The name Missouri comes from a Sioux tribe whose Illinois name, ouemessourita, means “those who have dugout canoes.”
Saint Louis University, chartered in 1832, is the oldest university west of the Mississippi River.
Missouri has 114 counties and one independent city, St. Louis, which voted to secede from St. Louis County in 1876.
The story may be apocryphal, but Missouri may have derived its nickname from U.S. Rep. Willard Duncan Vandiver’s declaration in 1899 that “I’m from Missouri, and you’ve got to show me.”
Through 2004, Missouri hds supported the winning presidential candidate in more national elections than any other state. Since 1904, Missourians voted with the winner in all but the 1956 contest (supporting Adlai Stevenson against Dwight Eisenhower).
That distinction stands in sharp contrast to recent history: Missouri is just 1-for-4 in the most recent presidential contests, backing the winner in 2016.
Missouri borders eight states, a number matched by only Tennessee.
In 1912, Albert Berry made what’s thought to have been the nation’s first successful parachute jump from a moving airplane in St. Louis.
The state suffered the nation’s worst succession of earthquakes in 1811 and 1812, along the New Madrid fault.
Before Prohibition, Missouri was the No. 2 wine-producing state, behind only California.
Kansas City is the largest rail center in the U.S. by tonnage.
Kansas City has more highway miles per capita than any other metropolitan area in the U.S.
One Missouri city holds the all-time records for both the hottest and coldest days in state history: Warsaw, where it was -40 on Feb. 13, 1904, and 118 on July 14, 1954.
