After Bouchercon: St. Louis, where America began

(The Old Courthouse in St. Louis, where Dred Scott and
his  wife  sued to gain their freedom from slavery in 1846.)

With the last Bouchercon 2011 attendee safely out of town, and even the Jordans and Judy Bobalik on their way home, I set out for the Museum of Westward Expansion under the Gateway Arch  in St. Louis, figuring I'd discover America there.

I found more than I expected; I'd had no idea that Dred Scott began his legal fight for freedom from slavery just a few hundred yards away.



(A meeting with the Shoshone from
The Journals of Lewis and Clark)

 

(The Gateway
Arch)

Think of it: Barely forty years after Lewis and Clark left St. Louis on the expedition that opened North America to westward expansion, the same city saw the beginning of a legal fight that hardened the lines between North and South, and led to the rise of the Republican Party, the election of Abraham Lincoln, and the Civil War.

Sure, the pilgrims landed in Massachusetts and the nation's founding documents were written in Philadelphia, but Missouri is where modern America started.

© Peter Rozovsky 2011