Judges of this court preside over civil and criminal trials on federal matters that originate within the borders of its jurisdiction.

[1] In its history it has heard a number of important cases that made it to the United States Supreme Court, covering issues related to freedom of speech, abortion, property rights, and campaign finance.

It covers the counties of Adair, Audrain, Chariton, Clark, Knox, Lewis, Linn, Macon, Marion, Monroe, Montgomery, Pike, Ralls, Randolph, Schuyler, Shelby, and Scotland.

Its courthouse is named for Rush Limbaugh Sr.[4] That division's jurisdiction covers Bollinger, Butler, Cape Girardeau, Carter, Dunklin, Iron, Madison, Mississippi, New Madrid, Pemiscot, Perry, Reynolds, Ripley, Sainte Genevieve, Scott, Shannon, Stoddard, and Wayne counties.

The division was prompted by a substantial increase in the number of admiralty cases arising from traffic on the Mississippi River, which had followed an act of Congress passed in 1845 and upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1851, extending federal admiralty jurisdiction to inland waterways.

[9] These disputes involved "contracts of affreightment, collisions, mariners' wages, and other causes of admiralty jurisdiction", and litigants of matters arising in St. Louis found it inconvenient to travel to Jefferson City for their cases to be tried.

[9] Within a few years of the court's establishment, the American Civil War erupted, and Missouri was placed under martial law.

[13] When the District, by the hand of Judge Treat, issued a writ of habeas corpus for the release of one of them, Captain Emmett MacDonald, Union commanding general William S. Harney refused, asserting that he had to answer to a "higher law".

[13] A substantial portion of the court's docket in this period came from tax cases:[9] when the Civil War came it brought in its train a new class of cases, arising from the violation of treasury regulations, and proceedings to enforce the internal revenue law in all its complex and multiplied divisions and subdivisions.

When whisky and tobacco, and net income, and gross receipts, and manufactories, and occupations, and legacies, and bonds, and notes, and conveyances, and drugs and medicines, and other innumerable things, were taxed by the Federal government, and each one had a separate code of laws of its own ...[9]The court, in this time, also tried numerous criminal cases arising from efforts to evade the tax laws through smuggling and fraud.

[14] Between its enactment and its subsequent repeal in 1878, the Act caused "countless controversies" arising in bankruptcy to be brought before the District Court.

Over the history of the District, five of its judges have been elevated to the Eighth Circuit – Elmer Bragg Adams, John Caskie Collet, Charles Breckenridge Faris, Amos Madden Thayer and William H. Webster.

During the Great Depression, three important United States Supreme Court cases were decided which determined the constitutionality of New Deal measures, one of which originated in the Eastern District of Missouri.

The case was eventually appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which reaffirmed the right to abortion and struck down certain restrictions as unconstitutional.

Judge William L. Hungate declared that a mandatory plan would go into effect unless other arrangements were made to adhere to the terms of the suit.

In Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier,[26] a case that started in Missouri's Eastern District went before the United States Supreme Court in 1988, it was held that public school curricular student newspapers are subject to a lower level of First Amendment protection.

[27] Judge Rodney W. Sippel ruled that the school violated a student's rights by sanctioning him for material he posted on his website.

Another important case brought in the district, Ruckelshaus v. Monsanto Co.,[33] involved the right of companies to maintain trade secrets under Missouri law in the face of federal regulations requiring disclosure of pesticide components.