99 Fun Facts About Missouri

What is the capital of Missouri?

Jefferson City was built on an undeveloped tract because lawmakers wanted the capital in the center of the state, overlooking the Missouri River.

What is Missouri's famous unofficial nickname, printed on its licence plates?

The Show Me State echoes a saying that Congressman Willard Vandiver helped popularize when he declared in a speech that frothy eloquence neither convinced nor satisfied him.

Which mineral did Union forces mine inside Missouri's Meramec Caverns during the Civil War?

Saltpeter was a gunpowder ingredient, and Confederate forces ended the mining by destroying the Union works inside the cave.

Missouri's name traces to the Missouria people, whose name in another tribe's language is said to refer to what?

Their canoes are what the name is said to describe, and the Missouria, ravaged by smallpox and warfare, later settled among the Otoe.

Which Missouri-born general commanded the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I?

John J. Pershing had earlier led a 1916 expedition into Mexico to capture Pancho Villa, but he never caught him.

Which free state was admitted alongside Missouri under the Missouri Compromise?

Maine, until then part of Massachusetts, entered as a free state in March 1820; the Senate tied the two admissions together and Henry Clay steered the compromise through the House.

Which town served as Missouri's temporary state capital from 1821 to 1826?

St. Charles won the temporary seat after its citizens pledged free meeting space, so lawmakers met in rooms above a store.

Which town was the first permanent European settlement in Missouri?

Ste. Genevieve first stood on the Mississippi floodplain, but after the great flood of 1785 the town moved to higher ground.

Why was the Gateway Arch's south leg hosed with water before its final section went in?

To cool the steel, fire hoses sprayed the south leg, which the sun's heat had made expand by about five inches, so it would contract.

Which architect designed the Gateway Arch in St. Louis?

Eero Saarinen reached the final round, but the telegram saying so went by mistake to his architect father, Eliel, and celebrations began before the error was fixed.

What mathematical curve gives the Gateway Arch its shape?

A weighted catenary was chosen because a plain catenary looked too pointed and severe to its designers.

Mark Twain's boyhood home, the setting for Tom Sawyer, was which Missouri river town?

Hannibal was home when his father died in 1847, and soon afterward young Sam left school to work as a printer's apprentice.

In which tiny Missouri village was Samuel Clemens, later Mark Twain, born in 1835?

Florida held about a hundred people, and Twain later joked that by being born there he increased the village's population by one percent.

Mark Twain was born shortly after the appearance of what, and predicted he would 'go out with it'?

Halley's Comet returned in 1910, and Twain died of a heart attack the day after the comet made its closest approach to the Sun.

Which scientist's birthplace near Diamond, Missouri, is preserved as a national monument?

George Washington Carver was kidnapped as a baby by raiders along with his mother and sister, and only he was brought back.

Harry S. Truman's middle initial 'S' honored which of his relatives?

His two grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young, shared the S, which stood for no name at all.

What business did Truman open after returning from World War I?

A haberdashery he ran with army friend Eddie Jacobson failed in the early 1920s downturn, and Truman then won a county judgeship with party boss Tom Pendergast's backing.

St. Louis hosted a World's Fair in 1904 to mark the centennial of what?

The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 was the fair's theme, and its Palace of Fine Arts was kept afterward to become the home of the Saint Louis Art Museum.

Which sporting event did St. Louis host in 1904, a first for the United States?

The Summer Olympics marathon was chaotic, and the first runner across the finish line was disqualified after riding part of the course in a car.

Which treat was reputedly improvised at the 1904 St. Louis fair when an ice cream stand ran out of containers?

The ice cream cone story has rival claimants, and edible ice cream holders were patented before the fair, so it likely popularized the cone rather than inventing it.

Which drink did Richard Blechynden help popularize at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair?

Iced tea existed in America long before the fair, so the popular tale that Blechynden invented it there oversimplifies the drink's history.

Kansas City-style barbecue is best known for a thick sauce made with which ingredients?

Brown sugar, molasses, tomatoes flavor the sauce, and pioneer pitmaster Henry Perry's place passed to his worker Charlie Bryant, whose brother Arthur later ran it.

Which brewing giant is headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri?

Anheuser-Busch could ship bottled beer across the country without it spoiling, and that reach turned its Budweiser brand into a national beer.

Winston Churchill's 1946 speech in Fulton, Missouri, is best known for which phrase?

The Iron Curtain phrase came from a recently defeated prime minister, who told his Fulton audience he had no official mission or status and spoke only for himself.

Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag was published in 1899 by John Stark in which Missouri town?

Sedalia is where John Stark published it in 1899, and the rag went on to serve as a model for the ragtime pieces later composers wrote.

Which 'Father of Rock and Roll' was born into a middle-class St. Louis family in 1926?

Chuck Berry was convicted of armed robbery as a teenager and spent 1944 to 1947 in reform school, then worked on a car assembly line before music took over.

Walt Disney spent part of his boyhood on a farm near which small Missouri town?

Marceline is where a retired local doctor paid young Walt Disney to draw his horse, and there the boy's interest in drawing animals took root.

The Pony Express ran from Sacramento to which Missouri city?

St. Joseph was the route's eastern end, and the Pony Express shut down in October 1861 as the transcontinental telegraph was completed.

Which Missouri-born outlaw was shot dead in 1882 by Robert Ford, a new member of his own gang?

Jesse James's killer Robert Ford was convicted of murder, but Governor Thomas Crittenden, who had pushed for James's capture, pardoned him.

Which resort town in the Ozarks is famous for its strip of live-entertainment theatres along Highway 76?

Branson's strip grew after the Presley family moved their country music show out to a theater on Highway 76, and other theaters soon opened around it.

Which 1907 novel set in Missouri's Ozarks helped draw tourists to the region?

The Shepherd of the Hills drew on John and Anna Ross, the Ozarks couple Wright often camped beside, who became the models for Old Matt and Aunt Mollie.

Lake of the Ozarks was created by damming which river?

The Osage River was dammed for a hydroelectric plant, but the lake that rose behind the dam quickly became a major tourist draw.

What is the name of the dam that created Lake of the Ozarks?

Bagnell Dam's rising lake was set to flood the county seat of Linn Creek, so residents moved up the valley and founded Camdenton in 1931.

Which Cardinals pitcher posted a 1.12 ERA in 1968, the 'Year of the Pitcher'?

Bob Gibson led a wave of pitching dominance that pushed baseball to lower the pitcher's mound for the 1969 season.

The Kansas City Chiefs left Texas in 1963 after competing for fans with which new NFL team?

The Dallas Cowboys battled Lamar Hunt's Dallas Texans for fans, so after three seasons Hunt moved his team to Kansas City, where it became the Chiefs.

Which quarterback was named MVP of Super Bowl IV after leading the Kansas City Chiefs past the Minnesota Vikings?

Len Dawson led a 23-7 upset of the heavily favored Vikings, evening the AFL-NFL Super Bowl series at two wins each.

Which ancient city, the largest of the Mississippian culture, stood across the Mississippi River from present-day St. Louis?

Cahokia's center was ringed by a wooden stockade with bastions for archers, and its builders rebuilt that wall more than once.

Which breaded, deep-fried appetizer is said to have originated in St. Louis?

Toasted ravioli has rival claimants on The Hill, and a popular tale says a cook accidentally dropped ravioli into a fryer in the 1940s.

The Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis is informally known by the name of which founder?

Henry Shaw made a fortune selling hardware in St. Louis, retired at about 40, and later built the garden on the land around his country home.

Which series of powerful earthquakes shook Missouri and much of the central US in 1811 and 1812?

The New Madrid earthquakes made the ground sink so much in places that Reelfoot Lake formed in Tennessee.

Which losing presidential candidate was the only one to carry Missouri from 1904 to 2004?

Adlai Stevenson carried Missouri by fewer than 4,000 votes in 1956, even as Eisenhower won reelection nationally in a landslide.

What settled St. Louis's disputed 1876 vote to split from its county?

A recount of the ballots after ballot fraud came to light approved the split, but the city's permanent boundaries later blocked it from growing outward.

What is the low, flat, southeastern corner of Missouri called?

The Bootheel's place in Missouri is credited to landowner John Hardeman Walker, who lobbied to keep his lands from falling under Arkansas Territory.

Which enslaved man sued for his freedom in St. Louis, leading to an 1857 US Supreme Court ruling against him?

Dred Scott won his freedom from a St. Louis jury in 1850, but the Missouri Supreme Court overturned that verdict in 1852.

Which bird has been Missouri's official state bird since 1927?

The eastern bluebird declined in the 20th century, and campaigns putting up special nest boxes are credited with helping it recover.

Which St. Louis-born poet wrote 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'?

T. S. Eliot settled in England, and in 1927 he joined the Church of England and became a British citizen.

Which St. Louis-born Paris star spied for the French Resistance?

Josephine Baker passed along wartime intelligence by writing it in invisible ink on her sheet music.

Which southwestern Missouri city was the state's third most populous at the 2020 census?

Springfield's town square is where Wild Bill Hickok shot and killed Davis Tutt in 1865, after Tutt took Hickok's pocket watch over a poker debt.

What did Harry S. Truman's Executive Order 9981 do in 1948?

The order desegregated the armed forces despite resistance within the military, and the Army's last all-Black unit was not deactivated until 1954.

Which everyday food was first sold in Chillicothe, Missouri, thanks to Otto Rohwedder's 1928 machine?

Sliced bread caught on so fast that by 1933 around 80% of the bread sold in the US came pre-sliced.

Which feature, with more than 200 working examples, gave Kansas City, Missouri, the nickname on its city seal?

Fountains matter so much to Kansas City that it added City of Fountains to its official seal in 1992; many of them cluster on the Country Club Plaza.

Missouri touches eight other states, a total equaled by only which other state?

Tennessee also touches eight states, and it is one of Missouri's own eight neighbors, on a list that runs from Iowa in the north to Arkansas in the south.

Which hardy farm animal, a favorite of Missouri's early settlers, is the official state animal?

Mule teams from Missouri pulled pioneer wagons and plowed fields, then moved troops and supplies in both world wars.

Which greeting card giant grew from a postcard business that moved from Nebraska to Kansas City in 1910?

Hallmark's founders also invented modern wrapping paper in 1917, when their shop ran out of tissue and sold fancy French envelope linings instead.

Which profession is taught at a University of Missouri school that opened in 1908 and bills itself as the world's first?

Journalism students at Mizzou learn by doing: the very first day's class put out the first issue of a newspaper that is still published.

Which aviator named his transatlantic plane in honor of the St. Louis backers who supported his 1927 flight?

Charles Lindbergh was living in St. Louis when local supporters got behind his bid, so his Ryan monoplane became the Spirit of St. Louis.

Which lemon-lime soft drink was created by C. L. Grigg, whose Howdy Corporation was based in St. Louis?

7UP at first claimed to contain lithium citrate, a mood-stabilizing drug, when Grigg put his new formula on sale in the late 1920s.

Which St. Louis car rental giant did founder Jack Taylor name after the aircraft carrier he served on?

Enterprise honors the USS Enterprise, the carrier Taylor served on in World War II; until 1969 the firm was called Executive Leasing Company.

Missouri is the only US state that is home to two of the twelve regional banks of which institution?

The Federal Reserve seats one regional bank in St. Louis and another in Kansas City, so the two sides of Missouri fall under different districts.

Which national bakery-café chain began as a single shop in Kirkwood, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, in 1987?

Panera got its name in 1997 from its then owner, Au Bon Pain, yet cafés around St. Louis still trade under the chain's original name.

Which college tradition does the University of Missouri claim to have begun at its 1911 game against Kansas?

Homecoming, in Mizzou's telling, began when athletic director Chester Brewer invited all alumni to come home for the rivals' first meeting on campus.

Which fixture of American public schools did Susan Blow introduce in St. Louis in 1873, a national first?

Kindergarten came to the Des Peres School as a bright room of low tables, short benches, plants and toys, built by Susan Blow on Friedrich Fröbel's idea that small children learn through play.

Which famed frontiersman settled in Spanish-ruled Missouri in 1799 and spent most of his final two decades there?

Daniel Boone was made judge and military commandant of his district by the Spanish governor, but land-claim troubles dogged his final years.

Which Missouri city, Harry Truman's hometown, was a starting point for the Santa Fe, Oregon and California trails?

Independence is still known as the Queen City of the Trails, and the ill-fated Donner Party stopped there on its way west.

Which pioneer author began writing her famous children's books at Rocky Ridge Farm in Mansfield, Missouri?

Laura Ingalls Wilder moved to Mansfield in 1894 and was 65 by the time her first book, Little House in the Big Woods, came out.

Which astronomer, born in Marshfield, Missouri, proved that galaxies exist far beyond the Milky Way?

Edwin Hubble is honored in his hometown of Marshfield with a prominently displayed model of the space telescope that bears his name.

Which small tree, a showy spring bloomer of southern and central Missouri, is the official state tree?

Dogwood flowers are not what they seem: the true blooms are tiny and greenish-yellow, and the four showy white 'petals' around them are protective bracts.

The Missouri River, the longest in the United States, begins its journey in the mountains of which state?

Montana's stretch of the Rocky Mountains is where the river rises, and it passes through or along seven states before meeting the Mississippi north of St. Louis.

St. Louis-style pizza is topped with which smoky processed cheese, rarely sold outside the Missouri city?

Provel blends cheddar, Swiss and provolone with liquid smoke, and neither Kraft nor the grocer credited with inventing it can say for sure where the name came from.

Which flat, dense St. Louis dessert reputedly began in the 1930s when a baker mixed up his proportions?

Gooey butter cake was supposedly an accident: a German American baker making ordinary batter reversed the amounts of butter and flour.

Which Missouri city is home to the first public university founded west of the Mississippi River?

Columbia has grown up around the University of Missouri, founded in 1839, and was the state's fourth most populous city at the 2020 census.

Which saxophonist, raised in Kansas City, Missouri, became a leading figure in the development of bebop?

Charlie Parker was actually born across the state line in Kansas City, Kansas, before growing up on the Missouri side near Westport Road.

Which Wild West sharpshooter and storyteller, later famous in Deadwood, was born in Princeton, Missouri?

Calamity Jane dictated an autobiographical booklet in 1896 for publicity, and some of its claims are exaggerated or completely inaccurate.

Which singer, born in Kennett, Missouri, worked as an elementary school music teacher before finding fame?

Sheryl Crow graduated from the University of Missouri, and at Kennett High School she was a majorette and an all-state hurdler.

Missouri's official state mineral, galena, is the main ore of which metal, long mined in the state?

Lead mining was a big draw for Missouri's early European and American settlers, and galena became the official state mineral in 1967.

Which string instrument, easy for travelers and immigrants to carry, is Missouri's official state instrument?

Fiddle is simply what a violin is called when it plays folk, bluegrass, jig or Cajun music; Missouri made it official in 1987.

Which general, born in poverty near Moberly, Missouri, led the largest American field command in history?

Omar Bradley's Twelfth Army Group grew to 43 divisions and 1.3 million men after the breakout from Normandy, and he rose to General of the Army.

Which branch of medicine was founded by Andrew Taylor Still, who opened its first school in Kirksville, Missouri?

Osteopathy's first school opened in 1892 as the American School of Osteopathy, and it survives in Kirksville as A.T. Still University.

Which Neosho-born painter stirred controversy with his murals of state history in the Missouri State Capitol?

Thomas Hart Benton drew criticism for painting slavery and the Kansas City political boss Tom Pendergast into the panorama that fills the House Lounge.

The Kansas City Royals baseball team takes its name from the American Royal, an annual event of which kind?

A livestock show since 1899, when it began with cattle in the Kansas City Stockyards, the American Royal has since added a horse show, a rodeo and a barbecue contest.

The Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis holds one of the Western Hemisphere's largest displays of which art form?

Mosaics cover the interior with 41.5 million pieces of glass in more than 7,000 colors, and the work was not finished until 1988.

Which St. Louis landmark hosted the 1904 World's Fair and is home to the Saint Louis Zoo?

Forest Park opened in 1876 and also holds the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Missouri History Museum and the Saint Louis Science Center.

Which 1880s-themed Ozarks amusement park opened in 1960 at the site of Missouri's Marvel Cave?

Silver Dollar City took its name from a publicity idea: visitors were handed their change in silver dollars.

Missouri supplies most of America's wild harvest of which native nut, also the official state tree nut?

Black walnut is big business in Stockton, home of the state's largest processing plant, and the tree is also rated Missouri's most valuable timber.

Which Hungarian-born publisher bought a bankrupt St. Louis newspaper at auction and created the Post-Dispatch?

Joseph Pulitzer merged the Dispatch with the Evening Post in 1878, and the first edition of the combined paper ran to 4,020 copies of four pages each.

Which cinema chain opened the pioneering two-screen Parkway Twin at a Kansas City shopping center in 1963?

AMC built the twin only because two shopping-center sites could not be combined, and its president saw he could double revenue with the same size staff.

Which Missouri River town, home of Stone Hill Winery, is the hub of the state's Rhineland wine region?

Hermann was founded in 1837 by the German Settlement Society of Philadelphia, and its German roots show in a Maifest every May and an Oktoberfest across the weekends of October.

In which Missouri town was Harry S. Truman born, ten months before his family left for a farm near Harrisonville?

Lamar was the future president's home for less than a year, yet the small house where he was born is preserved there as a state historic site.

Which leader of the Harlem Renaissance, an early innovator of jazz poetry, was born in Joplin, Missouri?

Langston Hughes claimed in his autobiography to have been born in 1902, although his birth in Joplin is dated a year earlier.

Which department store founder was born on a farm outside Hamilton, Missouri, the seventh of twelve children?

J. C. Penney got his start in 1898 with a small Western chain called the Golden Rule stores, and his boyhood home is kept on display in Hamilton.

Which oversized sports objects, each 18 feet tall, stand outside Kansas City's Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art?

Shuttlecocks is a four-part outdoor work by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, set in the sculpture park around the museum.

Which St. Louis company built the Mercury and Gemini capsules that carried America's first astronauts into space?

McDonnell was founded in 1939 by James Smith McDonnell and was just as well known for military fighters such as the F-4 Phantom II.

Which 240-mile Missouri state park follows the old Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad bed beside the Missouri River?

Katy Trail borrows the railroad's nickname, the Katy, which grew out of the K-T abbreviation used in its timetables and on the stock exchange.

Which peak in the St. Francois Mountains is the highest natural point in Missouri at 1,772 feet?

Taum Sauk Mountain is really a long ridge rather than a peak, and it carries Mina Sauk Falls, the highest waterfall in Missouri.

Which Kansas City, Missouri, monument, opened in 1926, houses the country's official World War I museum?

Liberty Memorial's site dedication in 1921 drew a vast crowd to see Vice President Calvin Coolidge and Allied commanders from five nations share one stage.

Which St. Louis crossing of the Mississippi, completed in 1874, pioneered the large-scale use of steel?

Eads Bridge was shown off as safe by leading a circus elephant across it, because elephants were believed to avoid unsound structures.

Which animation studio did Walt Disney found in Kansas City, Missouri, as a young man, only to see it go bankrupt?

Laugh-O-Gram left one lasting legacy: Disney later recalled that a tame mouse he kept at his desk there inspired Mickey Mouse.

Which founder of Anglo-American Texas was raised near Potosi, Missouri, and sat in its territorial legislature?

Stephen F. Austin was born in Virginia and came to Missouri as a small boy in 1798, when his family moved west to the mining country.

Which New Jersey-born pianist joined Bennie Moten's Kansas City band in 1929 and later led his own orchestra?

Count Basie stayed with Moten until the bandleader died in 1935 from a failed tonsillectomy, then formed the orchestra he took to Chicago a year later.