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Bootheel of Missouri
The Boundary of The
Missouri "Bootheel"
How Did The Boundary of
Missouri Come To Include The "Bootheel"?
- The
inclusion of the "bootheel" in the boundaries of Missouri has
been credited to
John Hardeman Walker, a landowner
and influential citizen of southeast Missouri.
Walker was born in Tennessee in 1794
and came to the New Madrid area of the
Territory of Missouri at the age of
16. When the New Madrid earthquakes began a
year later, in December 1811, many
of the area's citizens moved away. Walker,
however did not leave the area and
his cattle-raising enterprise; instead he acquired
more property and soon became known
as the "Czar of the Valley." His extensive
landholdings were located in Little
Prairie, near present-day Caruthersville. This area
fell under the jurisdiction of the
Missouri Territory as administered from the town of
New Madrid.
- In
1818, the Missouri territorial legislature presented a memorial
to the United
States Congress requesting
permission to organize a state government. At
that time, the southern
boundary for Missouri was fixed at 36ø30'. Walker and
the people of Little Prairie
realized this line would place their lands some 25
miles south of the Missouri
border. Little Prairie would be under the jurisdiction
of the Arkansas territorial
government, not the state government of Missouri.
Walker, who preferred the area,
and his holdings, to be under the protection of
Missouri state laws, lobbied in
Missouri and Washington, D.C. for inclusion of
the "bootheel" within the
boundaries of the state of Missouri.
-
November
22, 1818, the territorial legislature adopted a memorial to
Congress
for the admission of Missouri
to the Union, proposing boundaries for the state
that included the Little
Prairie area. The memorial fixed the boundaries as
follows:
-
"Beginning at a point in the middle of the main channel
of the Mississippi River
at the 36th degree of north
latitude and running in
a direct line to the mouth of the
Black river, a branch of
the White river; thence in the
middle of the main
channel of the White river to where
the parallel of 36
degrees and 30 minutes north latitude
crosses the same; thence
with that parallel of latitude
due west."
-
On March 6,
1820, when the Territory of Missouri requested admission to the
Union
with the modified boundary in the
southeast corner, the request was granted. This
acquisition increased the total area
of Missouri by some 980 square miles (627,000
acres).
Resources:
Houck, Louis. History of Missouri: From the
Earliest Explorations
and Settlements Until the Admission of the State into
the Union. Volume
I. Chicago: R.R. Donnelley and Sons Company,
1908.
March, David. History of Missouri. Volume I. New
York: Lewis Historical
Publishing Company, Inc., 1967.
Missouri: Day by Day. Volume I. Edited by Floyd
C. Shoemaker. Columbia
[Mo.]: State Historical Society of Missouri, 1942.
Posted with permission to copy by
Dr. Shelly J. Croteau, C.A
Assistant State Archivist
Missouri State Archives
P.O. Box 1747, 600 W. Main
Jefferson City, MO 65102
Voice: 573/751-4303
Fax: 573/526-7333
Email: crotes@sosmail.state.mo.
us
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