Franscisco Cruzat served two terms as lieutenant governor of Upper Louisiana in New Spain. [Alcée Fortier, A History of Louisiana, 1904]

Francisco Cruzat, the only Spanish lieutenant governor of Upper Louisiana to occupy that…

Samuel Ryan Curtis. [State Historical Society of Missouri, James C. Joplin Photograph Collection, P0850-20239]

Samuel Ryan Curtis figured largely in Missouri’s Civil War history from August 1861 through…

John F. Darby. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Prints and Photographs Division, N12110]

John Darby was a highly accomplished and distinguished lawyer, banker, philanthropist, and…

Jane Darwell in a photo taken in 1918. [University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, J. Willis Sayre Collection of Theatrical Photographs, 22471]

Jane Darwell, a pioneering film actress whose career spanned more than sixty years, was…

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Henri Peyroux de Ia Coudrenière was born in France around 1743, the son of Marguerite-…

Perl Decker portrait

Perl D. Decker was an attorney who served three terms from 1913 to 1919 as a US congressman from Jasper County,…

A detail from Thomas Hutchins’s 1778 map of the Illinois Country showing Ste. Genevieve, Kaskaskia, and Fort de Chartres. [Courtesy of the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection, Image 5045002]

During the first half of the eighteenth century, marriages between Native Americans and…

Charles de Hault Delassus. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Photographs and Prints Collection, N36696]

Following the Louisiana Purchase, Charles de Hault Delassus, Upper Louisiana’s last Spanish lieutenant…

Jeffrey Deroine (second from right) with Ioways. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Robert Wright Photograph Collection, P0011]

Jeffrey Deroine (pronounced Der-oh-NAY…

1. This watercolor portrait of Henry Dodge was painted by George Catlin during the Dodge-Leavenworth Expedition of 1834. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, 1962-192-0001]

Henry Dodge served his nation in a long and prosperous life on the nineteenth-century…