Articles > State Symbols

State Instrument: Fiddle

By John Fisher

FIDDLES ARRIVED IN MISSOURI with the first French explorers and fur traders. This light and easily carried instrument even traveled with Lewis and Clark on their journey to explore the West. Settlers of Scotch-Irish descent from Virginia, the Carolinas, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and German settlers in the 1800s brought fiddle music. Today, Missouri is widely known for its varied fiddling traditions resulting from settler…... Read more >

State Animal: Mule

By John Fisher

“STUBBORN AS A MISSOURI MULE” is a common expression that gives people the impression mules are stubborn. To the contrary, those who have experience working with these animals say they are intelligent and can be taught a work skill more quickly than a horse. This stubbornness is really the mule’s instinct for self-preservation. Mules resist doing anything that places them in danger. Mules also live lo…... Read more >

State Bird

MISSOURI’S state bird, the eastern bluebird, has been a state symbol since March 30, 1927. New York is the only other state to have the bluebird as its state bird. Members of the same family as robins, bluebirds are common in all of Missouri except the Bootheel and are noted for their singing.

During warm seasons, they feed on numerous insects including grasshoppers, crickets, and beetles. In winter, they use a variety of wil…... Read more >

Life in the Mansion

GOVERNOR MATT BLUNT, FIRST LADY MELANIE, AND BABY MAKE A HOME IN THE GOVERNOR’S MANSION — TOURISTS, TRAINS, GHOSTS, AND ALL

By Danita Allen Wood

Missouri First Lady Melanie Blunt can relate to the words of former First Lady Carolyn Bond: “Living in the Governor’s Mansion is like living above the shop.”

But the Jefferson City Mansion is no corner grocery. With pink granite columns on the front portico, a nearly twenty-foot-wide gra…... Read more >