Popular--and WRONG--state name derivations

[momta]

My latest.

[rurallib]

1. I so love stuff like this!

I am from Iowa and have heard so many theories on where the name came from.
edit to add. My favorite is 'land between two waters' since Iowa is to only inland state to have an east coast (the Mississippi River) and a west coast (the Missouri River).

I will have to throw in my favorite sweatshirt on Iowa I saw many years ago:

University Of Iowa
Idaho City
Ohio

[momta]

2. Thank you.

I love stuff like this too. When I first started researching the state names Iowa was easily one of the most interesting because there were SO many theories.

BTW, the clip I used was one I made for my Arizona video. It comes at about 1:08:

[rsdsharp]

3. I've told the story before of my struggle to get my Texas based employer

to send me merchandise, only to be told “There ain’t no such state as Iowa.”

I did have a New York client ask how far I was from the Iowa capitol. “Oh, about a mile,” I said. “I can see it from my window.”

“You’re in Des Moines. How can you see the capitol? How far are you from Iowa City?”

“About a hundred miles, but the capitol of Iowa is Des Moines.”

“Since when?”

“1857.”

“Wait a minute. If you’re a mile from the capitol, how can you see it from your window?”

“I’m on the 21st floor.”

“Iowa has a building that tall?”

“Yeah, we find these taller cabins deter Indian attacks.”

[momta]

5. That's excellent!

Great story. BTW, I grew up in Texas and can attest to the lack of curiosity about the "outside" world.

[rsdsharp]

6. I know a guy with a doctorate in history who briefly took a job teaching

at a Texas high school. He taught world history. There was one map in the classroom.

Of Texas.

[momta]

7. Sounds about right.

My world history teacher was a football coach. We spent class time making signs for the football games.

[CloudWatcher]

8. Back when I watched local TV

The local Denver TV news had a routine segment called something like "World News Minute" ... cute intro
graphics and theme music.

They had 3 stories in 60 seconds. One from US east coast, one from US west coast and one from the UK.
I'm guessing they thought anything outside of Colorado was close enough to world-news. Or something.

It's been over 20 years and that might have been the last time I watched the local "news".

[rurallib]

9. should have said your '21 story building' was a corn silo. He would have believed that.

[3auld6phart]

4. Very

interesting. Love items like this.