50 State Quarters: Facts and Trivia About What's Featured on Each Coin

Now that the United States Mint has finally released the last 50 State Quarters proof set, it is now possible to have a complete collection of all 50 quarters of the U.S. Mint's vastly popular 50 State Quarters program, running from 1999 to 2008. It is unbelievable how fast 10 years have flown by, and while a bill has been passed that extends the program into next year to include quarters honoring Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands, these will officially be part of a new series called the District of Columbia and the United States Territories Quarter Program.

So, with this year marking the end of the 50 State Quarters' production, let us take a look at the many designs the U.S. Mint has given us over the past ten years. How many different designs contain animals, historic figures, even food? I looked over the fifty quarter designs, and this is what I have concluded.

How Many Recognizable Historic Figures?

There were at least nine quarters which depict identifiable, historic people. Below are those figures.

Caesar Rodney, appearing on the 1999 Delaware Quarter

George Washington crossing the Delaware River on the 1999 New Jersey Quarter

The Wright brothers (Orville and Wilbur) flying over Kitty Hawk on the 2001 North Carolina Quarter

Abraham Lincoln on the 2003 Illinois Quarter

Helen Keller on the 2003 Alabama Quarter

Explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on the 2003 Missouri Quarter

Naturalist John Muir on the 2005 California Quarter

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt on Mount Rushmore, depicted on the 2006 South Dakota Quarter

Hawaii's King Kamehameha I on the 2008 Hawaii Quarter

Mmm...Food!

Yes, believe it or not, the Statehood quarters covered so much of America's culture and diversity, some of the coins even depicted our food (well, not all of it, but enough to get your appetite going!). Let's look at what quarters portray some culinary classics (not including animal meat).

The peach, on 1999's Georgia Quarter

Maple syrup (in the form of maple sap being tapped) on the 2001 Vermont Quarter