Florida
The "Sunshine State," engraving an old sailing ship and a space shuttle together. Past and future are captured on a single coin.
Florida is a state located on a peninsula that stretches long into the sea from the far southeastern tip of the United States. Famous for its warm weather and bright sunshine, its nickname is “The Sunshine State.” It is a place people love to visit for vacation, and also a fascinating land where the history and the future of the United States meet in one place.
The reverse of the coin contains three things together. On the left is an old Spanish galleon, in the center is Florida’s state tree, the sabal palmetto palm, and on the right is a space shuttle rising into the sky. Below is the phrase “Gateway to Discovery.”
This image compresses the flow of time into a single scene. The galleon means the age of the people who arrived by ship on this land long ago, and the space shuttle means today’s challenge of advancing toward space beyond the sky. The palm tree standing between them represents Florida’s nature, unchanging then and now. Old exploration and new exploration are placed side by side.
Florida became the 27th state of the United States on March 3, 1845. And so in the 50 States quarter series it was issued 27th, in 2004. If you remember that the order of issue is the order of joining the Union, then each time you look at the coin you can recall the process by which the United States grew larger.
It is special that a single small coin contains both a ship of the past and a spacecraft of the future under the single theme of “discovery.” Just by holding the quarter in your hand and examining the image, you naturally encounter what kind of gateway Florida considers itself to be.