50 Fun Facts About Western United States

Which park, lying mostly in northwest Wyoming, became the first national park in the United States?

Yellowstone holds well over half of the world's geysers, including Old Faithful, all fueled by the volcanic system beneath the park.

Which Arizona gorge, carved by the Colorado River, is 277 miles long and more than a mile deep?

The Grand Canyon exposes nearly two billion years of Earth's geological history in its walls, laid bare as the river cut down through layer after layer of rock.

Which capital of Alaska, named for a gold prospector, has no road link to the rest of the state?

Juneau can be reached only by plane or boat, and it was once called Harrisburg after its other founding prospector, Richard Harris.

Which California basin holds North America's lowest point and the hottest air temperature on record?

Death Valley reached 134 °F at Furnace Creek on July 10, 1913, and its Badwater Basin lies 282 feet below sea level.

Which country sold Alaska to the United States for $7.2 million, a deal opponents called Seward's Folly?

Russia received about two cents an acre for a territory more than twice the size of Texas.

Which San Francisco landmark, painted International Orange, had the world's longest suspension span in 1937?

The Golden Gate Bridge almost wore black and yellow stripes, which the US Navy suggested so that passing ships could see it.

Which capital of Hawaii, whose name means sheltered harbor, is home to the royal Iolani Palace?

Honolulu has been a capital since 1845: first of the independent Hawaiian Kingdom, then of a US territory, and since 1959 of a state.

Which Oregon body of water, filled by rain and snow with no inflowing rivers, is the deepest in the United States?

Crater Lake is more than 1,900 feet deep and fills the shell of Mount Mazama, a volcano that collapsed about 7,700 years ago.

Which city at the mouth of the American River became California's permanent capital in 1854?

Sacramento won the seat only after the legislature had also met in San Jose, Vallejo and Benicia during the first years of statehood.

Which crop is Idaho best known for, supplying about one-third of the entire United States harvest?

Potatoes even have their own museum in Blackfoot, Idaho, where the exhibits include the world's largest potato chip, 25 inches long.

Which capital of Colorado is nicknamed the Mile High City for its elevation of exactly one mile?

Denver marks its mile-high point on the west steps of the State Capitol, and the marker is moved up or down whenever surveyors revise the elevation.

Which Pacific Northwest volcano lost about 1,300 feet of its summit in a deadly eruption in May 1980?

Mount St. Helens blew out sideways on May 18, 1980, killing 57 people in the most economically destructive volcanic event in US history.

Which capital of Arizona, set in the Valley of the Sun, is the most populous US state capital?

Phoenix got its name from settler Darrell Duppa, who saw a new city being born from the ruins of an earlier civilization, the Hohokam.

Which dam on the Arizona–Nevada border, built during the Great Depression, holds back Lake Mead?

Hoover Dam was officially Boulder Dam from 1933, when the Roosevelt administration dropped Herbert Hoover's name, until Congress restored it in 1947.

Which capital of Utah, founded by Mormon pioneers in 1847, hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics?

Salt Lake City was first named Great Salt Lake City, after the inland sea nearby, and dropped the word Great in 1868.

Which California tree species, a lover of summer fog, has produced the tallest living trees on Earth?

Coast redwood trunks have topped 380 feet, and the oldest known tree is perhaps 2,200 years old.

Which capital of New Mexico, founded by Spanish colonists in 1610, is the oldest US state capital?

Santa Fe is also the highest state capital in the country, sitting roughly 7,000 feet above sea level at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

Which Seattle landmark, standing 605 feet tall, was built for the 1962 World's Fair?

The Space Needle grew from a napkin sketch of a giant tethered balloon by businessman Edward Carlson, blended with an architect's flying-saucer idea.

Which city on southern Puget Sound has been the capital of Washington since its territorial days?

Olympia was named in 1850 for its view of the Olympic Mountains, three years before it became capital of Washington Territory.

Which explorers, sent west by Thomas Jefferson, spent the winter of 1805–06 at Fort Clatsop in Oregon?

Lewis and Clark left Fort Clatsop on March 23, 1806, and needed six months to carry their maps and journals back to St. Louis.

Which capital of Oregon, founded in 1842, has a capitol crowned by a gold-leaf statue called the Oregon Pioneer?

Salem briefly lost the seat of government to Corvallis in 1855, but the capital moved back for good that same year.

Which Alaskan peak, named with a Koyukon word for 'high' or 'tall', is the highest mountain in North America?

Denali stands 20,310 feet above sea level, and its official federal name has switched between Denali and Mount McKinley more than once.

Which capital of Idaho, nicknamed the City of Trees, takes its name from a French word meaning wooded?

Boise is said to come from French-speaking trappers, who called the cottonwood-lined stream la rivière boisée, the wooded river.

Which fertile valley was the destination of choice for wagon trains on the 2,170-mile Oregon Trail?

Willamette farmland drew ox-drawn wagon trains throughout the 19th century, and the valley is now often called Oregon Wine Country.

Which lake on the California–Nevada border trails only the five Great Lakes in volume among US lakes?

Tahoe is also the largest alpine lake in North America, lying 6,225 feet above sea level and plunging to a depth of 1,645 feet.

Which capital of Montana began in 1864 as a gold camp along a creek called Last Chance Gulch?

Helena grew so rich on gold that by 1888 about 50 millionaires lived there, more per capita than in any other city in the world.

Which California national park is known for the granite monoliths El Capitan and Half Dome?

Yosemite was first protected in 1864, when Abraham Lincoln signed a grant setting the valley aside as public land.

Which waterway, the largest in the Pacific Northwest, forms most of the border between Washington and Oregon?

The Columbia sends more water into the eastern Pacific than any other river, after a 1,243-mile journey that starts in Canada.

Which church leader brought the first Mormon pioneers into Utah in 1847 and became the territory's first governor?

Brigham Young led his church for thirty years, from 1847 until he died in 1877, and a marble statue of him stands in the US Capitol.

Which capital of Wyoming, founded as a Union Pacific junction, hosts the Frontier Days rodeo each July?

Cheyenne Frontier Days, held over ten days around the last full week of July, is known as the world's largest outdoor rodeo and western festival.

Which desert, North America's smallest and driest, surrounds Las Vegas and is the chief home of the Joshua tree?

The Mojave is so closely tied to the Joshua tree that the plant's range is used to trace the desert's edges.

Which nickname did Colorado earn from the timing of its admission to the Union in 1876?

The Centennial State became the 38th in the Union on August 1, 1876, just 28 days after the hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Which giant cactus of the Sonoran Desert may wait 75 years or more before growing its first arm?

Saguaro cacti often live more than 150 years, and the saguaro blossom is the state flower of Arizona.

Which capital of Nevada, named for a famous frontier scout, boomed after the Comstock Lode strike of 1859?

Carson City had its own branch of the United States Mint from 1870 to 1893, striking gold and silver coins.

Which site on California's American River, where a carpenter spotted gold in January 1848, set off the Gold Rush?

Sutter's Mill was still under construction when its builder, James Marshall, saw something glittering in the water of the tailrace.

Which nickname does Utah take from the emblem at the center of its flag, a symbol of industry?

The Beehive State owes its emblem to Mormon settlers, who named their proposed state Deseret after a Book of Mormon word for honeybee.

Which 1876 battle in Montana saw Lakota Sioux warriors and their allies wipe out George Custer's command?

Little Bighorn is remembered by the Lakota as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, a victory led by war leaders including Crazy Horse and Gall.

Which long-distance sled dog race, first run in 1973, crosses Alaska from Anchorage to Nome every March?

The Iditarod takes mushers and their dog teams eight to fifteen days or more, along a trail that boomed when gold miners rushed to Nome.

Which New Mexico town began in 1943 as Project Y, the top-secret bomb laboratory of the Manhattan Project?

Los Alamos was suggested by Robert Oppenheimer, who knew the remote plateau and its ranch school from time spent in the area in his youth.

Which Hawaiian royal, the composer of 'Aloha Oe', was the kingdom's last monarch before the 1893 overthrow?

Liliuokalani reigned for less than two years, from January 1891 until a coup led by the Committee of Safety toppled the monarchy.

Which Colorado park protects some 600 cliff dwellings built by Ancestral Puebloans, including Cliff Palace?

Mesa Verde, Spanish for green table, holds about 5,000 sites in all, making it the largest archaeological preserve in the United States.

Which California peak, rising to 14,505 feet, is the highest point in the contiguous United States?

Mount Whitney was named in 1864 for Josiah Whitney, the state geologist who sponsored the survey team that named it.

Which Montanan was elected in 1916 as the first woman in the United States Congress?

Jeannette Rankin, a lifelong pacifist, cast the only vote in Congress against declaring war on Japan after Pearl Harbor.

Which waterway carved Hells Canyon, North America's deepest river gorge, along the Idaho–Oregon border?

The Snake runs more than a mile below the canyon's rim on the Oregon side, and deeper still below Idaho's Seven Devils Mountains.

Which tree species of California's White Mountains includes Methuselah, a specimen over 4,800 years old?

Bristlecone pine Methuselah has been credited as the oldest known living non-clonal organism on Earth, and its age was counted from a slim core of its rings.

Which Wyoming rock formation, seen in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, became the first US national monument?

Devils Tower rises 1,267 feet above the Belle Fourche River and was protected by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906.

Which Utah site saw the ceremonial last spike driven in May 1869 to complete the first transcontinental railroad?

At Promontory, Leland Stanford swung at the spike and missed, but the single word 'done' was still flashed by telegraph around the country.

Which 1850s land deal with Mexico added the southern edge of Arizona and New Mexico for a planned railroad route?

The Gadsden Purchase cost $10 million and takes its name from James Gadsden, the US minister to Mexico who signed the first draft of the deal.

Which peak, the highest in Washington, is the most heavily glaciated mountain in the lower 48 states?

Mount Rainier is also the most topographically prominent peak in the contiguous United States and the tallest volcano in the Cascade Range.

Which teenage Shoshone interpreter, born near present-day Salmon, Idaho, joined an 1804–06 trek to the Pacific?

Sacagawea appears on a dollar coin first issued in 2000, shown with her infant son, Jean Baptiste.