Boning up on my “state nicknames” I was moved to inquire why Virginia was the Old Dominion State. Wikipedia gives this explanation. A more thorough account here says the wikipedia version is without proof, yet possible. The name gained popularity during the civil war but it’s not known for sure where it came from.
Meanwhile South Carolina, now the palmetto state, was once the iodine state: “In the late 1920s, the South Carolina Natural Resources Commission began a public relations campaign to advertise the high iodine levels found in fruits and vegetables grown in the state.”
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