Iowa’s nickname is actually in honor of a Native American leader and warrior of the Sauk tribe. A veteran of the War of 1812 and the Black Hawk War, Chief Black Hawk’s personal memoir was the first Native American autobiography published in America. He died in 1838 in Davis County, Iowa, where a local newspaper publisher renamed his paper The Hawk-Eye and Iowa Patriot in his honor. The Hawkeye State nickname was made official in 1838, before Iowa even became a state.
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