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MOMissouri Fun Facts
Missouri touches eight other states, tying Tennessee for the most in the country, and it is the only state with two Federal Reserve banks, in St. Louis and Kansas City. Both facts come from the same thing: this is where the settled East handed off to the West. The Santa Fe, Oregon and California trails all started from Missouri towns, and the Pony Express rode out of St. Joseph.
Facts most people get wrong
- The ice cream cone was not invented at the 1904 World's Fair. Italo Marchiony held a US patent for a cone mold in 1903, in New York. St. Louis turned it into a national habit in one summer.
- Missouri never joined the Confederacy, though the Confederacy claimed it. The state stayed in the Union while a rival secessionist government operated in exile. Missouri got a star on the Confederate flag anyway, and its regiments fought on both sides.
- The Gateway Arch is exactly as wide as it is tall. 630 feet each way, completed on October 28, 1965. The tram that carries visitors up runs in barrel-shaped pods that keep rotating to stay level inside the curve.
- Kansas City's barbecue, its Chiefs and its Royals are all in Missouri. Kansas City, Kansas is a separate, smaller city across the state line with its own mayor.
- Nobody agrees how to say it. Missour-ee and Missour-uh both have deep roots here, and the split runs more urban against rural than north against south. Politicians campaigning statewide have used both in one day.
- Show Me State is not official. The legislature never adopted it. The usual story credits Congressman Willard Vandiver in 1899, but state archivists call the origin unproven. It rides on the license plates by custom alone.
Records and firsts
- Missouri and Tennessee each border eight states, more than any others.
- The Gateway Arch is the tallest monument in the country at 630 feet, and the only one with a tram inside it.
- The 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis were the first held outside Europe, staged alongside the World's Fair.
- The Pony Express left St. Joseph for Sacramento on April 3, 1860, and lasted about 18 months before the transcontinental telegraph killed it.
- Missouri has more than 7,500 recorded caves, second only to Tennessee, which is why the Cave State is its other nickname.
- Harry Truman, born in Lamar in 1884, is the last president who never earned a college degree.
Geography that surprises
- Eight neighbors: Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska.
- The Bootheel, the rectangle hanging off the southeast corner, exists because planter John Hardeman Walker lobbied to have his land pulled inside the line when the boundary was drawn in 1820.
- Taum Sauk Mountain, the high point at 1,772 feet, sits in the St. Francois Mountains, igneous rock around 1.4 billion years old and among the oldest exposed in North America.
- The Missouri River, 2,341 miles and the longest in North America, joins the Mississippi just north of St. Louis, which means the longer river is officially the tributary.
- Southeast Missouri sits on the New Madrid seismic zone, where the quakes of 1811 and 1812 rang church bells on the east coast and briefly pushed the Mississippi upstream.
Where the name comes from
Missouri is not a Missouri word. It comes from what neighboring Illinois-language speakers called the Missouria people, something close to wimihsoorita, meaning those who have dugout canoes. French traders wrote it down, attached it to the river the Missouria lived along, and the territory and then the state inherited it in 1821. The Missouria called themselves Niutachi. The state motto is Latin, Salus populi suprema lex esto, let the welfare of the people be the supreme law.
Questions people ask about Missouri
What is Missouri known for?
The Gateway Arch, Kansas City barbecue, the 1904 World's Fair and Olympics, Mark Twain's Hannibal, the starting points of three westward trails, more than 7,500 caves, and eight bordering states.
How many states border Missouri?
Eight: Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. Only Tennessee matches that, and it happens to be one of the eight.
What is the weirdest law in Missouri?
Missouri is one of the few states with no statewide open container law, so a passenger drinking in a moving car breaks no state statute, though many cities and counties ban it and the driver still cannot be intoxicated.
Is it pronounced Missour-ee or Missour-uh?
Both are native. Missour-uh is older and more common in rural areas, Missour-ee dominates in St. Louis and Kansas City. Neither is wrong inside the state.
Was the ice cream cone invented in St. Louis?
Popularized, not invented. Italo Marchiony patented a cone mold in New York in 1903, a year before the fair. St. Louis in 1904 is where millions of people met the cone at once.