[logfromblammo]

Midwesterner here: Skidmore, MO, is not in The Midwest. It is on The Prairie. Which is the easternmost part of The West.

The Midwest starts west of the the line between Fort Duquesne in Pittsburgh to the southwest corner of New York. It is north of the Ohio River, and east of the Mississippi River. St. Paul is Midwest. Minneapolis is Prairie.

St. Louis is "the Gateway to the West", not "the Gateway to More of the Midwest".

[bediger4000]

Midwesterner here: grew up in or near Kirksville, MO, about 165 miles east of Skidmore. I hereby swear or affirm that Skidmore is in the Midwest, geographically and culturally, although northern Missouri/southern Iowa have their own version of "midwest". That part of the world is definitely not plains geographically or biologically: it's oak/hickory forest growing on dissected glacial till. You don't get to "plains" geographically until you're well into Kansas at that latitude, and even then, Kansas and Nebraska are culturally midwestern, despite their pretensions to cowboy.

[logfromblammo]

You might say "pop" instead of "soda", but you will never escape your Louisiana history. No true Midwesterner grows their corn and soybeans anywhere west of the river.

It's not our fault that true Midwestern culture is so rich and interesting that the folk of the Great Plains were compelled to emulate it. But to be fair, you are the second-best completely-distinct-and-separate cultural region in the US, so don't feel too bad about it.

~

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

"The Midwest" is poorly-defined. Most polls conclude that Midwesterners believe that the Midwest is at least their state and neighboring states, and non-Midwesterners have basically no idea where it starts or ends.

The census region more or less covers the Northwest Territories plus that part of the Louisiana Purchase that became Missouri Territory. Largely settled by Germans and Scandinavians, and mostly free states (except Missouri itself).

I refer to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwestern_United_States#Cultu... for further info on how the definition of "Midwest" differs depending on what part of the Midwest you're from.

[tlb]

The term is famously ill-defined. FWIW, the US Census bureau includes the entire state of Missouri. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwestern_United_States#Defin...

[MrLeap]

Counterpoint: I grew up 90 miles south from there. I graduated from college in the same county as Skidmore, MO (Nodaway County, NWMSU). I never heard a real person refer to any of those regions as "The Prairie". It's the midwest to the people who live there.

[theandrewbailey]

> It is north of the Ohio River, and east of the Mississippi River. St. Paul is Midwest. Minneapolis is Prairie.

Then what's this "Upper Midwest" place I keep hearing about?[0] It definitely extends the Midwest past the Mississippi.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Midwest