ArkyKenny on 8/27/2013 8:39:56 AM:
I'd recommend you look up some information on Missouri artist George Caleb Bingham. He and his family moved to Franklin from Virginia in 1819, and he painted in Booneville, Columbia, St. Louis, and internationally. I think he was also a state senator, and the first professor of art at what would become the Univ of Missouri. There is a book out there called Paintbox on the Frontier, that is written for young people detailing the life and times (1820-1860's) of the Luminist scenes he painted in pre Civil War central Missouri. Tons of information on that whole era, Booneville, The Santa Fe Trail, etc.---all things that laid the ground work for the Katy