The first European to explore the lower Mississippi including what is now Louisiana was Rene Robert Cavalier, Sieur de La Salle, who passed by New Orleans’ site in April 1682 down the Mississippi from Canada.

De La Salle claimed the entire river basin from the Appalachians to the Rockies for France, naming the area Louisiana in honor of Louis XIV the king of France.

New Orleans began life in 1718 as a French-Canadian outpost, because of its location to the Mississippi’s delta it quickly became an economic asset. Initially the economic trade consisted of crops such as indigo, rice, and tobacco, later New Orleans became an important African slave trading post.

The new city, or ville, was named La nouvelle Orleans for Philippe Duc d’Orleans
it comprised of what is modern day French Quarter. New Orleans was laid out by the French engineer, Adrien de Pauger, in a classic eighteenth-century symmetrical gridiron pattern.
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Virginia Beach is a resort city on the Atlantic Ocean about 200 miles southeast of Washington, D.C., 100 miles southeast of Richmond, Virginia and 200 miles northeast of Raleigh, North Carolina.

The British admiral Christopher Newport and his crew including John Smith landed in the present city of Virginia Beach on April 26th, 1607. The sight was so beautiful to the new explorers that Master George Percy wrote, ‘Heaven and Earth never agreed better to frame a place for man’s habitations than Virginia’.

The land was claimed by the British and named it Cape Henry after prince James of England. It would take another 14 years before present day Virginia Beach would be settled.

Because of the abundance of fish in the Chesapeake Bay area, the fishing industry was one of the first commercial activity.
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The first inhabitants of what is now Minneapolis were the Dakota Sioux. In 1680 the first Europeans arrived from France. In 1805 the Dakota Indians surrendered 100,000 acres of land to the US government.

In Minneapolis the Mississippi flows along the city and separates it from St. Paul. The only naturally occurring waterfall on the Mississippi river is located in Minneapolis, a 50′ (15.24 meters) vertical drop. The advantage of falling water is that it provided a natural source of power for Minneapolis.

Fort Snelling was built between 1820 and 1825 by the United States Army
In 1848 the first settlers arrived at St. Anthony Falls.
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Omaha was founded in 1854 and is located on the Missouri River. Omaha was first inhabited by native American Indian tribes and in 1804 Meriwether Lewis and William Clark explored the area after the Louisiana Purchase.

In 1812, Manuel Lisa established a fur-trading post in the area. During the west migration, Mormons established the first non-Native settlement known as Cutler’s Park from 1846 until 1848.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act on May 30, 1854, the land west of the Missouri River opened to settlement which resulted in an influx of settlers. Omaha was officially incorporated by the state legislature on February 2, 1857.
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Nebraska became a U.S. state on March 1, 1867, as the 37th state. The first Europeans to arrive in the area known today as Minnesota were French fur traders in the late 1600s.

The year after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 Nebraska was explored by Lewis and Clark from 1804 to 1806. Robert Stuart established the Oregon Trail across Nebraska in 1812 and 1813, and followed with the first permanent settlement established at Bellevue Nebraska in 1823.

Western Nebraska was acquired by treaty following the Mexican War in 1848. The Union Pacific began its transcontinental railroad at Omaha in 1865.

Most of the towns and villages in Nebraska were built close to rivers and streams some which became railroad terminals or trading points along the Missouri and Platte rivers.
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