ST LOUIS – One piece of paper that changed the makeup of the United States forever will lie on display inside the Missouri History Museum from October 25, 2014 to April 19, 2015. On loan from the National Archives, the original Louisiana Purchase is the focal point of the museum’s upcoming exhibit, “The Louisiana Purchase: Making St. Louis, Remaking America.”
The exhibit relates how $15 million bought the United States 828,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River from France in 1803. The treaty doubled the country’s size and remade St. Louis into the gateway of the American West.
The highlight of the exhibit is the Treaty of Cession (in French), better known as the Louisiana Purchase Treaty. French officials wrote the Treaty in French originally before translating it into English, making the French document the original written agreement.
Groups visiting the exhibit will learn about the impact of adding 14 states to the country, as well as how the document reshaped St. Louis.
For more information, visit www.mohistory.org/node/9777.
