MISSOURI INFORMATION

Missouri is in the heartland of the nation and possesses a destiny to carry a heart of "passion for the bridegroom", to be a house of prayer for the nations and to maintain justice (Isaiah 56). It is known as the "gateway to the west", the "show me state", the state "where the rivers run", and "the cave state". It is an important industrial and farming state. Its location and its two great rivers (the Missouri and the Mississippi) have made Missouri a center of water, land and air transportation. Missouri has more caves, more free-flowing streams, more springs and more types of wildflowers than any other state.

Missouri's call as a gatekeeper positions us as a place of transition from east to west. Missouri and Tennessee are the only two states in the nation bordered by eight other states-Missouri's neighbors are Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

Prayer Points for Missouri:

1. We are walking out the book of Nehemiah in Missouri. For three years, Missouri Prayer has focused on repairing foundations damaged through decisions made in five regions of Missouri. We are now praying for the building up of walls of salvation and gates of praise. Please pray that the walls will be secure and the gates will be repaired. “Violence will not be heard again in your land, nor devastation or destruction within your borders, but you will call your walls salvation and your gates praise” (Isaiah 60:18). Presently we are addressing Order #11 which was issued during the Civil War for destruction of four counties along the border of Missouri/Kansas. A gathering in each county of leaders and intercessors is occurring along with 24 hour prayer for each county, then a prayer journey along the perimeter of each, culminating with prayer at the border. These counties are: Vernon, Bates, Cass, and Jackson.

2. Twenty-four hour worship and intercession gatherings as well as three hour prayer events are being held periodically throughout the state. Regional worship gatherings are being held to unlock regions from ancient bondage as well as heaven’s resources for that area. The Central regional worship gathering will be held at the Governor’s Garden just east of the Capitol in Jefferson City on July 10th at 6:30 p.m. Please pray that these will continue to be established and maintained, that the house of prayer will grow in Missouri and that worship will rise to a new level.

3. An apostolic/prophetic council that meets together regularly for prayer, vision, and declaration has been established in Missouri. Please pray that this will continue to grow and expand to bring forth the net across the entire state.

4. Because the Osage Indians (who formerly lived in Missouri) were racial supremacists, and because of our past history of slavery, Missouri has white supremacist groups functioning in several cities. Please join us in prayer that this will be uprooted and removed. We are continuing to uncover the roots of this evil.

5. Please pray that the "river that flows from the Throne" will flow through Missouri and its effects will be seen in the lives of each Missourian.

6. Please pray for unity within the state that Psalms 133 and John 17 will be a reality throughout Missouri, the walls of division will be abolished according to Ephesians 2 and that religious activity will bow to relationship with Jesus.

7. Please pray that perversion will not have a stronghold in Missouri, that we will walk the "highway of holiness" (Isaiah 35). Pray for families, homes, and relationships to be held together through knowledge and application of the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom.


8. Pray for the harvest, that each person will have opportunity to hear and receive the gospel of the Kingdom, salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ. When Chuck Pierce was here in October, 2003, he prophesied transformation in five cities in Missouri: St. Louis, Kansas City, Jefferson City, Columbia, and Carthage. 

9. Please pray that the Lord will continue to raise up regional people with vision, calling, and a heart for unity. Please pray for Greg and Linda Ordway in central Missouri, and James Nesbit and Kingsley Walker in northeast Missouri. Please pray for the regional contacts to come forth in the northwest and southeast.

10. Please pray that the children of Missouri will not be destroyed through abortion, and that they will not be abused through violence and control. Please pray for the continued upholding of the family. The Missouri House and Senate recently passed a bill to define marriage as between “one woman and one man”.

11. Pray that Missouri will see the Lord as our Shepherd and we will not lack for provision. Because of gambling, the lottery and past exploitations of its inhabitants, Missouri has experienced a lack of finances and an open door to the “evil eye” that watches for opportunity to devour and exploit.

12. Pray for the church in Missouri to come into maturity, to look up to see the "fields that are white for harvest" and that there will be many "laborers" released into places of need. Please pray that the “show me” state will cry out for the glory of the Lord as Moses did when he asked the Lord to “show me Your glory”.

May the Lord build His church in Missouri to be a habitation for His Presence, and a place from which He releases His glory.

MISSOURI STATE HISTORY
It is believed that the first European to visit Missouri's land was DeSoto, Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet in the 17th century, proceeded by Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle who claimed the area west of the Mississippi for France naming it the Louisiana territory. The Louisiana territory was secretly given to Spain, then returned to back to France and sold to the US by Napoleon Bonaparte. The seat of government for the territory was in St. Louis, which is also the departure point for the Lewis and Clark expedition in to the Pacific Northwest.

Missouri has been called the "Mother of the West" or the "Gateway to the West" because it was a starting point for much exploration and travel. The Oregon and Santa Fe Trails began in Missouri, as well as the Butterfield Overland Mail route and the Pony Express.

Fur trading and mining were the major activities of Missouri in the earlier years. The business of mining brought the first blacks to Missouri as slaves. Fort Osage was built overlooking the Missouri River and governed by William Clarke. Many military and trade alliances were made between the white settlers and Indians, particularly with the Osage tribe. As settlement increases in the area, Indians begin raiding frontier settlements, upset over the loss of their ancient hunting grounds.

In 1812 a portion of the Louisiana territory became the Missouri territory and by 1818 Missouri requested to be admitted into the Union. This request caused a nationwide uproar over the issue of slavery and the bitter debates created further division within the US. In 1820 the Missouri Compromise was passed, allowing Maine in as a free state and Missouri in as a slave state, keeping the ratio between slave and free states equal. It also stipulated that slavery was prohibited in the remainder of the Louisiana territory north of the southern boundary of Missouri. On August 10, 1821 Missouri was admitted as the 24th state and was, at the time, the nation's western frontier. St. Charles was designated as the temporary state capitol, until Jefferson City was made the permanent state capitol.

In 1831, Joseph Smith and his followers, known as the Mormons or Latter-Day Saints, settled in Independence, Missouri after being made to leave two previous states. The growing Mormon population was not well received by other Missourians. In 1838 hostilities escalated into what is known as the "Mormon War." The Mormons were tired of being driven from state to state and county to county and decided to defend themselves with local and legitimate state militia groups. The governor of Missouri issued his famous Extermination Order, allowing the state militia to "drive all Mormons from Missouri or exterminate them." Raids, burning of homes and businesses, rape and murder were committed by both sides. An unprovoked attack at Haun's Mill left 17 LDS men and boys dead. During the winter of 1838, 12,000 Mormons fled Missouri, led by Brigham Young. Joseph Smith had been jailed in Missouri, but was allowed to escape and join his followers. Smith reports that this imprisonment provoked further revelations from heaven and increased his strength.

The well-known Dred Scott case took place in Missouri. Scott was a slave who claimed that he was due his freedom based on the seven years that he had lived in a free state. The case was taken to court in 1846 and went on for over 10 years. Based on Missouri law, the Missouri Supreme Court had freed numerous slaves who had traveled and lived in free states, but because of the increasing conflict of the times, they ruled against Scott. The case was taken to the United States Supreme Court which in 1857 upheld slavery in US territories that had previously been ruled as non-slavery areas by the Missouri Compromise and denied the legality of black citizenship in America. "Scott's case left America in 'shocks and throes and convulsions' that only the complete eradication of slavery through war could cure."

When the Kansas-Nebraska Act was signed in 1854 it did away with the Missouri Compromise and allowed each state to decide if it would be a slave or free state. The country was afraid of what it would cost either side if Kansas became a free or slave state. Numerous Missourians went into Kansas to try to force Kansas into becoming a slave state. What ensued was a border war. "For five years before the Civil War, residents of the neighboring states of Missouri and Kansas waged their own civil conflict, which was characterized by unremitting and unparalleled brutality. More than anywhere else in the nation, this was truly a civil war-a conflict whose wounds were a long time in healing." Jayhawkers from Kansas and bushwhackers from Missouri led raids on the others' land, homes, business, and an attempt to stop bushwhackers, which it did in that area, but they simply moved north to "Little Dixie" and continued their guerilla warfare.

As the Civil War began, "Missouri's allegiance was of vital concern to the Federal government. The state's strategic position, the two rivers, Missouri and Mississippi, its abundant manpower, and natural resources made it imperative that she remain in the Union." Missouri did remain in the Union, but its governor at the time was pro-slavery and created a rebel government that voted to secede. The result was a divided state. Missouri experienced 1,162 skirmishes and battles, had more fighting within its borders than any other state except Virginia, and ranks as the 3rd most fought over state in the nation during the Civil War. By the 3rd year of the war much of Missouri had been burned and depopulated. Significant battles in Missouri were Wilson's Creek, Lexington, and Westport, (now Kansas City) which was the largest battle fought west of the Mississippi. But it was the Battle at Pea Ridge in Arkansas, after the Union army had driven the Confederate army south, that determined Missouri would remain in the Union.

Missouri was the "scene of savage and fierce fighting, mostly guerilla warfare with small bands of mounted raiders destroying anything military or civilian that could aid the enemy." Southwest Missouri, more than any other area, became home to a vicious and cruel guerilla war between sympathizers with the Confederate and Union sides. Infamous fighters were William Clarke Quantrill, Frank and Jesse James, Cole Younger, William "Bloody Bill" Anderson, and Al Bolin. Anderson was responsible for the Centralia, Missouri massacre where he lined up over 20 captured Union soldiers and shot each of them in the back. Bolin was known as the "meanest man in the Ozarks" and for his favorite killing spot, called "Murder Rocks," near Forsyth, Missouri.

Other important events in Missouri

In 1811, the worst known earthquake in the US occurred in New Madrid, Missouri, in the southeast part of the state. Because of a small population, the destruction was small for the magnitude of the earthquake. Two more earthquakes hit the area in 1812.

A US Senator from Missouri, David Rice Atchison, also known as "Staggering Davy", was president for a day in 1849. Polk, the outgoing president, left on time; but Taylor, a highly religious man, refused to be sworn in on a Sunday, leaving Atchison, president pro tem, to fill in as president. It is said that he and friends had a drunken party that day.

In 1844 a flood occurred in Missouri that destroyed the Kansas City area.

1846 saw the opening of the first Masonic College in the US in Lexington, Missouri. The college was used by the Union in the Battle of Lexington during the Civil War.

A cholera epidemic, the second and most serious, hit St. Louis in 1849. 4000 died as a result.

Frank and Jesse James and their gang wreak havoc across Missouri and the surrounding area from 1866 to 1882.

First public kindergarten in the US started in St. Louis in 1873.

A grasshopper plague occurred in 1875 that caused as estimated $15 million in damage in Missouri.

Winston Churchill delivers his famous "Iron Curtain" speech in Fulton, Missouri.

The Gateway Arch was built in St. Louis in 1965 on the site of the original settlement in St. Louis. It symbolizes the role of St. Louis in the development of the western frontier as well as Missouri’s role as “gateway to the west”.

The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968 bought race riots to Kansas City.

The population center of the US is moved to DeSoto, Missouri in 1980.

Again, pray that the "river that flows from the Throne" will flow through Missouri.