A view of the upper Missouri River by Karl Bodmer, circa 1830s. Print by Charles Vogel. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Art Collection, 1958.0047]

William Lewis Sublette was born at Stanford, Kentucky, on September 21, 1799. The family…

Ted Drewes Frozen Custard on Chippewa Street, which was once part of Route 66 in St. Louis. [Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, photo by Philip Leara]

When pundits make lists of the foods most associated with St. Louis, they usually highlight such…

Henry von Phul. [J. Thomas Scharf, History of Saint Louis City and County, vol. 1 (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts & Co., 1883)]

Henry von Phul was born in Philadelphia in 1784, the son of Johann Wilhelm (later William)…

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…

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…