Missouri State Symbols

NICKNAME

Missouri’s nickname is the “Show-Me State.”

Term coined by U.S. Congressman Willard Duncan Vandiver in 1899

"I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me."

STATE CAPITAL

Jefferson City Pop. 40,771 (Metro area is 140,000) About 150 miles from Kansas City

JEFFERSON CITY

STATE BIRD

Bluebird Symbol of happiness 6.5 to 7 in long Common from early spring until late

November

STATE INSECT

Honeybee

STATE SONG

The Missouri Waltz Adopted June 30th, 1949 First written in 1914

MISSOURI WALTZ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8YmBHmBf-I&feature=related

STATE TREE

Flowering Dogwood Usually less than 40 feet tall Greenish-yellow flower clusters

FLOWERING DOGWOOD

STATE FLOWER

White Hawthorn Blossom Also called the “Red Haw” or “White

Haw” More than 75 different species grow in

Missouri Member of the Great Rose Family

WHITE HAWTHORN BLOSSOM

MISSOURI - DID YOU KNOW? Missouri was named after a tribe called Missouri Indians;

meaning "town of the large canoes” In 1865 Missouri became the first slave state to free its slaves The first ever parachute jump was in St. Louis in 1912 Ice Tea was first served at the 1904 Word’s Fair in St. Louis,

along with the Ice Cream Cone Kansas City has more miles of boulevards than Paris and more

fountains than any city except Rome. Kansas City has more miles of freeway per capita than any

metro area with more than 1 million residents The tallest man on record was from St. Louis, he was 8 feet 11

inches