03/12/2026
From Missouri State Archives:
Recently, Missouri State Archives staff sorted and organized dozens of boxes of assorted government documents. One interesting find was a brochure on Missouri tourism in Italian.
Titled "Missouri Heart of America," it told the Italian people why they should visit our state. It reminded them the United States was "not only New York, Detroit, or Hollywood" and touted Missouri as a state of "industry and culture...first explored by the French Canadians" who would settle Ste. Genevieve. It goes on to say that our state "mixes sophistication and rural simplicity" before providing information on transportation and climate within the state. The innermost section of the brochure features tourist highlights of Missouri including Il Lago Ozarks (Lake of the Ozarks), Valle del Meramec (Meramec Valley), the St. Louis, Kansas City, and St. Joseph regions, and "Regione di Daniel Boone" as Mid-Missouri was called.
The back of the brochure lets us know it was published by People to People, based in Kansas City and led locally by Joyce C. Hall, the founder of Hallmark.