Iowa state symbols

How to read it

The motto is in the Iowa Code as the inscription on the scroll in the eagle’s beak on the great seal, created by an act of the first General Assembly approved on February 25, 1847. The Iowa Legislature says a three-man Senate committee wrote it. The legislature named the wild rose by a resolution in 1897, the eastern goldfinch by a concurrent resolution in 1933 and the oak in 1961. It named no particular species of rose; the Iowa Legislature says the wild prairie rose (Rosa pratincola) is the one most often cited.

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Iowa’s symbols and when each was adopted

Why each was chosen

The Iowa Legislature gives a reason for each. The wild rose was one of the decorations on the silver service the state gave the battleship USS Iowa in 1897, the year it became the state flower. The goldfinch is common in Iowa and often stays through the winter, when the male turns the same dull colour as the female. The oak is abundant in the state and gives shelter, food and nesting cover to many animals and birds.

A goldfinch called a canary

The 1957–1958 Iowa Official Register says the eastern goldfinch is “generally designated as a wild canary”, and the legislature’s own fact sheet calls it the Wild Canary too. The same Register gives Iowa’s nickname, the “Hawkeye State”, as one first used by the press and adopted by the people.