Francis White Cloud. Portrait by George Catlin, circa 1844–1845. [Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art]

The Ioways did not live in what is now Missouri for much of the historical era.…

Kathryn J. Kuhlman. [Courtesy of the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center Archives]

Kathryn Johanna Kuhlman, born in Concordia, Missouri, on May 9, 1907, became…

A facsimile of the title page in the first edition of Zenon Leonard’s narrative about his experiences. [Adventures of Zenon Leonard (Cleveland: Burrows Brothers Co., 1904)]

Zenas Leonard, a fur trapper best known as the author of Adventures of a Mountain Man…

Susan Shelby Magoffin. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Photographs and Prints Collection, N12846]

Susan Shelby Magoffin was born on July 30, 1827, at Arcasia, her father’s estate near…

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

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

Isaac McCoy. [Oklahoma Historical Society, Muriel Wright Collection, 15075]

Isaac McCoy was born on June 13, 1784, in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. At the age of six,…

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,…

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,…

Nellie Tayloe Ross. [Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ggbain-29524]

Nellie Tayloe Ross was the first woman in the United States to serve as a state governor…

William Bradford Waddell. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Waddell Smith Photograph Collection, P0727]

William Bradford Waddell typified the mid-nineteenth-century entrepreneur who shaped the…