Missouri
Became a state: August 10, 1821 (24th state)
Area: 69,709 sq mi (ranked 21st in size)
Population: 5,595,211 (ranked 17th in population)
Capital: Jefferson City
Largest City: Kansas City (population 448,000)
Bordering States: Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Tennessee
Origin of state name: The name Missouri originates from Sioux Indians of the state called the Missouris. The Smithsonian Bureau of American Ethnology states that Missouri means town of the large canoes. Other authorities say the original Indian syllables (from which the word came) mean wooden canoe people, he of the big canoe, or river of the big canoes.State Nickname: The Golden State
State Nickname: Show Me State
State Bird: Bluebird
State Flower: White Hawthorn
State Tree: Flowering Dogwood
Trivia: 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 inspiration for Aunt Jemima was Billy Kersands' minstrelsy/vaudeville song "Old Aunt Jemima", written in 1875. The Aunt Jemima character was prominent in minstrel shows in the late 19th century, and was later adopted by commercial interests to represent the Aunt Jemima brand.
St. Joseph Gazette editor Chris L. Rutt of St. Joseph, Missouri and his friend Charles G. Underwood bought a flour mill in 1888. Rutt and Underwood's Pearl Milling Company faced a glutted flour market, so they sold their excess flour as a ready-made pancake mix in white paper sacks with a trade name (which Arthur F. Marquette dubbed the "last ready-mix").
Abbreviation: MO
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