What’s on Thomas Jefferson’s shopping list? It’s 530 million acres of land for his country. Now that’s a BIG buy!

Thomas Jefferson helped found the United States of America. Later, he became the new country’s third president. As president, he bought the huge chunk of land from France. It included the land between two rivers: the Mississippi and the Missouri. How many present-day states can you find in that area? Count Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska—and parts of Minnesota, Louisiana, New Mexico, South Dakota, Texas, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, and even sections of Canada. We call this deal the Louisiana Purchase. And it was a deal—the deal of the century!

The purchase changed life for a lot of people. Thomas Jefferson believed in “Manifest Destiny.” That means: “Americans have settled the East Coast. But we live on an enormous piece of good land. Some of us should move west and live there too!”

People did move west. It wasn’t easy. They sold farms back east. Families traveled in covered wagons that held everything they still possessed. They met wild grizzly bears. They crossed dangerous mountain ranges. When they settled, they had to become self-sufficient. They built their own cabins, made their own clothes, and grew their own food. They met—and sometimes fought—hundreds of Native American tribes. The Native Americans had always lived in this new, wild land. To them, it wasn’t so wild. It was home! Eventually, U.S. government policies and settlers pushed the Native Americans off their land.

Proverbs 18:17 says, “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.” In other words, there are two sides to every story. You’ll see that reflected in the new Arch museum. One gallery reminds visitors: Some think the West was won. Others think it was stolen.