Also see Specific Destinations, Travel and Location Humor.

Page Toppers

• Meet Me in St. Louis
• Missouri Moon
• Missouri Morning
• Missouri Waltz
• My Missouri Home
• Wish We Were Back in Missouri

Quotes

• The best restaurants in the world are, of course, in Kansas City. Not all of them; only the top four or five. (Calvin Trillin)
• Cape Girardeau lies in the bootheel of Missouri, that little part that juts down and out into Arkansas. This is the fringe of the South. (Eddy L. Harris)
• Missouri has the reflexes of its own celebrated mules; this is a state with a kick. (John Gunther)
• The people of western Missouri are, in some respects, very peculiar. We will take Jackson county where I was born for instance. In that section the people seemed to be born fighters, the instinct being inherited from a long line of ancestors. (Cole Younger)

Symbols

• Nicknames: The Show Me State; The Cave State; The Ozark State; Mother of the West; The Iron Mountain state
• Slogan: Show Me Missouri
• Motto: The welfare of the people shall be the supreme law
• Song: Missouri Waltz (words by J. R. Shannon, music by John V. Eppel)
• Folk Dance: Square Dance
• Musical Instrument: Fiddle
• Animal: Missouri Mule
• Horse: Missouri Fox Trotting Horse
• Bird: Bluebird
• Fish: Channel Catfish
• Aquatic Animal: Paddlefish (Spoonbill)
• Insect: Honeybee
• Tree: Flowering Dogwood
• Flower: Hawthorn Blossom
• Dessert: Ice Cream Cone
• Fruit: Norton Cynthiana grape
• Fossil: Crinodea
• Mineral: Galena (lead)
• Rock: Mozarkite (chert)
• Nut: Eastern Black Walnut
• Pro Sports Teams: St. Louis Rams, KC Chiefs (football); St. Louis Blues (hockey); St. Louis Cardinals, KC Royals (baseball)

Facts About Missouri

• Capital: Jefferson City
• Residents: Missourians
• State Name Origin: from an Indian word meaning "canoe haver"
• Admitted to Statehood: 10 Aug 1821
• Order of Admission: 24th state
• Length: 300 miles
• Width: 240 miles
• Area: 69,704 square miles
• Size Rank: 21
• Number of Counties: 114
• Streams and Rivers: 51,978 miles
• Geographic Center: 20 miles SW of Jefferson City in Miller Co.
• Mean Elevation: 800 feet
• Highest Point: Taum Sauk Mountain, 1,772 feet
• Lowest Point: Saint Francis River, 230 feet
• Agricultural Products: food products, cattle, hogs, milk, soybeans, corn, hay
• Commercial Products: transportation equipment (including autos and auto parts), beer and other beverages, electrical and electronic equipment, printing and publishing, lead
• Average Annual Rainfall: 33.9 inches
• Average Winter High Temperature: 19 degrees
• Record Low Temperature: -40 degrees (13 Feb 1905 Warsaw)
• Average Summer High Temperature: 90 degrees
• Record High Temperature: 118 degrees (14 Jul 1954 Warsaw and Union)
• More information about Missouri

Items of Interest

• The first successful parachute jump to be made from a moving airplane was made by Captain Berry at St. Louis, in 1912.
• The most destructive tornado on record occurred in Annapolis. In three hours, it tore through the town on March 18, 1925 leaving a 980-foot wide trail of demolished buildings, uprooted trees, and overturned cars. It left 823 people dead and almost 3,000 injured.
• At the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904, Richard Blechyden, served tea with ice and invented iced tea.
• At the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904, an ice cream vendor invented the ice cream cone when he ran out of cups and asked a waffle vendor to roll up waffles to hold ice cream.
• Missouri ties with Tennessee as having eight borders states.
• St. Louis is called, "The Gateway to the West" and "Home of the Blues".
• Kansas City has more miles of boulevards than Paris and more fountains than any city except Rome.
• Kansas City has more miles of freeway per capita than any metro area with more than one million residents.
• Construction of the Gateway Arch began in 1963 and was completed in 1965. The Arch has foundations sunken 60 feet into the ground, and is built to withstand earthquakes and high winds. It sways up to one inch in a 20 MPH wind, and is built to sway up to 18 inches.
• Saint Louis University received a formal charter from the state of Missouri in 1832, making it the oldest University west of the Mississippi.
• In 1889, Aunt Jemima pancake flour, invented at St. Joseph, was the first ready-mix food ever to be introduced commercially.
• The most powerful earthquake to strike the United States 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.
• Anheuser-Busch brewery in St. Louis, Missouri is the largest beer producing plant in the nation.
• Jefferson City was named for Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States.
• In 1865 Missouri became the first slave state to free its slaves.
• Situated within a day's drive of 50 percent of the U.S. population, Branson and the Tri-Lakes area serves up to 65,000 visitors daily. The vast majority of tourists arrive by vehicles, RVs and tour buses (an estimated 4,000 buses each year).
• Missouri played a leading role as the gateway to the West. St. Joseph, Missouri was the eastern starting point for the Pony Express (began in 1860), and both the Santa Fe and Oregon Trails began in Independence, Missouri.

Notable Natives

Some of these were born here, others just lived a while in the state.

• Oleta Adams - jazz vocalist
• Robert Altman - film director (Kansas City)
• Maya Angelou - author
• Henry "Perpetual Motion" Armstrong (1912- ) - boxer, minister
• David Rice Atchison - president of the U.S. for one day in 1849. The term of President Polk expired on Mar 4. President-elect Taylor, a very religious man, refused to take the presidential oath on Sunday. Atchison, president pro-tem of the Senate served as the U. S. president from noon, Mar 4, to 11:30 a.m, Mar 5
• Burt Bacharach - songwriter (Kansas City)
• Josephine Baker(1906-1975) - dancer, singer, actress (St. Louis)
• Count Basie - jazz bandleader (immigrated from NJ)
• Wallace Beery - actor (Kansas City)
• William Bent - fur trader, pioneer (Saint Louis)
• Thomas Hart Benton - painter (Neosho)
• Robert Russell Bennett - composer (Kansas City)
• Yogi Berra - baseball player (Saint Louis)
• Chuck Berry (1926-1989) - musician, singer ("Father of Rock and Roll")
• Bill Bradley - basketball player (Crystal City)
• Omar Nelson Bradley (1893- 1981) - five-star general, 69 years active duty in the Armed Forces, longer than any other soldier in U.S. history, commanded the 12th Army Group in WWII, the largest American force ever under one man's command (Moberly)
• John Brown - "honorary" African American, gave his live to end slavery
• Grace Bumbry - soprano (Saint Louis)
• William Burroughs - writer (Saint Louis)
• Sarah Caldwell - opera director, conductor (Maryville)
• Martha Jane Canary aks Calamity Jane - frontierswoman (Princeton)
• Dale Carnegie - teacher of public speaking (Maryville)
• George Washington Carver (1864 -1943) - educator, agricultural chemist, born a slave (Diamond Grove)
• Auguste Chouteau - founded Saint Louis in 1764
• Samuel Langhorne Clemens (aka Mark Twain) (1835-1910) - author (Florida, MO)
• Walter Cronkite - news anchor (St. Joseph)
• Robert Cummings - actor (Joplin)
• Jane Darwell - actress (Palmyra)
• Phyllis Diller - comedian
• Walt Disney (1901-1966) - animator, cartoonist
• Thomas Eagleton (1929- ) - politician, attorney, political commentator, college professor
• Jeanne Eagels - actress (Kansas City)
• T. S. Eliot - author (St. Louis)
• Joseph Erlanger (1876- ) - Nobel Prize-winning physiologist
• Eugene Field - author (poet (Saint Louis)
• Redd Foxx - actor, comedian (St. Louis)
• John Goodman - actor, restaurant owner (Affton)
• Betty Grable - actress (St. Louis)
• Ulysses S. Grant (1822- )- 18th U.S. president
• Maurice Green - track star and one-time world's fastest sprinter
• Dick Gregory - comic, activist (Saint Louis)
• Jean Harlow - actress (Kansas City)
• Edwin Hubble - astronomer (Marshfield)
• John Huston - film director (Nevada)
• Laura Elizabeth Ingalls - writer of Little House on the Prairie (grew up in MO)
• Jesse James (1847-1882) - notorious outlaw (Kearney)
• Scott Joplin - composer
• Jackie Joyner-Kersee - Olympic athlete, won six medals in spite of asthma and numerous injuries
• Kevin Kline - actor
• James Langston Hughes - poet (Joplin)
• William Lear - aviation inventor (Hannibal)
• George Lee - early Swing and Jazz bandleader
• Julia Lee - jazz pianist
• Buck Leonard - one of the greatest hitters in Negro Leagues baseball
• Rush Limbaugh - communicator (Cape Girardeau)
• Mary Margaret McBride - television hostess (Paris)
• Jay McShann - jazz bandleader for Charlie Parker
• Marianne Moore - poet (Saint Louis)
• Bennie Moten - early Swing and Jazz bandleader
• Stan "the Man" Musial - baseball player, inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame in 1969
• Buck O'Neil - Negro leagues baseball star and manager
• Geraldine Page - actress (Kirksville)
• Leroy Robert "Satchel" Paige (1904-1982) - baseball pitcher, inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame in 1971
• Charlie "Bird" Parker - jazz saxophonist
• James C. Penney - founder of J.C. Penney Department Stores (Hamilton)
• Marlin Perkins - television host, zoo director (Carthage)
• John J. Pershing - army leader, pershing rifles (Linn County)
• Stone Phillips - news anchor
• Brad Pitt - actor
• Bernard Powell - civil rights activist
• Vincent Price - actor (St. Louis)
• Joseph Pulitzer (1847- ) - journalist, endowed the Columbia School of Journalism
• Peter Raven (1936-1995) - scientist, environmentalist
• Branch Rickey - baseball manager
• Ginger Rogers - dancer, actress (Independence)
• Nellie Tayloe Ross - first woman elected governor of a state (Saint Joseph)
• Jimmy Rushing - jazz vocalist
• Charles M. Russell - painter, artist (St. Louis)
• Ted Shawn - dancer, choreographer (Kansas City)
• Casey Stengel - baseball player (Kansas City)
• Gladys Swarthout - soprano (Deepwater)
• Sara Teasdale - poet (Saint Louis)
• Virgil Thomson - composer (Kansas City)
• Frank A. Theis (1890-1965) - grain merchant
• Harry S. Truman (1884-1972) - 33rd U.S. (Lamar)
• Joe Turner - jazz vocalist
• Kathleen Turner - actress
• Tina Turner - singer
• Mark Twain - see Samuel Clemens
• Robert Pershing Wadlow - tallest man in medical history (8' 11.1" tall)
• Dick Van Dyke - actor (West Plains)
• Dennis Weaver - actor (Joplin)
• Pearl White - actress (Greenridge)
• Roy Wilkins - civil rights leader (Saint Louis)
• Mary Lou Williams - blues singer
• Tennessee Williams - playwright
• Lester Young - early jazz musician

The Missouri State Flag
The flag background is three horizontal bars--red, white, blue--symbolizing valor, purity and justice. The state seal is in the center encircled by a blue band with 24 stars (number of states in 1821). Some symbols on the shield are: an eagle grasping an olive branch and arrows representing the strength and power of the US; grizzly bears representing courage; a crescent moon representing potential; and a cloud representing the difficulties MO endured on its way to statehood.

You know you are from Missouri if...

• Everyone in your family has been on a "Float trip."
• "Vacation" means driving to Silver Dollar City, Worlds of Fun or Six Flags.
• Down south to you means Arkansas.
• The phrase, "I'm going to the Lake this weekend," can mean only one thing.
• You know what "Party Cove" is. (If you know where, you are a boating party animal.)
• You think Missouri is pronounced with an "ah" at the end.
• You know in your heart that Mizzou can beat Nebraska in football.
• You think I-44 is spelled "foarty-foar." (St. Louis Only)
• You'll pay for your kids to go to college unless they want to go to KU.
• You know that Concordia is halfway between Kansas City and Columbia, and Columbia is halfway between St. Louis and Kansas City, and Warrenton outlet mall is halfway between Columbia and St. Louis.
• You can't think of anything better than sitting on the porch in the middle of the summer during a thunderstorm.
• You know that Harry S. Truman, Walt Disney and Mark Twain are all from Missouri.
• You know what "cow tipping" and "possum kicking" is.
• You think "frog gigging" should be an Olympic sport.
• You think Imo's is larger than Pizza Hut.
• You can tell the difference between a horse and a cow from a distance.
• You don't put too much effort into hairstyles due to wind and weather.
• There's a tornado warning and the whole town is outside watching for it.
• The local gas station sells live bait.
• Little smokies are something you serve on special occasions.
• All your radio preset buttons are country.
• You know enough to get your driving done early on Sundays before the Sunday drivers come out.
• You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from Missouri.

Songs about Missouri

• Blue Missouri Hills - Chuck Suchy (1999)
• Gifts from Missouri - Jim Weatherly (1980)
• I'm From Missouri - Ernie Ashworth (1966)
• It Rains Just the Same in Missouri - Ray Griff (1972)
• Missouri Moon - Rhonda Vincent (2005)
• Missouri Waltz - Slim Dusty (1968)
• My Missouri Home - Rural Route 4 (2006)
• Reminds Me of Missouri - Wil Maring (2006)
• Wish We Were Back in Missouri - Emmylou Harris (1980)
• Walkin' to Missouri - The Sammy Kaye Orchestra (1952)

Songs about Missouri Cities

• 40 Miles from Poplar Bluff - Penny DeHaven and Porter Wagoner (2002)
• Webb City - Tommy Turrentine (1960)

Songs about St. Louis

• Goin' Back to St. Louis - Mack Vickery (1960)
• Long Way From St. Louis - Charlie Byrd (1959)
• Meet Me in St. Louis - Judy Garland (1944)
• St. Louis - The Easybeats (1969)
• St. Louis Blues - Nat King Cole (1958)
• You Came a Long Way From St. Louis - Chris Connor (1963)