Jefferson City is the only state capital named for a Vice President.

Missouri state capitol

Of the 50 U.S. capital cities, only one is named after a person who held the role of Vice President of the United States: Jefferson City, Missouri. The eponym of this Midwest metropolis is Thomas Jefferson, who served under John Adams from 1797 to 1801 as the country’s second-ever Vice President. Jefferson later became President himself, and in 1803, he acquired the land that is now Missouri as part of the Louisiana Purchase. In 1821 — the year Missouri achieved statehood — the legislature selected a site to serve as the state capital, and settled on the name Jefferson City to honor the man who had purchased the land to begin with. (The legislature briefly considered naming the capital “Missouriopolis,” though that idea ultimately did not win out.)

Jefferson City is also one of just four state capitals named after a former U.S. President. The others are Jackson, Mississippi, which was also founded in 1821 and named for then-Major General Andrew Jackson; Madison, Wisconsin, which was founded in 1836 and named after founding father James Madison, who died that year; and Lincoln, Nebraska, which was renamed after Abraham Lincoln in 1869, four years after his assassination.

By the Numbers

Did you know?

Nine cities have served as the capital of the United States.

When the Declaration of Independence was signed in Philadelphia in 1776, the City of Brotherly Love became the first of nine cities to serve as the U.S. capital. Philadelphia acted as the capital on various occasions from 1776 to 1800, as Congress was forced to relocate several times due to threats during the Revolutionary War, but it wasn’t the only colonial capital. The second city to serve as the nation’s capital was Baltimore, Maryland, in late 1776, before the seat of government returned to Philly in early 1777. The capital then bounced around to Lancaster, Pennsylvania; York, Pennsylvania; Princeton, New Jersey; Annapolis, Maryland; Trenton, New Jersey; and New York City (with additional stops in Philly mixed in) until 1789. On July 16, 1790, the Residence Act formally established Washington, D.C., as the future capital of the United States, but it also reestablished Philadelphia as the capital for an additional decade. On November 17, 1800, Congress convened for the first time in Washington, where the capital has remained ever since.