Question

Describe the louisiana purchase and its significance to the nation

Answer 1

The immediate reason for the purchase was to provide continued access to the Gulf of Mexico via the Mississippi River port of New Orleans. The Mississippi/Ohio river system was a vital transportation system for US commerce at the time. As it turned out, the land west of the Mississippi was an invaluable asset to the future growth of the US, as well as ending the threat of a foreign power occupying the land west of the Mississippi.

For less than three cents an acre, the Lousiana Purchase doubled the size of the United States. The purchase not only provided an outlet for the farm products of the west, enabling the agricultural goods to be shipped to other areas of the nation with less expense, but it provided more room for the ever expanding population and economy of the United States. The French and the Spanish would no longer be a threat along our western border. Raw materials were found in abundance, as well as future settlements that would grow and produce for the young nation. The lands of the Louisiana Purchase were settled by the 1890s. That period marked, to some degree, the ending of the frontier in the United States. The country would now extend from coast to coast.