In 1839, the University of Missouri was founded after the Missouri legislature passed the Geyer Act, legislation that provided funds to establish a state land-grant university. Columbia was chosen as the location for the new university after residents of Boone County pledged to donate $117,921 in cash and land.

With its founding, the University of Missouri (also know as Mizzou) became the first university in Missouri, the first west of the Mississippi, and the first in Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase.