Summary: Missouri’s distinctive “Boot heel.” When Thomas Jefferson envisioned westward expansion, he wanted the new states to be neat and orderly, unlike the 13 colonies. Jefferson wanted each state boundary to lay along latitude and longitude markers. As anyone who has ever seen a map of the United States knows, that’s not what happened. So why do the 50 US States look the way they do? A number of reasons ranging from natural boundaries (mountains, rivers and oceans), transportation boundaries (railroads) politics and even the preference of the state’s residents. In this podcast, we look at one of the stories that make up a state’s boundaries – how Missouri got it’s distinctive “boot heel.”
