Growth of the public domain ...

In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson arranged to buy a large amount of land from France. The transaction was known as the Louisiana Purchase. The image to the left is a photograph of the binder that contains the purchase document.

The Louisiana Purchase amounted to more than 500 million acres and included most of the land from the Mississippi River west to the Rocky Mountains, except what is now the state of Texas.

The price tag? $23 million.