Thomas Reynolds. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Ralph Walker Photographs Collection, P0108-003866]

Elected in 1840, Thomas Reynolds became the seventh Missouri governor. There are few…

Thomas Caute Reynolds. [<em>The Civil Government of the United States and the State of Missouri</em>, 1897]

Elected lieutenant governor of Missouri in 1860, Thomas Caute Reynolds worked diligently to separate Missouri…

Dr. Katharine Berry Richardson. [Courtesy of Children’s Mercy Kansas City]

Katharine Berry Richardson founded the highly respected Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas…

Sidney Rigdon. [Courtesy of the Church History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints]

Born on February 17, 1793, on a farm near St. Clair Township, in Allegheny County,…

Peter Rindisbacher, portrait by George Markham. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Objects Collection, 1985-101-0001]

Peter Rindisbacher’s paintings and watercolors are among the earliest images of the indigenous peoples and…

This eighteenth-century map shows the mouth of the River Des Peres (unnamed, below St. Louis) and the Kaskaskia village to the south on the opposite side of the Mississippi, where the River Des Peres mission resettled after abandoning the site in what is now south St. Louis. [Frederick Charles Hicks, ed., A Topographical Description of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and North Carolina, 1778]

More than half a century before the founding of St. Louis, French priests established a…

Joseph Robidoux. [State Historical Society of Missouri Image Collections]

Joseph Robidoux III, the eldest son of a large family, was born in St. Louis on August 10,…

Hugh Robinson. [Courtesy of DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University]

Hugh Armstrong Robinson, a member of the distinguished Early Birds…

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Roper v. Simmons was a landmark case heard in the Supreme Court of…