Why We Live In Iowa

(It has nothing to do with the winters, except it feels so good when they’re over)

We’re productive

• Iowa leads the country in production of pork, corn and soybeans. Iowa produces more than 20 percent of the nation’s corn.
• One Iowa farm family grows enough food and fiber to feed 279 people, one-fourth of whom live overseas. Ninety-four percent of Iowa’s soil can sustain crops, and more than one-quarter of the nation’s best crop soil is within our borders.
• Iowa ranks No. 2 (behind Texas) in livestock production.
• As strange as it sounds, Iowa tourism generates $2 million per year, making it the third largest industry in Iowa. The No. 1 attraction is the Amana Colonies.
• Quaker Oats, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is the largest cereal company in the world.

We’re smarter than the average bear

• Ninety-three percent of Iowa schools are above the national average for scholastic achievement.
• Iowa is the nation’s No. 2 book-reading state.
• Iowa has a 99 percent literacy rate - the highest in the nation.
• Iowa is first in the nation in per-capita undergraduate college degrees.
• Iowa-educated youths have led the nation in SAT and ACT scores for the past two decades.

Politics

Since 1972, Iowa has been host to the first-in-the-nation political caucuses. Every four years, candidates of all persuasions descend on the Hawkeye State, where they kiss babies, fondle baby farm animals, pay lip-service to ethanol and spend lots of money. We’re happy when they leave.

History

After the Civil War, Iowa was the first state to give the vote to African-Americans.

Cornell College in Mount Vernon (near Cedar Rapids) was the first college in the U.S. to admit female students. It’s also the only college in the U.S. that has its entire campus listed on the National Historic Register.

Seventy-six thousand Iowans fought in the Civil War; 12,000 died. All 122 male students at Bowen Collegiate, now Central College in Pella, enlisted in the Union Army.

In downtown Waterloo, "Boulder Church" was constructed from a single boulder which yielded approximately five million pounds of stone--more than enough for the building.

Yes, the weather sucks

• In 1909, 113 inches of snow fell in one winter in Northwood. On April 20, 1918 - 24 inches fell in 24 hours in Lenox, a state record.
• The highest recorded temperature was 118 degrees in Keokuk on July 20, 1935; the lowest was -47 degrees in Washington Jan. 12, 1912.
• The average Iowa temperature is 48 degrees.
• Iowa averages 34 tornadoes annually.

Weird, but true

• One state park in Iowa boasts more than 100 wild turkeys per square mile.
• Iowa Farmer Today magazine’s CornCam records the growth cycle of corn on the Internet. (http://www.iowafarmer.com/corn_cam/)
• Iowa is the only state that starts with two vowels.
• Iowa is the only state whose east and west borders are formed by 100 percent water – the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.
• The butterfly swimming stroke was “invented” by a University of Iowa swim coach in 1935.

Official State Facts

State Flag
Iowa's official flag was adopted in 1921. The flag was designed by by Mrs. Dixie Gebhardt, of The Daughters of the American Revolution of Iowa.

The flag has a red, white and blue background, like the French flag; this symbolizes the fact that Iowa became a part of the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase (this area had been part of France, but was sold to the USA in 1803). On the white central portion of the flag, a bald eagle holds a flowing ribbon that reads, "OUR LIBERTIES WE PRIZE, AND OUR RIGHTS WE WILL MAINTAIN."

State Flower
Wild Rose

State Bird
Eastern Goldfinch

State Tree
Oak Tree