Our Missouri

Our Missouri is a steady, archive-minded history show about Missouri as a lived and interpreted place. It favors grounded conversations over broad survey lectures. A single site can open into centuries of movement, conflict, preservation, and memory. Recent episodes in the Origins series examine Indigenous Missourians, Van Meter State Park, Mound City, Jolliet and Marquette, The Shattered Cross, and Ste. Genevieve National Historical Park. The result is a map of Missouri built from rivers, mounds, routes, books, cultural centers, and protected buildings. Sean Rost’s role is conversational and guiding, asking guests to slow down and explain what visitors, students, or curious residents might miss. The show often returns to Native history, including Cahokia, tribal movement, Oneota culture, allotment, and the responsibility of understanding dispossession. It also treats St. Louis as a place with older Indigenous origins, not just a later settlement date. Other episodes move along the Mississippi River Valley with French explorers, missionaries, trade routes, portage, cordilage, and uncertain early maps. The park-focused conversations add another register. At Van Meter, the discussion turns to cultural exhibits and the tribes represented there. At Ste. Genevieve, preserved architecture and partnership with the wider community become central. In the Cave State arc, Missouri’s landscape gets the same historical patience. Devil’s Icebox and Connor’s Cave bring in cave safety, endangered species, wild cave conditions, and the ethics of leaving sensitive ecosystems alone. Roaring River adds glade restoration, invasive species control, biological monitoring, and Ozark plant life. The show’s pace is deliberate. Its curiosity is practical. It is made for listeners who want Missouri history to feel documented, local, and specific, with enough texture to change how a park visit, river crossing, or old neighborhood reads.