Missouri |
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| Entered the Union: August 10, 1821 (24) | Capital: Jefferson City | |
| Origin of Name: Algonquian Indian word meaning "river of the big canoes" | ||
| State Nicknames: Show Me State • Gateway to the West • Home of the Blues | ||
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State Motto: Salus populi suprema lex esto
(The welfare of the people shall be the supreme law) |
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| State Horse: Missouri Fox Trotter | State Bird: Bluebird | |
| State Animal: Mule | State Flower: Hawthorn | |
| State Song: “Missouri Waltz" | State Tree: Dogwood | |
| National Forest: 1 • State Parks: 57 | ||
| Famous for: Branson Country Music Shows, Bass Pro Shops, St. Louis Gateway Arch | ||
| Famous Missourians: Burt Bacharach (songwriter), Yogi Berra (baseball), Bill Bradley (basketball), George Washington Carver (scientist), Walter Cronkite (TV newscaster), Walt Disney (artist), T.S. Eliot (poet), Redd Foxx (comedian), Betty Grable (actress), Jesse James (outlaw), Scott Joplin (composer), Pat Metheny (jazz guitarist), James C. Penney (merchant), Marlin Perkins (TV host), Vincent Price • Dick Van Dyke • Dennis Weaver (actors), Harry S. Truman (President), Mark Twain • Laura Ingalls Wilder (authors) | ||
| Native Animals and Birds: Click on photos of the animals and birds on this page to find out more about them and to hear the sounds they make. | ||
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| Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet were the first white people to see the Missouri River in 1673. In 1682, René-Robert Cavelier claimed the entire Mississippi Valley for France. This land, that included Missouri, was named Louisiana after King Louis XIV. French fur traders built trading posts along the Missouri River. Missionaries established St. Francis Xavier, the first white settlement of Missouri – located near present-day St. Louis, but was deserted in 1703. Missouri’s first permanent settlement, St. Genevieve, was established in 1735. France sold the entire Louisiana territory to the U.S. in 1803. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Missouri was the gateway to the West. St. Joseph being the eastern starting point of the Pony Express, and the much-traveled Santa Fe and Oregon trails began in Independence. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Missouri is known as the "Show Me State," which some say began in 1899 when Congressman Willard Duncan Vandiver stated, "I'm from Missouri and you've got to show me." It conotates a certain self-deprecating stubbornness and devotion to simple common sense. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Missouri is first in the nation in production of lead. Lead deposits led the French to found Sainte Genevieve, the first permanent European settlement in Missouri, about 1750. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Among the early immigrants to St. Louis were Adolphus Busch and Eberhard Anheuser, who helped make brewing a national industry. | ||||||||||||||||||
| The tallest monument built in the U.S., the Gateway Arch, in St. Louis, is 630 feet tall. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Ice-cream cones were first served in 1904 at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition world’s fair in St. Louis. | ||||||||||||||||||
| The first parachute jump from an airplane was made at Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis on March 1, 1912. | ||||||||||||||||||
| At the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904, Richard Blechyden, served tea with ice and invented iced tea. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Kansas City has more miles of boulevards than Paris and more fountains than any city except Rome. | ||||||||||||||||||
| In 1889, Aunt Jemima pancake flour, invented at St. Joseph, Missouri, was the first self-rising flour for pancakes and the first ready-mix food ever to be introduced commercially. | ||||||||||||||||||
| The tallest man in documented medical history was Robert Pershing Wadlow from St. Louis. He was 8 feet, 11.1 inches tall | ||||||||||||||||||
| Anheuser-Busch brewery in St. Louis, Missouri is the largest beer producing plant in the nation. | ||||||||||||||||||
| During Abraham Lincoln's campaign for the presidency, a Democrat named Valentine Tapley from Pike County, Missouri, swore that he would never shave again if Abe were elected. Tapley kept his word and his chin whiskers went unshorn from November 1860 until he died in 1910, attaining a length of twelve feet six inches. | ||||||||||||||||||
| The most powerful earthquake to strike the United States east of the Rocky Mountains occurred in 1811, centered in New Madrid, Missouri. The quake shook more than one million square miles, and was felt as far as 1,000 miles away. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Samuel Clemens, more familiarly known as Mark Twain, was born in Florida, Missouri and grew up in nearby Hannibal. | ||||||||||||||||||
| In the early 19th century, the folk song, Shenandoah, was sung about a trader in the Missouri River area who fell in love with the daughter of the Algonquian chief, Shenandoah. | ||||||||||||||||||
| The soft drink Dr Pepper was introduced at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis. 7-Up also was invented in St. Louis. | ||||||||||||||||||
| St. Louisans consume more barbecue sauce per capita than any other city in America. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Situated within a day’s drive of 50% of the U.S. population, Branson and the Tri-Lakes area serves up to 65,000 visitors daily. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Missouri has more than 7,500 recorded caves. | ||||||||||||||||||
| St. Louis offers more free, major visitor attractions than anyplace outside of the nation's capital. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Missouri's Ethnic Roots: German 23.5%, Irish 12.7%, American 10.5%, English 9.5%, French 3.5%. "American" includes Native American or African American. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Religion in Missouri: 76% Christian (50% Protestant, 19% Catholic, 7% Other), 15% No Religion, 2% Other Religions, 1% LDS | ||||||||||||||||||
| Sedalia has been called the cradle of classical ragtime. Maple Leaf Rag became one of the first pieces of American sheet music to sell over one million copies. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Jesse James was born in Kearney, Missouri, the son of a Baptist minister. Cruel treatment by Union soldiers during the Civil War may have turned Jesse and his brother Frank to a life of crime after the war. Their first bank robbery got them $60,000 from a bank in Liberty, Missouri. For 15 years, Frank and Jesse robbed trains and banks throughout the US. In 1876, Jesse and Frank were involved in a robbery along with the Younger Brothers and other gang members. The Pinkerton detectives killed or wounded all of them except Frank and Jesse. From that point, Jesse, his wife, and children went into hiding, but the $10,000 price on Jesse's head led Bob Ford to shoot him at his St. Joseph, Missouri home in 1882 to collect the reward. | ||||||||||||||||||
At a Glance
Missouri Quick Facts
| Entered the Union | August 10, 1821 (24) |
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| Capital | Jefferson City |
| Nickname | Show Me State • Gateway to the West • Home of the Blues |
| State Bird | Bluebird |
| State Flower | Hawthorn |
| State Tree | Dogwood |
New for 2026
More Missouri Facts & Photos
In 1964 Congress created Ozark National Scenic Riverways, the first national park area established to protect a river system. It preserves the spring-fed Current and Jacks Fork rivers, and its Big Spring is one of the largest freshwater springs in the country.
Missouri declared Hypsibema missouriensis its official state dinosaur in 2004. The duck-billed plant eater, some 30 feet long, was first unearthed in 1942 by a family digging a cistern in Bollinger County.
When Bagnell Dam closed off the Osage River in 1931, the Lake of the Ozarks became the largest man-made lake in the United States at the time. Its shoreline winds for 1,150 miles, more shore than the state of California.
Katy Trail State Park follows the old Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad corridor for 240 miles between Clinton and Machens, much of it beside the Missouri River. It is the longest developed rail-trail in the country.
At Elephant Rocks State Park, giant pink granite boulders formed from 1.5-billion-year-old magma stand end to end like a train of circus elephants. The biggest, nicknamed Dumbo, weighs about 680 tons.
Missouri's highest point is Taum Sauk Mountain in the St. Francois range, 1,772 feet above sea level. A rugged loop trail from the summit passes Mina Sauk Falls, the state's tallest waterfall, which drops 132 feet.
Voices of America
In Their Own Words
George Washington Carver
"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these."
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"Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses."
Scientist
Harry S. Truman
"America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand."
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"Carry the battle to them. Don't let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive and don't ever apologize for anything."
President
George Washington
"I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery."
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"Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."
President
Daniel Webster
"Whatever makes men good Christians, makes them good citizens."
Statesman
Benjamin Franklin
"There was never yet a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous."
Founding Father
James Monroe
"For these blessings we owe to Almighty God, from whom we derive them, and with profound reverence, our most grateful and unceasing acknowledgments ... That these blessings may be preserved and perpetuated will be the object of my fervent and unceasing prayers to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe."
President
Last updated: July 2026