U.S. Census Bureau Daily Feature for April 30: Louisiana Purchase

WASHINGTON, April 30, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:

LOUISIANA PURCHASE

Profile America — Sunday, April 30th. This is the anniversary of perhaps the greatest real estate deal in American history — one that doubled the size of the U.S. and put the nation in position to become a world power. The year was 1803, and the deal was the Louisiana Purchase. The young U.S., under President Thomas Jefferson, bought nearly 830,000 square miles from France at the cost of four cents an acre. The land stretched from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border. The sale encompassed all or parts of 14 of today's states. Appropriately enough, Louisiana became a state on this date in 1812. At the time, just 77,000 people lived there. Now, Louisiana is home to nearly 4.7 million. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at www.census.gov.

Sources:
Treaty accessed 1/26/2017: www.archives.gov/exhibits/american_originals/louistxt.html 
Scope accessed 1/26/2017: www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/louisiana-purchase
States/accessed 1/26/2017: www.historynet.com/louisiana-purchase
1810 population: Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, p. 28
2014 estimate: www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045216/22,00

Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotion of the U.S. Census Bureau. Statistics and accounts drawn from cited non-Census sources are employed for illustrative or narrative purposes, and are not attested to by the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for "Audio" in the "Library" pull-down menu). 

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SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau