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Excerpt from The Daily News' History of Buchanan County and St. Joseph, Mo: From the Time of the Platte Purchase to the End of the Year 1898; Supplemented by Biographical Sketches of Noted Citizens, Living and Dead The first white man to put foot on the Soil Of Missouri was Hernando de Soto, the Spaniard. This was in 1541. He led a small band Of soldiers of fortune as far north as the region now known as New Madrid County, and then moved west across the Ozark Mount ains and went into Arkansas. He sought gold, but finding none, returned to the Mississippi and died. He was buried at midnight in the river he had discovered, and his priests chanted over his body the first requiem ever heard in the Mississippi Valley. The Indians believed him to be the son of the sun, who could not die, and his. Body was consigned to the waters to conceal his death and keep the Indians in awe. The Spanish, however, did not colonize Missouri. In 1662 Robert Cavalier de la Salle, a Frenchman from Quebec. Came down the Mississippi and took possession of the whole country in the name of Louis XIV., the reigning King of France. Within the next fifty years various settlements were projected, all in the interest of gold and silver mining. It is said that in 1705 a prospecting party Of Frenchmen ascended the Missouri River as far as where Kansas City is now located. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.