There were Lutherans in America before the Prussian Union was established by the dysfunctional royalty in Brandenburg. There was the Pennsylvania Ministerium, the Ohio Synod, the Tennessee Synod, and countless others before we even consider the arrival of the Scandinavian Lutherans. When the LCMS was established in the mid 19th Century, they were caught flat footed as Missouri became the hot iron that threw heat at everything near it. In a sense, many of the crazy mergers and schisms between a lot of these groups was in response to Walther and co., as Missouri had quite the "my way or the highway" attitude.