Missouri University of Science & Technology

primarily on mining and metallurgy. Rolla is located close to the Southeast Missouri Lead District which produces about 70% of the U.S.' primary supply of lead, as well as significant amounts of the nation's zinc.
The school was founded under the auspices of the University of Missouri in Columbia in order to take advantage of the Morrill Land-Grant Acts to "teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such manner as the legislatures of the States may respectively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life." The act endowed Missouri a federal land grant of 30,000 acres for each of the state's two senators and nine representatives at the time—or 330,000 acres (133,546.26 ha; 515.62 sq mi). The endowment said that the land could not be sold for less than $1.25/acre and as such was a minimum endowment of $412,500 for Missouri. There was an intense debate in the state over the …