Louisiana Purchase Some Kind of Land Grab!

(from Wikipedia)

The United States Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase on this date in  1803.   Even though I grew up in Alabama and studied Dixie's history in school,  I learned about the Louisiana Purchase also, because it was such a big deal, literally!

America essentially bought 828,800 square miles of land of France's claim to the Territory of Louisiana for a total of about $15 million.  It was actually fewer than 3 cents an acre.   By comparison to last year's monetary scale, that would equal about $219 million, or less than 42 cents  per acre.

They always say that nothing increases in value like real estate and the Louisiana Purchase is a prime example.  If  you look at the geography maps,  it appears that  the Louisiana Purchase covered almost the entire midsection of the United States.

Basically,  it  did  encompass all or part of  15 current U.S.  states and two Canadian provinces.  This gigantic land grab included Arkansas,  Missouri,  Iowa,  Oklahoma,  Kansas and Nebraska.

It also encompassed parts of  Minnesota that were west of the Mississippi;  most of North Dakota;  nearly all of South Dakota;  northeastern New Mexico;  northern Texas;  portions of  Montana, Wyoming, and  Colorado,  east of the Continental Divide,  and Louisiana west of the Mississippi,  including New Orleans.  Whew!

The purchase basically doubled the size of the United States.   According to the history books,  President Thomas Jefferson decided to make the land grab because he was worried about France and Spain having the power to block American trade access to the port of  New Orleans.

So, the next time a Texan says, " Everything's bigger in Texas,"  just remind them that Louisiana dwarfed the size of Texas and Alaska put together.

And if that doesn't work,  just tell them Geaux Tigers!