Iowa State Seal

The Great Seal of the State of Iowa Adopted: February 25, 1847

Iowa State Seal
The Great Seal of the State of Iowa

The Great Seal of the state of Iowa was made official by Iowa's first state legislature in 1847.

The eagle and the scroll with the state's motto are also used on Iowa's flag. The motto reads "Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain."

In the middle of the seal, a soldier stands in a field of wheat, holding an American flag. A cultivator rests in the field behind him, smoke trails from the chimney of a small cabin, and a ship steams through the water in the background.

Iowa Law

The following information was excerpted from the Iowa Code, Title 1, Subtitle 1, Chapter 1A, Section 1A.1.

TITLE I STATE SOVEREIGNTY AND MANAGEMENT
SUBTITLE 1 SOVEREIGNTY
CHAPTER 1A GREAT SEAL OF IOWA
1A.1 Seal — device — motto.

1A.1 Seal — device — motto.

The secretary of state be, and is, hereby authorized to procure a seal which shall be the great seal of the state of Iowa, two inches in diameter, upon which shall be engraved the following device, surrounded by the words, “The Great Seal of the State of Iowa” – a sheaf and field of standing wheat, with a sickle and other farming utensils, on the left side near the bottom; a lead furnace and pile of pig lead on the right side; the citizen soldier, with a plow in his rear, supporting the American flag and liberty cap with his right hand, and his gun with his left, in the center and near the bottom; the Mississippi river in the rear of the whole, with the steamer Iowa under way; an eagle near the upper edge, holding in his beak a scroll, with the following inscription upon it: Our liberties we prize, and our rights we will maintain.

[1GA, ch 112; C75, 77, 79, 81, §1A.1]

Referred to in §2A.1

Editor’s Note: The Act of the First General Assembly of the State of Iowa creating the Great Seal, approved February 25, 1847, is hereby reproduced in the descriptive part.

There seem to be no further enactments, repeals, or amendments and no codification of this law appears in the various Codes. See Annals of Iowa, Volume XI, pages 561, 576. Constitutional provision for a great seal is contained in Iowa Constitution, Art. IV, §20, but no description is provided.

Sources...

"2013 Iowa Code." The Iowa Legislature. The Iowa Legislature, n.d. Web. 6 Apr 2013. <http://search.legis.state.ia.us/nxt/gateway.dll/ic?f=templates&fn=default.htm>.
Shankle, George Earlie. State Names, Flags, Seals, Songs, Birds, Flowers, and Other Symbols. Irvine, Calif.: Reprint Services Corp, Revised edition, 1971.
Shearer, Benjamin F. and Barbara S. State Names, Seals, Flags and Symbols: A Historical Guide Third Edition, Revised and Expanded. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 3 Sub edition, 2001.