Missouri Trivia
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99 free Missouri trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free Missouri trivia questions with answers. Missouri trivia for the Show Me State, whether you are a St. Louisan, a Kansas Citian or somewhere in the Ozarks between. The quiz covers how the state got its name and nicknames, the Missouri Compromise, the Gateway Arch, the 1904 World's Fair and its ice cream cones and iced tea, and famous Missourians from Mark Twain and Harry Truman to Chuck Berry and Walt Disney. It also takes in Branson's theatres, Lake of the Ozarks and Bagnell Dam, Kansas City barbecue and toasted ravioli, Anheuser-Busch, the Pony Express, the Dred Scott case, Cahokia, the New Madrid earthquakes, the Cardinals' eleven World Series and the Chiefs' beginnings as the Dallas Texans. Easy questions come first; the harder ones will stretch lifelong Missourians. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the state, its cities, landmarks and people, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 99 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the capital of Missouri?
Jefferson City
Jefferson City was built on an undeveloped tract because lawmakers wanted the capital in the center of the state, overlooking the Missouri River.
Q 02What is Missouri's famous unofficial nickname, printed on its licence plates?
The Show Me State
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.
Q 03Which mineral did Union forces mine inside Missouri's Meramec Caverns during the Civil War?
Saltpeter
Saltpeter was a gunpowder ingredient, and Confederate forces ended the mining by destroying the Union works inside the cave.
Q 04Missouri's name traces to the Missouria people, whose name in another tribe's language is said to refer to what?
Their canoes
Their canoes are what the name is said to describe, and the Missouria, ravaged by smallpox and warfare, later settled among the Otoe.
Q 05Which Missouri-born general commanded the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I?
John J. Pershing
John J. Pershing had earlier led a 1916 expedition into Mexico to capture Pancho Villa, but he never caught him.
Q 06Which free state was admitted alongside Missouri under the Missouri Compromise?
Maine
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.
Q 07Which town served as Missouri's temporary state capital from 1821 to 1826?
St. Charles
St. Charles won the temporary seat after its citizens pledged free meeting space, so lawmakers met in rooms above a store.
Q 08Which town was the first permanent European settlement in Missouri?
Ste. Genevieve
Ste. Genevieve first stood on the Mississippi floodplain, but after the great flood of 1785 the town moved to higher ground.
Q 09Why was the Gateway Arch's south leg hosed with water before its final section went in?
To cool the steel
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.
Q 10Which architect designed the Gateway Arch in St. Louis?
Eero Saarinen
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.
Q 11What mathematical curve gives the Gateway Arch its shape?
A weighted catenary
A weighted catenary was chosen because a plain catenary looked too pointed and severe to its designers.
Q 12Mark Twain's boyhood home, the setting for Tom Sawyer, was which Missouri river town?
Hannibal
Hannibal was home when his father died in 1847, and soon afterward young Sam left school to work as a printer's apprentice.
Q 13In which tiny Missouri village was Samuel Clemens, later Mark Twain, born in 1835?
Florida
Florida held about a hundred people, and Twain later joked that by being born there he increased the village's population by one percent.
Q 21Which drink did Richard Blechynden help popularize at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair?
Iced tea
Iced tea existed in America long before the fair, so the popular tale that Blechynden invented it there oversimplifies the drink's history.
Q 22Kansas City-style barbecue is best known for a thick sauce made with which ingredients?
Brown sugar, molasses, tomatoes
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.
Q 23Which brewing giant is headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri?
Anheuser-Busch
Q 14Mark Twain was born shortly after the appearance of what, and predicted he would 'go out with it'?
Halley's Comet
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.
Q 15Which scientist's birthplace near Diamond, Missouri, is preserved as a national monument?
George Washington Carver
George Washington Carver was kidnapped as a baby by raiders along with his mother and sister, and only he was brought back.
Q 16Harry S. Truman's middle initial 'S' honored which of his relatives?
His two grandfathers
His two grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young, shared the S, which stood for no name at all.
Q 17What business did Truman open after returning from World War I?
A haberdashery
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.
Q 18St. Louis hosted a World's Fair in 1904 to mark the centennial of what?
The Louisiana Purchase
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.
Q 19Which sporting event did St. Louis host in 1904, a first for the United States?
The Summer Olympics
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.
Q 20Which treat was reputedly improvised at the 1904 St. Louis fair when an ice cream stand ran out of containers?
The ice cream cone
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.
Anheuser-Busch could ship bottled beer across the country without it spoiling, and that reach turned its Budweiser brand into a national beer.
Q 24Winston Churchill's 1946 speech in Fulton, Missouri, is best known for which phrase?
The Iron Curtain
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.
Q 25Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag was published in 1899 by John Stark in which Missouri town?
Sedalia
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.
Q 26Which 'Father of Rock and Roll' was born into a middle-class St. Louis family in 1926?
Chuck Berry
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.
Q 27Walt Disney spent part of his boyhood on a farm near which small Missouri town?
Marceline
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.
Q 28The Pony Express ran from Sacramento to which Missouri city?
St. Joseph
St. Joseph was the route's eastern end, and the Pony Express shut down in October 1861 as the transcontinental telegraph was completed.
Q 29Which Missouri-born outlaw was shot dead in 1882 by Robert Ford, a new member of his own gang?
Jesse James
Jesse James's killer Robert Ford was convicted of murder, but Governor Thomas Crittenden, who had pushed for James's capture, pardoned him.
Q 30Which resort town in the Ozarks is famous for its strip of live-entertainment theatres along Highway 76?
Branson
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.