[1] Founding members created the historical society "for the purpose of saving from oblivion the early history of the city and state".
The Library and Research Center [4] houses a regional history collection documenting St. Louis, the Mississippi and Missouri Valleys, the Louisiana Purchase Territory, and the American West.
Among its unique collections are the 301 freedom suits of the 19th-century St. Louis Circuit Court Records, the largest group of such case files in the country.
[5] The research library is housed in a historic 1927 Byzantine revival synagogue building erected by the United Hebrew Congregation on Skinker Boulevard.
In 1952, the Missouri Historical Society was involved in efforts to lobby the U.S. government to create commemorative coins for the 150th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase.