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The Great Seal of Iowa – One of the initial acts of the first General Assembly in 1847 was to create the Great Seal of Iowa. The seal pictures a citizen soldier standing in a wheat field, surrounded by farming and industrial tools, with the Mississippi River, and the steamboat Iowa in the background. An eagle is overhead holding in its beak a scroll bearing the state motto: “Our liberties we prize, and our rights we will maintain.” The motto was the work of a three-member Senate committee and was incorporated into the design of the seal at their suggestion.
Click here to read more about December 28 Statehood Day celebrations.


(M-0006) Notice that the IOWA flag pictured above – in 1888 – looks nothing like it does today. 1888 – IOWA “Hawkeye State” Allen & Ginter Cigarette Card – Flags of the States and Territories Series. Allen & Ginter was a Richmond, VA tobacco manufacturing company formed in 1865. In the late 1880s, Allen & Ginter began to release cigarette card sets as promotional items for its cigarette brands. Topics varied from birds and wild animals to American Indian chiefs or flags of the world. Allen & Ginter’s baseball cards were the first of the tobacco era baseball cards ever produced for distribution on a national level.




(P-0314) As long as we’re looking at Tobacco cards, here, from 1910 is Card #62 featuring the logo.
Kudos to the amazing resources below for the many quotes, photographs, etc. used on this page.
State Symbols of Iowa, The Iowa Official Register, Iowa.gov
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