the State Historical Society of Missouri
![George Graham Vest. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Missouri Legislators Portraits, P1084]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2022-09/1.%20George%20Graham%20Vest.jpg?h=ca2cada9&itok=e06Ku0Tq "George Graham Vest. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Missouri Legislators Portraits, P1084]")
George Graham Vest, who served four terms as a US senator from Missouri (1879–1903), was…
![Jonas Viles with his wife, Ruth, and their four sons. [Image courtesy of the Boone County Historical Society’s Digital Collections]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2022-11/1.%20Jonas%20Viles_0.jpg?itok=DhuXhAh3 "Jonas Viles with his wife, Ruth, and their four sons. [Image courtesy of the Boone County Historical Society’s Digital Collections]")
Jonas Viles, a longtime professor of history at the University of Missouri, was born in…
![Chris Von der Ahe. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Photographs and Prints Collection, N45223]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2021-03/1-Chris-Von-der-Ahe.jpg?h=8913bb03&itok=-t0p8nOg "Chris Von der Ahe. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Photographs and Prints Collection, N45223]")
Christian Frederick Wilhelm Von der Ahe, a pioneering figure in early professional baseball…
![Rolla Wells. [William Hyde and Howard L. Conard, eds., Encyclopedia of the History of St. Louis (St. Louis: Southern History Co., 1899)]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2022-11/1.%20Rolla%20Wells.jpg?h=8da26324&itok=CvyBApCu "Rolla Wells. [William Hyde and Howard L. Conard, eds., Encyclopedia of the History of St. Louis (St. Louis: Southern History Co., 1899)]")
Rolla Wells, a businessman and mayor of St. Louis, was born in St. Louis on June 1, 1856,…
![Otto Widmann in 1883. [Wilson Bulletin, September 1927]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2023-07/1.%20Otto%20Widmann.jpg?h=dcae2d79&itok=LL3zQoQ0 "Otto Widmann in 1883. [Wilson Bulletin, September 1927]")
![Arsania Williams. [State Historical Society of Missouri St. Louis Research Center, University of Missouri Saint Louis Black History Project Photograph Collection (S0201)]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2022-12/1.%20Arsania%20Williams.jpg?h=3ecb33db&itok=mYANYVHL "Arsania Williams. [State Historical Society of Missouri St. Louis Research Center, University of Missouri Saint Louis Black History Project Photograph Collection (S0201)]")
Born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, around 1875—sources differ on the year of her birth—Arsania…
![John Gabriel Woerner. [William F. Woerner, J. Gabriel Woerner: A Biographical Sketch (1912)]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2023-01/1.%20John%20Gabriel%20Woerner.jpg?h=d4c90db7&itok=tEHMYccH "John Gabriel Woerner. [William F. Woerner, J. Gabriel Woerner: A Biographical Sketch (1912)]")
John Gabriel Woerner, a celebrated St. Louis lawyer, legal scholar, journalist, and…
![William S. Woods. [A Memorial and Biographical Record of Kansas City and Jackson County, Missouri, 1896]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2022-12/1.%20William%20Stone%20Woods.jpg?h=3cf6c07a&itok=Qmhg7cWS "William S. Woods. [A Memorial and Biographical Record of Kansas City and Jackson County, Missouri, 1896]")
William Stone Woods was born on November 1, 1840, the son of James Harris and Martha Jane…
![Josephine Silone Yates. [Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ppmsca-50313]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2023-01/1.%20Josephine%20Silone%20Yates.jpg?h=a1d10b62&itok=TxEIQ_Ft "Josephine Silone Yates. [Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ppmsca-50313]")
Josephine Silone was born in Mattituck, New York, in 1859, the youngest daughter of…
![Cole Younger, circa 1866. [State Historical Society of Missouri, B. James George Sr. Photograph Collection, P0010-024263]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2024-08/1.-cole-younger.jpg?h=154323ae&itok=WaT_D9Vi "Cole Younger, circa 1866. [State Historical Society of Missouri, B. James George Sr. Photograph Collection, P0010-024263]")
Thomas Coleman “Cole” Younger left his family’s Missouri farm in 1862, at age seventeen, to join William…