Iowa

About half of Iowa cities have fewer than 500 residents.

All alcohol is sold by state-owned outlets.

Red Delicious apple

Iowa is the US's #1 producer of corn, soybeans and hogs.  It is second only to Texas in beef cattle.  

The Red Delicious apple was developed in Iowa.

After being acquired in the Louisiana Purchase, Iowa became a part of the Missouri Territory in 1812.  When Missouri became a state in 1821, Iowa was ungoverned until 1834 when it was added to the Michigan Territory; then it was moved to the Wisconsin Territory in 1836; and it finally became its own territory in 1838 and its own state in 1846.

Iowa entered the Union as a Free (i.e. non-slave) state and sent 70,000 to fight in the Civil War.  Post-war, Iowa was a leader in civil rights legislation.  An 1868 constitutional amendment allowed black men to vote, and another in 1880 allowed blacks to serve in the Legislature.  State court decisions eliminated segregation in public schools.  When Mississippi River steamboats passed through Iowa waters, they were required to be integrated.

There was a lot of prejudice during WWI, however: many Germans had settled in Iowa and many still spoke German, resulting in 5 farm wives being arrested for speaking German on a telephone party line because the governor had decreed only English was allowed in public places.

The Sullivan Brothers

"Saving Private Ryan" was inspired by the 5 Sullivan brothers who enlisted together during WWII.  They insisted on staying together and were assigned to the USS Juneau, which was sunk off Guadalcanal in 1942, killing all 5 brothers.

Iowa is the only state that has all of both its east and west borders formed by water (Mississippi River is the eastern border and Missouri River is the western border).

Iowa's loess deposit

Loess is an accumulation of wind-blown soil and there's a loess deposit in Iowa that's up to 15 miles wide and 200 miles long.  China is the only other country with such extensive deposits.

Because Iowa has no mountain barriers, high winds and blizzards come sweeping in from the Great Plains.  Soil erosion is a constant problem.  Iowa averages about 50 tornadoes a year, but in both 2001 and 2008 there were more than 100.

Iowa is home to several religious sects: the Amish and Mennonite near Kalona and Davis and Buchanan Counties, the Quakers near West Branch and LeGrand, German Pietists founded Amana Colonies, Transcendental Meditation adherents founded Maharishi Vedic City; Cistercian monks and nuns are at New Melleray Abbey and Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey.

Grant Wood's window

The Veteran's Memorial Building in Cedar Rapids includes a stained glass window by Grant Wood; it was originally designed for the Cedar Rapids American Legion Hall, but they refused to accept it because they considered the design too unusual.  The Cedar Rapids Museum of Art is home to the world's largest collection of Grant Wood's works.

Ripley's Believe It or Not once called Burlington's Snake Alley the crookedest street in the world.

The Van Buren County Courthouse in Keosauqua is the oldest courthouse in continuous use west of the Mississippi River.

Iowa State Capitol

The capitol at Des Moines has a dome covered with gold leaf.

Iowa has only 5 official state symbols, the fewest of all the states (official state bird, flower, rock, seal and tree).

Quaker Oats has one of the world's largest cereal mills in Cedar Rapids.

Only London (England) and Hartford (Connecticut) have more insurance company headquarters than Iowa.

The US's shortest railroad is in Dubuque: it's 296' long and was built in 1882.

Iowa has the US's highest literacy rate - higher than 99%.