Title: How did Minnesota become the Gopher State? - StarTribune.com
Headings: How did Minnesota become the Gopher State?
StarTribune
How did Minnesota become the Gopher State?

Content: Lori Williamson of the Minnesota Historical Society figures a political cartoon from 1858 likely inspired the moniker. Legislators in the newly formed state wanted to amend the constitution to enable them to issue credit and loan $5 million to railroad interests, Williamson said. Minnesotans overwhelmingly agreed, voting 25,023 in favor to 6,733 against. St. Paul artist R.O. Sweeny apparently wasn’t a fan of the plan and drew a cartoon depicting nine legislators as striped rodents with human heads pulling a railroad car full of bond holders, Williamson said. The detailed image includes a devil as the pied piper. Although Minnesota eventually became known as the Gopher State, the gopher — or the thirteen-lined ground squirrel, for that matter — is not listed among the state’s symbols. The loon, monarch butterfly and walleye, however, are among those designated by law. Now let’s get back to the debate over whether those striped rodents are gophers. The pocket gopher, which is native to Minnesota, is a medium-size rodent with huge claws on its front feet — a nice asset for burrowing into the ground, said Lori Naumann with the Nongame Wildlife Program at Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources. “ But gophers don’t have stripes,” she said.