1803

The Louisiana Purchase

Soaring prices have been the norm in the real estate market in recent years, but it was once possible to procure 530 million acres of North American territory for $15 million. That’s precisely what happened in 1803 when the U.S. and France completed the Louisiana Purchase. According to the Office of the Historian of the U.S. Department of State, President Thomas Jefferson sent James Monroe to France to work alongside U.S.

Minister to France Robert Livingston in an effort to purchase New Orleans and West Florida for $10 million.

But the emissaries were surprised when Napoleon Bonaparte offered the whole territory of Louisiana to the U.S. for $15 million. Native Americans still inhabited much of the area that was part of the sale, but the transaction included the entirety of what is now Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Oklahoma, as

well as portions of present-day Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and Minnesota.