Quick! Some facts about the state of New York.
• One quarter of New York State is farmland. The most common “crop”: dairy production.
• New York achieved statehood on July 26, 1788. It was the 11th state admitted.
• One of the world’s longest expressways is the New York State Thruway (officially called the Governor Thomas E. Dewey Thruway), which stretches 559 miles from Yonkers to the Pensylvania state line by way of Albany, Syracuse, and Buffalo.
• About 25 percent of the state’s labor force belongs to a union—double the national average.
• Highest point: Mount Marcy (5,344 feet), Essex County, part of the Adirondack range. (The lowest point is the bottom of Seneca Lake in the Finger Lakes region; it’s 196 feet below sea level at its deepest point.)
• “Uncle Sam,” the iconic white-haired, patriotic personification of America, was modeled after Samuel Wilson, a meatpacker from the town of Troy. Wilson supplied beef to the U.S. Army in crates stamped with the initials “U.S.” to show they belonged to the government. When someone asked what the letters stood for, a worker at Wilson’s plant jokingly responded, “Uncle Sam,” a nickname for Wilson. As time went on, other products marked the same way were linked to Wilson, and “Uncle Sam” became a nickname for the United States as well.
• State motto: “Excelsior” (“Ever Upward”).
• New York was the first state to officially call a piece of property a historic site: Washington’s Headquarters in Newburgh—the small stone house that served as George Washington’s headquarters during the Revolutionary War—was designated in 1850.