Guess the State

Here is a portion of perhaps the most-famous statehood-day photo of all time. Which state is it? The paperboy holding the newspaper in this iconic shot passed away just a couple days ago—which narrows down the choices considerably. Figured it out yet? There are only five U.S. states that have any residents living who can remember the first day of statehood. If the paperboy in the photo is from Oklahoma (1907), Arizona (1912) or New Mexico (1912), he would have to be at least 110 years old today. In theory, he could be from Alaska, but Alaskan statehood came on January 3rd of 1959—and no one wears short sleeves in Alaska in January! For the full photo and the answer, read on.  Story continues...


The paperboy's name is Chester Frank Kahapea, and the photo became the iconic symbol of Hawaiian statehood (August 21, 1959). Kahapea later noted that—while he was happy about statehood—that wasn't the reason he was grinning so widely. He was smiling, he later recalled, because of how many newspapers he was selling. “I couldn’t cut the bundles open fast enough,” he said. By all accounts, Kahapea was a genuinely good guy who passed away too young last week—from complications caused by Lou Gehrig's disease. More here.