95 Fun Facts About Midwest

The 1989 baseball film Field of Dreams was shot on a farm in which Midwestern state?

Iowa: the film's diamond was built on a farm near Dyersville and kept as a visitor site afterwards; in 2021 the Yankees and White Sox played a major-league game beside it.

Which Midwestern metropolitan area is the second largest in the region?

Detroit's metro area, about 4.4 million people, is the Midwest's second largest, yet the city at its heart has lost about two-thirds of its residents since peaking at 1.85 million in 1950.

Which ancestry is most commonly reported in the Midwest?

German is the Midwest's most commonly reported ancestry; so many communities still spoke the language in 1918 that Iowa's governor, in a wartime backlash, banned foreign languages in schools and public places.

Which Midwestern state is the most populous?

Illinois counted about 12.8 million residents in 2020, a million more than runner-up Ohio, even though it was one of only three states whose census count fell from 2010.

What is the Midwest's nickname, thanks to its grain harvests?

The Midwest is called the nation's breadbasket because its deep prairie soils grow much of America's corn, soybeans, wheat and oats.

Which population movement transformed Midwestern cities in the early 20th century?

The Great Migration carried some six million Black Southerners to northern and western cities between about 1916 and 1970; Delta blues travelled with them and was electrified in Chicago's clubs.

Which Cleveland disc jockey popularised the term 'rock and roll' in 1951?

Alan Freed took the phrase from his Cleveland radio show to the stage in 1952 with the Moondog Coronation Ball, often called the first rock concert; police stopped it early when thousands more fans than seats turned up.

Which Midwestern state has Lansing as its capital?

Lansing has been Michigan's capital since 1847, when legislators moved it inland from Detroit; the much larger Detroit remains the state's biggest city.

Which presidential-election fact held true for Ohio through 2024?

No Republican has ever won the presidency without carrying Ohio, a streak intact through 2024; Ohio's bellwether reputation, by contrast, ended when it backed Trump while Biden won in 2020.

How many Great Lakes are there?

The five Great Lakes are Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario, draining to the Atlantic through the St. Lawrence River.

Which two Great Lakes are hydrologically a single body of water?

Lakes Michigan and Huron are joined by a strait five miles wide, so their water sits at one level and hydrologists count them as a single lake, Michigan-Huron.

Where was deep-dish pizza invented?

Pizzeria Uno in Chicago served the first deep-dish pies in 1943; who devised the recipe is still argued over, with owners Ike Sewell and Ric Riccardo and their kitchen staff all given credit.

Which two Chicago-area pizzerias were founded by sons of a longtime manager of the first deep-dish restaurant?

Lou Malnati's and Pizano's were opened in 1971 and 1991 by Lou and Rudy Malnati Jr.; their father, Rudy Sr., managed the original deep-dish restaurant for years and is credited by some with its recipe.

Which Cincinnati chili chain did Nicholas Lambrinides found in 1949?

Skyline Chili opened its first parlor in Price Hill in 1949, named for the view of downtown Cincinnati; founder Nicholas Lambrinides had cooked at Empress Chili.

From which region did the immigrant brothers who created Cincinnati chili come?

The Balkans: brothers Tom and John Kiradjieff, from a village in what is now northern Greece, began selling their spiced meat sauce in 1922 at the Empress burlesque theatre, which gave Empress Chili its name.

In which state is Mount Rushmore?

South Dakota's Black Hills hold Mount Rushmore, a peak named for Charles Rushmore, a New York lawyer who came to the hills in 1885 to check mining claims.

Who sculpted Mount Rushmore?

Gutzon Borglum, who had earlier begun the Confederate carving at Stone Mountain, led the work until his death in March 1941; his son Lincoln finished it that October.

Whose idea was the Mount Rushmore carving originally?

The state historian, Doane Robinson, proposed giant carvings in 1923 to pull tourists to the Black Hills, then wrote to a sculptor who was busy carving Georgia's Stone Mountain.

Which figures did Mount Rushmore's original proposer want carved instead of presidents?

Heroes of the American West were the first plan, among them Lewis and Clark, Sacagawea, Red Cloud and Buffalo Bill Cody; the sculptor pushed for presidents to give the work national appeal.

Which Mount Rushmore president was carved first?

George Washington's head came first; Jefferson was begun on his other side, but the rock there proved unsound, so that carving was blasted away and started again.

The Gateway Arch's weighted catenary is based on the curve formed by what?

A hanging chain sags into a catenary; the arch is that curve turned upside down and 'weighted', its legs thicker than its top, and it stands 630 feet tall and exactly as wide.

Which architect designed the Gateway Arch?

Eero Saarinen won the 1947-48 design competition for the arch; he died in 1961, before construction began in 1963, and the monument opened to the public in 1967.

In which Midwestern city does the Gateway Arch stand?

St. Louis's Gateway Arch, on the west bank of the Mississippi, commemorates the city's role as the gateway to the West after the Louisiana Purchase.

What let the first Indianapolis 500 winner race without a mechanic?

Rear-view mirror: it did the riding mechanic's job of watching for cars behind, so Ray Harroun could race his Marmon Wasp alone in 1911; the next year, riding mechanics were made compulsory.

What does the winner of the Indianapolis 500 traditionally drink?

Milk: Louis Meyer asked for buttermilk in Victory Lane after winning in the 1930s, and the bottle became a fixture from 1956, when dairy companies began sponsoring the prize.

What is the Indianapolis Motor Speedway's nickname?

The Brickyard got its name in 1909, when the track's first surface of crushed stone and tar broke up and was repaved with 3.2 million bricks; a strip of them still marks the start-finish line.

Which song's chorus is sung before the Indianapolis 500?

'Back Home Again in Indiana' has been sung before the race since 1946, yet it is not the state song; that is 'On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away', from which it borrows a melody line and several phrases.

Kool-Aid was invented in the town of Hastings, in which Midwestern state?

Nebraska: Edwin Perkins launched the powdered drink from Hastings in 1927, but success carried it off, and by 1931 he had moved the company to Chicago; Hastings still holds a Kool-Aid Days festival each August.

What was Kool-Aid's liquid predecessor called?

Fruit Smack was the bottled syrup Edwin Perkins sold by mail through his Perkins Products Company in Hastings before he reformulated it as a powder in 1927.

Why did Kool-Aid's inventor turn his drink into a powder?

To cut shipping costs: his bottled fruit concentrate was heavy, and the four-ounce glass bottles often broke or leaked in transit, so in 1927 Edwin Perkins dried it into a powder sold in paper packets.

Which Midwestern state is nicknamed the Badger State?

Wisconsin's Badger State nickname comes from the lead miners of the 1820s and 1830s who wintered in holes dug into the hillsides like badgers, not from the animal itself.

Which Midwestern state has Jefferson City as its capital?

Jefferson City was picked in 1821 to give Missouri a capital near the centre of the state on its namesake river; the government sat in St. Charles until the move in 1826.

Which Wisconsin city is home to Harley-Davidson's headquarters and Miller brewing?

Milwaukee has housed Harley-Davidson since 1903 and Miller since 1855; beer shaped the city so thoroughly that its baseball team is called the Brewers.

Which farming invention did blacksmith John Deere begin making in 1837?

The steel plough, which John Deere began making in Illinois in 1837, sliced through the sticky prairie sod that clogged cast-iron blades, opening the Midwest to corn and wheat.

Which Ohio city anchors a metropolitan area spanning three states?

Cincinnati's metro area spills across the Ohio River into Kentucky and on into Indiana; even the main airport serving the city sits on the Kentucky side.

Which Midwestern metro area has core cities of the same name in two different states?

Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas sit side by side across the state line, one metro area of about 2.2 million people whose downtown lies on the Missouri side.

Until 1984 the Census Bureau officially called the Midwest by what name?

The North Central Region became the Midwest in 1984, but the old label survives: the Census Bureau still splits the region into East North Central and West North Central divisions.

The Mall of America is in which Minnesota city?

Bloomington got the Mall of America because the Twins and Vikings left Metropolitan Stadium for a downtown dome in 1982, freeing 78 acres that reopened as the mall a decade later.

Which record label did Berry Gordy Jr. start in Detroit in 1959 under the name Tamla Records?

Motown, a blend of 'motor' and 'town', began on an $800 family loan; Tamla was itself a fallback, because Gordy's first choice, Tammy, after a Debbie Reynolds hit, was already taken.

Which food company, based in Austin, Minnesota, introduced Spam in 1937?

Hormel launched Spam in 1937; wartime shipments to Allied troops carried it overseas, and it remains a staple of cooking in Hawaii and South Korea.

The Mississippi River begins as a trickle out of which small Minnesota body of water?

Lake Itasca's outflow is so small and shallow that visitors to the state park wade or step across the infant Mississippi on a line of rocks.

'The World's Only Corn Palace', redecorated with grain murals yearly, is in which city?

Mitchell built its first Corn Palace in 1892 to show off South Dakota's fertile soil and tempt settlers; the present building doubles as an arena for basketball and concerts.

Which five-mile bridge links Michigan's Upper and Lower Peninsulas?

The Mackinac Bridge opened to traffic on November 1, 1957, ending the state-run car ferries that had carried drivers across the straits since 1923.

The 110-story Willis skyscraper was the world's tallest when it opened in 1973 under what name?

Sears Tower kept the retailer's name long after Sears itself moved out in the 1990s; it became Willis Tower in 2009, when a London insurance broker leased space and won the naming rights.

Which future team owner and showman planted the ivy on Wrigley Field's outfield walls in 1937?

Bill Veeck, then a young Cubs employee, planted the ivy in 1937; as owner of the St. Louis Browns in 1951 he sent 3-foot-7 Eddie Gaedel to bat, and Gaedel walked on four pitches.

Which flower gives Kansas its official nickname and appears on the Kansas flag above the state seal?

Sunflower is hard to miss in Kansas: the highest point in the Sunflower State, at 4,039 feet, is even named Mount Sunflower.

Which English monument is copied in vintage cars at a roadside attraction near Alliance, Nebraska?

Stonehenge was the model for Carhenge, which Jim Reinders built with a crew of about 35 relatives and dedicated at the June 1987 summer solstice.

Which food has an artist sculpted into a cow at the Iowa State Fair for more than a century?

Butter cows have been a fair staple since J.K. Daniels sculpted the first one, and Norma "Duffy" Lyon later carved all six breeds of dairy cow over 45 years.

Which future president ranched in the 1880s in North Dakota badlands that are now a national park?

Theodore Roosevelt first came to the North Dakota badlands in September 1883 to hunt bison, then put $14,000 into the Maltese Cross Ranch near Medora.

Which Wisconsin city, the smallest market in major North American pro sports, has a community-owned NFL team?

Green Bay has had the Packers since 1919, and fans hold the shares: it is the only community-owned franchise in North America's four traditional major leagues.

Which restaurant chain did brothers Dan and Frank Carney launch as students in Wichita, Kansas, in 1958?

Pizza Hut started with a $600 loan from the Carneys' mother, and the brothers chose the name because the sign could only hold eight letters.

Which Apollo astronaut was born and raised near Wapakoneta, Ohio, home to a museum bearing his name?

Neil Armstrong took flying lessons at the Wapakoneta airfield as a teenager, and the air and space museum named for him opened in the town in 1972.

Which pop star, born and raised in Minneapolis, built the Paisley Park home and studio in nearby Chanhassen?

Prince also put his hometown on screen: his 1984 film Purple Rain features the Minneapolis nightclub First Avenue, where many of its performances take place.

Which animal gives Michigan its nickname, despite no confirmed sighting there from the early 1800s until 2004?

Wolverine is also the name of the University of Michigan's teams, and the 2004 animal was photographed in Ubly by a state wildlife biologist.

Which baseball film was shot on a farm near Dyersville, Iowa, that still draws visitors to its diamond?

Field of Dreams left its ballpark behind: Universal built the diamond across two farms in 1988, and a family kept its part intact for visitors after filming.

Which president does Illinois honor in its official slogan, carried on Illinois license plates since 1954?

Abraham Lincoln was born in a one-room Kentucky log cabin and only moved to Illinois in March 1830, when his family settled in Macon County.

Which pioneering pilot was born in 1897 in Atchison, Kansas, where her birthplace is now a museum?

Amelia Earhart was born in her grandfather's Atchison home, and in 1932 she became the first woman to make a nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic.

Which medical center grew out of a doctor's family practice in Rochester, Minnesota, begun in 1864?

Mayo Clinic is named for William Worrall Mayo, whose one-man practice grew under his sons Will and Charlie into a group of partner doctors.

Which automaker, headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, introduced the first moving assembly line in 1913?

Ford ran that line at its Highland Park factory, one of several innovations meant to make automobiles affordable for middle-class buyers.

Which tree gives Ohio its nickname and Ohio State University's sports teams their name?

Buckeye nuts have markings said to resemble a deer's eye, and a popular Ohio candy copies the look with a ball of fudge partly coated in chocolate.

Which folk hero stands about 18 feet tall in a famous roadside statue in Bemidji, Minnesota?

Paul Bunyan and Babe went up in 1937 to catch the attention of passing motorists, and the lumberjack measures three feet from toe to heel.

Which Ohio city, where the NFL was founded in 1920, is home to the Pro Football Hall of Fame?

Canton saw the league born as the American Professional Football Association, and the Hall of Fame opened to the public there in 1963.

Which president returned to Independence, Missouri, after leaving office and has his presidential library there?

Harry S. Truman was born in Lamar, Missouri, and moved back into his wife's family home in Independence when his presidency ended.

Which mail service sent its first westbound trip out of St. Joseph, Missouri, on April 3, 1860?

Pony Express mail reached Sacramento in about 10 days, but the service went bankrupt within 18 months once a faster telegraph line was established.

Which dairy food does Wisconsin make more of than any other state, about a quarter of the US total?

Cheese is serious business there: Wisconsin is the only state in the US that requires its cheesemakers to hold a license.

Which nickname does Iowa share with the University of Iowa's sports teams?

Hawkeye State is traced to the scout Hawkeye in James Fenimore Cooper's 1826 novel The Last of the Mohicans, and the university borrowed the name later.

Which Ohio city was home to Orville and Wilbur, the bicycle makers who built the first successful airplane?

Dayton is where the brothers learned their craft, working for years in a shop with printing presses, bicycles and motors before they ever flew.

Which Great Lake, the shallowest and warmest of the group, lies along Ohio's northern edge?

Erie averages only about 63 feet deep, yet its deepest point still sits above the surface of Lake Ontario, the next lake downstream.

Which South Dakota mountain range, called Pahá Sápa in Lakota, includes Wind Cave National Park?

Black Hills translates the Lakota name: from a distance the range looks dark because its slopes are covered in evergreen trees.

Which 1803 deal with France brought the future states of Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska into the United States?

Louisiana Purchase land cost $15 million, less than three cents an acre, and the US had to borrow the sum from British and Dutch banks.

Which author was born near Pepin, Wisconsin, in 1867 and set her first book in the Big Woods there?

Laura Ingalls Wilder later moved with her family to De Smet, South Dakota, where her father filed a land claim over the winter of 1879–1880.

Which famous painting shows a farmhouse that still stands in Eldon, Iowa?

American Gothic shows a stern pair who never lived in that house: Grant Wood's models were his sister Nan and the family dentist, Byron McKeeby.

Which holiday began in Nebraska in April 1872 at the urging of J. Sterling Morton of Nebraska City?

Arbor Day got off to a fast start: on April 10, 1872, an estimated one million trees were planted across Nebraska.

Which Missouri river town was the boyhood home of Mark Twain and hosts the yearly National Tom Sawyer Days?

Hannibal gave Twain the childhood settings he drew on for Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, and its festival still holds a fence-painting contest.

Which Lakota leader is the subject of a South Dakota mountain carving that has been under way since 1948?

Crazy Horse's face alone, finished in 1998, stands 87 feet 6 inches high; sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski had expected the whole work to take 30 years.

Which Michigan city, nicknamed Cereal City, is where both the Kellogg and Post cereal companies were founded?

Battle Creek became a breakfast town twice over: C. W. Post invented Grape-Nuts there and founded his own cereal company in Kellogg's backyard.

Which Indiana city, known for its large steel mills, is the birthplace of Michael and Janet Jackson?

Gary takes its name from a lawyer, Elbert Henry Gary, who was the founding chairman of the United States Steel Corporation.

Which Kansas cattle town, once policed by Wyatt Earp, was the setting of the long-running western Gunsmoke?

Dodge City returned the compliment in 1959, when the city government renamed its downtown Walnut Street as Gunsmoke Street.

Which South Dakota town hosts a motorcycle rally each August that has drawn around 500,000 people?

Sturgis held its first rally on August 14, 1938, put on by the Jackpine Gypsies motorcycle club, and the early gatherings were built around races and stunts.

Which highland region covers most of the southern half of Missouri and a large part of northern Arkansas?

Ozarks country spans nearly 47,000 square miles, making it the most extensive highland region between the Appalachians and the Rockies.

Which 1954 Supreme Court ruling against segregated schools began with a lawsuit by Black families in Topeka, Kansas?

Brown v. Board of Education was decided 9–0 in May 1954, after thirteen local families filed a class action against the Topeka schools.

Which songbird is the official bird of Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, part of a record seven states?

Northern cardinal is the pick of more states than any other species, though each state's own wording simply calls the bird a cardinal.

Which Canadian province lies directly north of both Minnesota and North Dakota, sharing a land border with each?

Manitoba sits between the two near misses: Ontario touches Minnesota but not North Dakota, and Saskatchewan touches North Dakota but not Minnesota.

Which region, organized by Congress in 1787, later became Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin?

Northwest Territory was created by a 1787 ordinance that prohibited slavery across the whole region, so all five of those states joined the Union as free states.

Which gunfighter was shot dead in 1876 while playing poker in a saloon in Deadwood, now in South Dakota?

Wild Bill Hickok is said to have been holding two pairs, black aces and eights, which poker players have called the dead man's hand ever since.

Which ancient city in Illinois had up to 20,000 residents around 1100 AD and about 120 earthen mounds?

Cahokia's largest earthwork, Monks Mound, covers 14 acres and rises 100 feet, and UNESCO named the site a World Heritage Site in 1982.

Which river, celebrated in Indiana's official state song, forms the southern part of the Indiana–Illinois border?

Wabash waters rise in Ohio and cross Indiana before turning south, and the song "On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away" became official in 1913.

Which Nebraska river did pioneers joke was a mile wide but only inches deep?

Platte water still draws a crowd: the river's central valley is a major stopover for sandhill and whooping cranes migrating along the Central Flyway.

Which 1862 law offered settlers 160 acres of public land and is commemorated by a national park near Beatrice, Nebraska?

Homestead Act land went to settlers who improved it, and Daniel Freeman filed one of the very first claims, at a Nebraska land office, on the day the law took effect in 1863.

Which slender stone spire in western Nebraska guided Oregon Trail pioneers and appears on the Nebraska state quarter?

Chimney Rock rises about 300 feet above the surrounding valley, and the 2006 quarter shows a covered wagon heading west past it.

Which Kansas upland holds North America's densest intact tallgrass prairie because its rocky soil defeated the plow?

Flint Hills limestone carries bands of chert, or flint, just under the surface, so early settlers turned to cattle ranching instead of crops.

What shape is Ohio's flag, the only one of the 50 state flags that is not a rectangle?

Swallowtail flags like Ohio's are more often seen on boats: state law has officially called the design a burgee since 2002.

Which Minnesota port city sits on Lake Superior at the westernmost point of the Great Lakes?

Duluth is the world's farthest inland port that oceangoing ships can reach, and the largest and busiest port on the Great Lakes.

Which Indiana town's post office receives thousands of Christmas letters every year because of the town's name?

Santa Claus was a second choice: the town was founded as Santa Fe but could not get a post office because Indiana already had one by that name.

Which Nebraska bread pocket of ground beef, cabbage and onions shares its name with a fast-food chain founded in 1949?

Runza sandwiches descend from the bierock, a recipe immigrants from Russia's Volga valley carried to Nebraska, and the chain bakes its version as a rectangle.