Your State's Weirdest Official Thingy

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

In another thread about official state birds I was surprised to learn that it’s possible to have any number of official state “thingies” in addition to the standard birds and flowers and wotnot. It seems it’s pretty much a case of convincing the relevant legislature to make it so*.

So what’s your state’s (or county’s I guess?) oddest thingy?

Scurvy - the official disease of Alaska?
Clogs - the official footwear of Wisconsin?
Liver - the official snack of Delaware?

*correct me if I’m wrong. I am but an ignorant Brit.

2

Kalkaska sand is the official state soil of Michigan.

3

Checking around, I see other states have official state soils. But Arkansas has the Dutch Oven as the official state cooking vessel.

4

California’s State Soil is San Joaquin
To my surprise, other states have their own soil.
California’s State Animal, The California Grizzly Bear, is extinct.
The California State Grass is not Marijuana but Purple Needlegrass. :wink:

ETA: ninja’d on the dirt.

5

Oh, and feel free to invent some as BobLibDem must surely have done :wink:

I’ll try and guess which are real or imagined.

6

Landlocked Salmon- The official state fish of Maine.
Maine, a coastal state famous for its seafood, would have many options for an official state fish.

7

You can find it and some other doozies here.

8

Washington State has an oyster.

9

From memory - Illinois state fossil: the Tully monster!

There’s a little boy at the end of our street named Tully. He was thrilled when I told him our state fossil shared his name.

10

New York attempted to have an official state bottle. It passed the legislature, but the governor vetoed it, saying it was just a trick to increase the value of the bottle for those who owned them.

There is an official state fossil (sea scorpion), though, and an official state seashell (scallop), though.

11

California has an encyclopedic catalog of California State Thingies, as I’m sure other states do too.

Wikipedia’s List of California state symbols

Includes such thingies as:
[ul][li] Amphibian: California red-legged frog.[/li][li] Dance: West Coast Swing.[/li][li] Folk Dance: Square dance.[/li][li] Insect: California dogface butterfly.[/li][li] Marine Mammal: Gray whale.[/li][li] Nut: Almond.[/li][li] Reptile: Desert tortoise.[/li][li] Rock: Serpentine. (What, that’s not a reptile?)[/li][li] Tartan: California State Tartan.[/ul][/li]
The idea behind a lot of these things, obviously, is to promote tourism (the Marine Mammal) or other economic activity – industry, commerce, agriculture, etc. (Almond).

12

We almost had the banana slug as the California state mollusk but the idea was vetoed by the governor. His reasoning:* “It is not representative of the international reputation California enjoys.” *

13

My state is its own weirdest official thingy.

14

The Ohio state rock song is “Hang On Sloopy”. Ohio was the first state to adopt an official rock song, and, yup, that’s the one they picked. :rolleyes:

15

I’m hooked!

South Carolina. I applaud your adoption of an official State Snack. But the boiled peanut?

16

Wiscoinsin’s state fossil is the trilobite (not all that weird – cool IMHO).
Probably the weirdest is the state pastry (kringle)

Minnesota has a state muffin (blueberry)

Brian

17

Ignorance fought! Here I thought the phallic Geoduck would be the official mollusc of WA - maybe it’s “unofficial”.

18

I am proud to say that Georgia’s state dog is the adoptable dog.

19

Ohio’s state fossil is the isotelus, which was a type of trilobite.

20

California expands that to the Shelter Pet.