the State Historical Society of Missouri
![Wayne Powers with his family in France. [© Francois Gragnon / Paris Match / Scoop, used by permission]](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2025-01/1.-wayne-powers.jpg?itok=4VcynHnU "Wayne Powers with his family in France. [© Francois Gragnon / Paris Match / Scoop, used by permission]")
The Wayne Powers Case
When Wayne E. Powers, a US Army private from Missouri, was arrested for desertion on March 22, 1958, it sparked an international incident in which President Dwight D.
Brock Jones
Brock Jones is the retired business manager of the University of Missouri Printing Services and an MU graduate.
Joe G. Dillard
Joe G. Dillard is a native Missourian with a strong interest in history; he is a Life Member of the State Historical Society of Missouri.
![Father Augustus Tolton. [Image in public domain]](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2024-11/1.-augustus-tolton.jpg?itok=-7fAuvPh "Father Augustus Tolton. [Image in public domain]")
Augustus Tolton (1854–1897)
Father Augustus Tolton, recognized as the first openly African American priest in the United States, was born into slavery in the small community of Brush Creek in Ralls County, Missouri.
Clayton Powell
Clayton Powell is a graduate student at the University of Chicago. He is from Maryville, Missouri, and attended the University of Missouri in Columbia.
![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]](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2024-11/1.-good-roads-movement.jpg?itok=lPo28e6p "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]")
The Good Roads Movement in Missouri
Two convoys of army trucks left St. Louis and Kansas City on September 27, 1920.
Doug Genens
Doug Genens is an oral historian at the State Historical Society of Missouri.
![John Breckenridge Ellis. [History of Clinton and Caldwell Counties, Missouri, 1923]](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2024-11/1.-john-breckinridge-ellis_0.jpg?itok=oNiGR387 "John Breckenridge Ellis. [History of Clinton and Caldwell Counties, Missouri, 1923]")
John Breckenridge Ellis (1870–1956)
John Breckenridge Ellis wrote more than twenty-five books during his long life. At eighteen months, he contracted spinal meningitis, which left him without the use of his legs.
![Robert P. W. Boatright, standing center with his hands in his pockets, with others gathered before a footrace at an unknown location circa 1900. [Sioux City (IA) Journal, June 4, 1911]](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2024-10/1.-robert-boatright_0.jpg?itok=zrdrIaZl "Robert P. W. Boatright, standing center with his hands in his pockets, with others gathered before a footrace at an unknown location circa 1900. [Sioux City (IA) Journal, June 4, 1911]")
Robert P. W. Boatright (1859–1904)
Robert P. W. Boatright, hailed as the “dean of confidence men” by scholar David Maurer, was born in 1859 in Franklin County, Missouri.
![Saukie and Fox on the St. Louis waterfront by Karl Bodmer, 1834. [State Historical Society of Missouri Art Collection, 1958.0010c2]](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2024-10/1.-sac-and-fox.jpg?itok=yc_u3ewE "Saukie and Fox on the St. Louis waterfront by Karl Bodmer, 1834. [State Historical Society of Missouri Art Collection, 1958.0010c2]")
The Sac and Fox
The Sac and Fox were not native to Missouri, but were significant in Missouri’s territorial and early statehood periods. Unfortunately, much of that interaction was tumultuous.