Utahns pick railroad quarter

It's the scene anyone picking up one of the 450 million coins that will be minted beginning in January 2007 will see — and associate with Utah. About 99 percent of the coins are expected to be circulated outside the state.

The U.S. Mint is producing quarters for each of the nation's 50 states in the order in which they were granted statehood. Utahns were asked to submit ideas and came up with more than 5,000, nearly all from schoolchildren.

Those ideas were reduced to nine categories, which included landscape, red rock, pioneer heritage, Native Americans, dinosaurs and state symbols in addition to the specific proposals selected by the commemorative quarter commission.

The actual design of the quarters was done by U.S. Mint artists, Hunt said. The online voting, held over a 25-day period that ended Monday, attracted an average of 5,000 people a day.

"People were so passionate," Hunt said. "They had really strong feelings about their preferences."

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