U.S. State Capitals - Random Trivia Answers

• A1) Boston, Massachusetts's Boston Common was established in 1634. The city had the public school (Boston Latin in 1635) and first college (Harvard in 1636) in the country.
• A2) Charleston, West Virginia finished laying a section of Summers Street on October 23, 1870.
• A3) Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's Rockville Bridge is 3,830 feet long.
• A4) Annapolis, Maryland was the middle of five capitals of the United States under the Articles of Confederation.
• A5) Trenton, New Jersey was capital of the U.S. under the Articles of Confederation from November 1 to December 24, 1784. Trenton is the last capital in alphabetical order.
• A6) The Battle of Baton Rouge eliminated the British from the lower Mississippi Valley and kept then-capital New Orleans safe.
• A7) Montgomery, Alabama led the Confederacy from February 4 to May 29, 1861.
• A8) Richmond, Virginia was declared the capital of the Confederacy on May 6, 1861 and gave up the duties on April 3, 1865 when Ulysses S. Grant and the Union Army took control.
• A9) Tallahassee, Florida came close to the action with the nearby Battle of Natural Bridge on March 6, 1865. Tallahassee is the only capital whose name has three sets of double letters.
• A10) Columbia, South Carolina's Capitol dome displayed the Confederate flag until a 2000 compromise moved the controversial symbol to a Confederate monument on State House grounds.
• A11) Concord, New Hampshire's state house was erected in 1808.
• A12) In Frankfort, Kentucky on January 30, 1900, William Goebel was shot by an attacker sent by William S. Taylor, the man he defeated in the election.
• A13) Little Rock, Arkansas has the Old State House, the State Capitol, and the Capitol Tower.
• A14) Boise, Idaho has the only geothermally-heated capitol building and had the first geothermal system in the U.S.
• A15) Madison, Wisconsin was founded on one and a half square miles of swamp and forest land.
• A16) Indianapolis, Indiana took over capital duties from Corydon in 1825, but the White River proved to be too sand-clogged to be useful.
• A17) Augusta, Maine is located at 69.28 degrees West.
• A18) Austin, Texas is located at 30.30 degrees North.
• A19) Olympia, Washington is located at 47.03 degrees North.
• A20) Salem, Oregon is located at 123.03 degrees West.
• A21) Santa Fe, New Mexico is both the highest capital city at 6,989 feet (922 feet above Cheyenne and 1,729 above Denver) and the oldest (founded in 1610, twenty years before Boston).
• A22) Juneau, Alaska's 3,255 square miles puts it second among all cities only to neighboring Sitka since the latter incorporated in 2000.
• A23) Phoenix, Arizona had 1,461,575 people in July 2005 and is the fastest-growing capital.
• A24) Carson City, Nevada is the least populous Metropolitan Statistical Area, with the city being the entire area. Carson City and Trenton are the only capitals that border other states (Pennsylvania and California respectively).
• A25) Jefferson City, Missouri ranks fifteenth behind lesser known cities such as Florissant, Joplin, and Chesterfield.
• A26) Honolulu, Hawaii house's average only 3.4 rooms and is the only capital in the top 100 cities.
• A27) Hartford, Connecticut is the only capital in the top 100 cities by percentage of renters at just under 80%.
• A28) Helena, Montana literally struck gold in the 1860s.
• A29) The Springfield, Illinois Race Riot of 1908 began when two African-American prisoners were released from jail.
• A30) Jackson, Mississippi became capital in 1821, five years before Jefferson City, 27 before Madison, and 46 before Lincoln.
• A31) St. Paul, Minnesota took its name from the St. Paul Church founded in 1841.
• A32) Northern Pacific Railway tried to attract German immigrants to Edwinton by renaming it Bismarck, North Dakota for German chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Bismarck is the only capital whose name ends with three consonants.
• A33) Providence is the capital of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
• A34) Lansing, Michigan defers Ingham County seat duties to Mason.
• A35) Denver, Colorado lost its chance when state voters rejected the idea, and the Winter Games were moved to Montreal.
• A36) Atlanta, Georgia hosted the Summer Olympics in 1996. Atlanta is the poorest and most dangerous capital city; Trenton and Jackson are the only other capitals among the top 100 cities on the Highest City-data.com crime index.
• A37) Salt Lake City, Utah hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics and is the only capital with three words in its name.
• A38) The Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center in Nashville, Tennessee provides 2,881 guest rooms and 600,000 square feet of meeting and exhibit space.
• A39) The National Museum of Roller Skating is located at 4730 South Street in Lincoln, Nebraska.
• A40) Raleigh's North Carolina Museum of Art opened in 1983.
• A41) Sacramento's California State Railroad Museum honors the transportation that connected the state to the rest of the country and features trains dating all the way back to 1862.
• A42) Dave Thomas opened the first Wendy's in Columbus, Ohio on November 15, 1969.
• A43) Montpelier, Vermont refuses to allow a McDonald's on principle and is the least populous capital.
• A44) Topeka, Kansas was targeted by Carry Nation herself in January 1901, and with help from her followers, she smashed the Senate Saloon and other venues that were illegally serving liquor.
• A45) Albany, New York's Seth Wheeler patented perforated toilet paper in 1871 and manufactured it in the city beginning in 1874. Albany is the first capital in alphabetical order.
• A46) Oklahoma City, Oklahoma installed a parking meter on July 16, 1935. Five cents an hour was charged to deter people from monopolizing a prime parking space.
• A47) Des Moines, Iowa ranked sixth overall in 2005 Allstate Insurance "America's Best Drivers Report" (#1 was Cedar Rapids, Iowa) and seventh in the 2006 publication (#1 was Sioux Falls, South Dakota). Both reports contain data from two years earlier.
• A48) Pierre, South Dakota's commuters average only 10.1 minutes each way, sixteenth among U.S. cities. Pierre is the only capital whose name is pronounced as a single syllable ("peer").
• A49) Dover, Delaware created its first water system in 1881 and is currently serviced by the Robbins Hose Company.
• A50) Cheyenne, Wyoming's yellow telephone directory came out in 1883, only five years after New Haven created the first phone "book" (a single page of fifty listings). Cheyenne, Carson City, and St. Paul are the only three cities whose states have never had another capital, including when the state was still a colony, province, or territory.