Father of the Bootheel

On January 8th, we posted the blog entry "Prayer for Statehood." This week we follow with a related blog about John Hardeman Walker, whom we will dub "Father of the Bootheel;" his contemporaries called him "Czar of the Valley." Popular petitions, or prayers, circulated in 1817-1818 (as quoted in our earlier post) called for Missouri's southern border to be a parallel line at 36 degrees 30 minutes.

Prayer for Statehood

The story of Missouri’s evolution from territory to statehood often references Missouri Territorial Delegate John Scott’s presentation of a petition to Congress in March 1818 which resulted in his chair of a seven-member committee to consider several petitions for statehood.