Branson Live Cam

The first explorers, traders, and settlers in Missouri were the French. They came from French settlements in Illinois, from Canada, and from Louisiana. By 1803 settlers from other parts of the United States made up a large share of the population. They followed the Ohio, Tennessee, and Cumberland rivers to the Mississippi. Then they spread out along the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. After 1830 European immigrants-notably German, Irish, English, and Polish-came in large numbers to St. Louis and surrounding areas. But up to the time of the Civil War, most of the settlers continued to come from Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Slaves were brought to present-day Missouri during early French and Spanish times. But the Negro population first began to grow when settlers from the South brought Negroes to work in the tobacco and hemp fields. By 1840 the total population of Missouri had reached almost 400,000, and the state was settled except for the rougher parts of the Ozarks and the southeast lowlands.