3. John Wayne; his birthplace there can be toured. [Back]
4. Madison County; this was true long before The Bridges of Madison County became a popular book and movie. [Back]
5. Tulips, what else? [Back]
6. The electronic digital computer, built by John Atanasoff [Back]
7. Atlantic [Back]
8. Buffalo Bill Cody’s; the home features (surprise!) buffalo. [Back]
9. Railways [Back]
10. Dubuque, which is on the Mississippi River [Back]
The Sunflower State, Kansas // Answers
1. “Home on the Range” [Back]
2. Abilene [Back]
3. The federal penitentiary, naturally [Back]
4. The famous (or infamous) Carry Nation, known for chopping up saloons with a hatchet [Back]
5. The prairie dog [Back]
6. Dodge City, of course [Back]
7. Wichita [Back]
8. Hot-air ballooning [Back]
9. John Brown; in the 1856 Battle of Osawatomie, five of his followers were killed. He was often referred to as Osawatomie Brown. [Back]
10. Bagpipes (Those with sensitive ears, take note.) [Back]
The Bluegrass State, Kentucky // Answers
1. The Kentucky Derby, held in Louisville [Back]
2. Loretta Lynn, from Butcher Hollow, Kentucky [Back]
3. Gold, naturally; the U.S. Bullion Depository is there. [Back]
4. Corvettes [Back]
5. Abraham Lincoln’s; the cabin is not his actual home but a replica. [Back]
6. Harlan B. Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame [Back]
7. Churchill Downs, famed for the Kentucky Derby [Back]
8. The Boy Scouts; the National Scouting Museum is on the campus of Murray State University. [Back]
9. Daniel Boone; the present fort is a replica of the one Boone built in 1775. [Back]
10. Bourbon, which has lent its name to a famous Kentucky product [Back]
The Pelican State, Louisiana // Answers
1. The Sugar Bowl [Back]
2. Carnival, which climaxes on Shrove Tuesday—also better known as Mardi Gras [Back]
3. Cajun, native to Louisiana but now popular worldwide [Back]
4. New Orleans; its nickname refers to the laid-back lifestyle of the city. [Back]
5. Napoleon, of course [Back]
6. A crayfish, a small lobsterlike crustacean; in the South they’re usually called crawfish or crawdads. [Back]
7. The French Quarter, also known by the French name Vieux Carré [Back]
8. Lafayette, which is the center of the state’s distinctive Cajun district [Back]
9. The thick forests supposedly improve the quality of the air. [Back]
10. Huey Long, who was assassinated in 1935 [Back]
The Pine Tree State, Maine // Answers
1. Lobsters, at the Maine Lobster Festival [Back]
2. Acadia [Back]
3. There are (supposedly) 365 of them. [Back]
4. Paul Bunyan [Back]
5. Caribou [Back]
6. George Bush [Back]
7. A lighthouse, built in 1791 [Back]
8. Leif Eriksson, son of Erik the Red [Back]
9. L. L. Bean, known especially for its sportswear [Back]
10. The roar of ocean waves crashing against granite rocks [Back]
The Old Line State, Maryland // Answers
1. Babe Ruth’s [Back]
2. Air Force One, the presidential plane [Back]
3. The U.S. Naval Academy [Back]
4. The Preakness [Back]
5. The Baltimore Orioles [Back]
6. “O Christmas Tree” (also known as “O Tannenbaum”); “Maryland, My Maryland” was written for this tune. [Back]
7. John Smith (of Pocahontas fame) [Back]
8. Jousting, a holdover from medieval times [Back]
9. The Mason-Dixon line, drawn as the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania [Back]
10. John Paul Jones, famous for saying, “I have not yet begun to fight.” [Back]
The Bay State, Massachusetts // Answers
1. Plymouth Rock, site of the Pilgrims’ landing [Back]
2. Boston, of course [Back]
3. John Winthrop, elected governor of the Massachusetts colony [Back]
4. Emily Dickinson’s; the house, where she was born and died, was built in 1813. She was sometimes called “the belle of Amherst.” [Back]
5. John Quincy Adams (This is fortunate, since it helps distinguish him from his father, President John Adams.) [Back]
6. The elm [Back]
7. Paul Revere [Back]
8. Fenway Park [Back]
9. Harvard [Back]
10. The Concord grape, of course [Back]
The Wolverine State, Michigan // Answers
1. Detroit, of course [Back]
2. Gerald Ford, a Michigan man [Back]
3. Lake Ontario [Back]
4. It’s a short form of “Motor Town.” Detroit was, and is, an auto center. [Back]
5. Corn flakes [Back]
6. Henry Ford, born in Dearborn in 1863 [Back]
7. Thanksgiving Day [Back]
8. On the beaches at Grand Haven, where the sand emits a peculiar whistle when walked on [Back]
9. Dutch, of course [Back]
10. The Republicans [Back]
The North Star State, Minnesota // Answers
1. The famous Mall of America, with more than four hundred stores and restaurants [Back]
2. 3M [Back]
3. Paul Bunyan [Back]
4. The Minnesota Vikings [Back]
5. Sled dogs [Back]
6. Judy Garland; the town also has a Judy Garland Festival each June. [Back]
7. Green Giant, which was founded there [Back]
8. Voyageurs National Park [Back]
9. The Mayo Clinic [Back]
10. The loon [Back]
The Magnolia State, Mississippi // Answers
1. Elvis Presley, of course [Back]
2. Biloxi [Back]
3. Cotton; the Cottonlandia Museum is a popular tourist attraction. [Back]
4. Florida [Back]
5. Jimmie Rodgers, known as “The Singing Brakeman” [Back]
6. Vicksburg, which withstood a long, hard siege by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant [Back]
7. William Faulkner’s [Back]
8. The Pascagoula River, which makes a weird sound on summer and fall evenings; according to legend, it is the sound of an Indian tribe that committed mass suicide by jumping into the river. [Back]
9. Nashville [Back]
10. Natchez, Mississippi, during the festival known as the Natchez Pilgrimage [Back]
The Show Me State, Missouri // Answers
1. The Gateway Arch, 630 feet tall, on the riverfront [Back]
2. Branson, with its cluster of country music showplaces [Back]
3. Hallmark [Back]
4. The Fellowship of Christian Athletes [Back]
5. Mark Twain’s [Back]
6. The Pony Express [Back]
7. St. Louis [Back]
8. “Jeff City,” short for the real name, Jefferson City [Back]
9. The town of Nevada, which has the Bushwhacker Museum; Nevada was a center of the bushwhackers’ operation. [Back]
10. Antique cars [Back]
Big Sky Country, Montana // Answers
1. George Custer’s [Back]
2. Removed them completely; on interstate highways, motorists are simply advised to drive “safely.” [Back]
3. Glacier National Park [Back]
4. Copper, a key product in the state [Back]
5. Sled dogs [Back]
6. Airborne firefighters, who are trained in parachuting [Back]
7. Snow; the bar is in a snowbank atop eleven-thousand-foot Beartooth Pass. [Back]
8. The Missouri, formed at the confluence of the Gallatin, Jefferson, and Madison Rivers [Back]
9. Driving bison over cliffs [B
ack]
10. Virginia City, which, in its heyday, had 190 murders in seven months; it is now restored as a tourist town. [Back]
The Cornhusker State, Nebraska // Answers
1. Arbor Day [Back]
2. Omaha [Back]
3. Trivia [Back]
4. The Oregon Trail [Back]
5. Willa Cather, author of Death Comes for the Archbishop, My Antonia, and other classics [Back]
6. It is unicameral—that is, it has one house instead of two. [Back]
7. William Jennings Bryan, the “Great Commoner” [Back]
8. Abraham Lincoln’s (did anyone miss this?) [Back]
9. Buffalo Bill Cody; his ranch in the town can be visited. [Back]
10. Gerald Ford [Back]
The Silver State, Nevada // Answers
1. A hotel-casino [Back]
2. Silver; Nevada is the Silver State. [Back]
3. Lake Tahoe [Back]
4. Gambling [Back]
5. Kit Carson [Back]
6. The federal government [Back]
7. “Gaming” [Back]
8. The Mormons [Back]
9. It is the All Indian Rodeo. [Back]
10. A glacier [Back]
The Granite State, New Hampshire // Answers
1. The Presidential Range [Back]
2. Vermont [Back]
3. Our Town, by Thornton Wilder [Back]
4. Dartmouth [Back]
5. Notches [Back]
6. Massachusetts; in 1679 it became a separate colony. [Back]
7. Robert Frost’s [Back]
8. On Golden Pond [Back]
9. It holds the first primaries in the nation. [Back]
10. Franklin Pierce, American president [Back]
The Garden State, New Jersey // Answers
1. Atlantic City, although since 2006 the pageant has been held in Las Vegas [Back]
2. Thomas Edison [Back]
3. George Washington crossing the Delaware [Back]
4. Princeton [Back]
5. Saltwater taffy [Back]
6. Trenton [Back]
7. A baseball field [Back]
8. The Seeing Eye [Back]
9. Campbell [Back]
10. New Brunswick, Canada; and Brunswick, Georgia [Back]
Land of Enchantment, New Mexico // Answers
1. The roadrunner [Back]
2. Albuquerque [Back]
3. Santa Fe, capital of New Mexico [Back]
4. Native Americans; they are 9 percent of the state population. [Back]
5. The Boy Scouts; it is their largest camp in the U.S. [Back]
6. Carlsbad Caverns, which (like many caves) is a home for bats [Back]
7. The fascinating Frijoles Canyon; frijole is Spanish for “bean.” [Back]
8. Dolls and dollhouses, oddly enough [Back]
9. Sitting Bull [Back]
10. Greer Garson, famous for Mrs. Miniver and other films [Back]
The Empire State, New York // Answers
1. New York City, what else? [Back]
2. Niagara Falls [Back]
3. Broadway [Back]
4. Lucille Ball [Back]
5. The electric chair [Back]
6. Glass, naturally [Back]
7. The Staten Island ferry [Back]
8. The Huguenots, Protestants who were expelled from France in the 1600s [Back]
9. Golf, which had been brought over (naturally) from Scotland [Back]
10. The Statue of Liberty [Back]
The Tar Heel State, North Carolina // Answers
1. Aviation pioneers Orville and Wilbur Wright, who did their first flights nearby [Back]
2. Tobacco [Back]
3. She was the first English child born in America. [Back]
4. Durham, home to Duke University’s famous medical school and hospital [Back]
5. The word bunkum, meaning “nonsense” [Back]
6. The Biltmore estate, now open to tourists [Back]
7. Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard; when not plundering in the Caribbean, Teach lived in Bath. [Back]
8. The mysterious disappearance of the English colony established there in 1587; this was the famous “Lost Colony.” [Back]
9. Daniel Boone; appropriately, the drama is held at Boone, North Carolina. [Back]
10. The islands known as the Outer Banks; numerous ships have been wrecked in the treacherous waters nearby. [Back]
The Sioux State, North Dakota // Answers
1. Sunflowers, a source of both seeds and oil [Back]
2. Nonprofit and charitable organizations [Back]
The Big Book of American Trivia Page 31