For more than half a century, Auguste and Pierre Chouteau dominated trade and enterprise in the Mississippi Valley. In their various roles as merchants, Indian

In the late 18th century, the vast land that lay west of the Mississippi River beckoned to daring frontiersmen, who produced the first major industry of the Ame

Histories tend to emphasize conquest by Anglo-Americans as the driving force behind the development of the American West. In this fresh interpretation, Jay Gitl

Aaron Burr fells Alexander Hamilton in a duel in July, but Jefferson, caring little for either adversary or for disruptive partisan warfare, gives the event onl