The eagle isn't actually the national bird. An effort launched in Wabasha may change that.

This fall, the United States is likely to witness a national political event that will surprise people across the country.

No, not that national political event. This event has support on both sides of the aisle: Congress will consider, and may pass, a bill officially designating the bald eagle the United States' national bird.

"Wait — what?" Americans will say. "Hasn't the bald eagle been the national bird since, like, the 18th century?"

Many think so, including Minnesota's Department of Natural Resources. But the bald eagle, although featured on the Great Seal of the United States and emblazoned on the country's passports, currency, postage stamps and military uniforms, was never formally named the country's avian representative.

That could change thanks to the legislation, which was spearheaded by the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, Minn., an effort initiated by an avid Eagle Center supporter and collector who discovered the oversight and sought to make the bird's role official.

"Our National Eagle Center in Wabasha contacted me and they said, ... 'Believe it or not, the eagle is not officially our national bird,'" said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., who introduced the bill in the Senate.

Klobuchar was surprised the eagle wasn't already the national bird, she said, as was everybody she has talked to about it.

States have state birds (Minnesota's is the loon, of course, since 1961). The United States has a national mammal, the bison, as well as a national flower, the rose, and tree, the oak. But no national bird.

Even without the title, the eagle has been a symbol of America almost since the beginning. When the 13 colonies declared independence from Great Britain on July 4, 1776, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were asked to create a seal, a symbol of sovereignty used on government documents. Their overcomplicated design was tabled by Congress and the assignment passed to other contributors, who created a design that Congress approved in 1782.

(A widespread legend that Franklin preferred the turkey as the national bird is apocryphal, although he did muse in a letter to his daughter that the turkey "is a much more respectable bird.")

The current legislation, which Klobuchar co-sponsored with Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, has passed the Senate. The House of Representatives is expected to take it up this fall, co-sponsored by Reps. Angie Craig, a Democrat who represents Minnesota's Second District, and Brad Finstad, a Republican who represents Minnesota's First District, which includes Wabasha. The bill is also supported by the Midwest Alliance of Sovereign Tribes, which represents 36 indigenous nations and four tribal organizations and works on public policy issues.

"I can't emphasize enough I would not have done this without the Eagle Center," Klobuchar said. "The Eagle Center is a treasure for us."

The Eagle Center, expanded and renovated in 2022, is the place to go for all things eagle-related. It's in Wabasha, a city of about 2,500 people 80 miles southeast of Minneapolis, whose City Council last fall adopted the nickname "The Eagle Capital."

The sleek, modern building stands alongside the Mississippi River in an area that serves as a year-round home to a good portion of the thousands of eagles in Minnesota (the country's second-highest bald eagle population, after Alaska) and an annual destination for hundreds of other eagles that flock there in winter to fish because that stretch of the river doesn't freeze over.

Approximately 50,000 people visit the center each year, where they can watch for the majestic birds from its huge windows and Eaglewatch Cam. Close up, they can view four eagles that have become residents of the center because of injuries that left them unable to live in the wild.

(Public service announcement: Eagles are actually kind of lazy when it comes to food gathering, said Tiffany Ploehn, the center's avian care manager. Rather than hunt for live animals, they tend to dine on roadkill and often get struck by cars while doing it. So when driving past roadside carcasses, be sure to leave a wide berth.)

In addition to the live birds, visitors to the center can view images of eagles painted, printed, engraved, woven and stitched onto items in the Preston Cook American Eagle Collection. The items on exhibit are among 40,000 eagle-related pieces collected by Preston Cook, ranging from expensive treasures to everyday objects and including art, books, knickknacks, postcards, clothing, political buttons and a coveted doorknob.

Cook, 78, discovered the eagle's lack of "national bird" status while writing his 2019 coffee-table book, "American Eagle: A Visual History of Our National Emblem." He teamed with University of Florida historian Jack E. Davis, author of the 2022 book "The Bald Eagle: The Improbable Journey of America's Bird," to promote the bill aimed at correcting the oversight.

A retired real estate investor and longtime government employee, Cook amassed his collection over nearly six decades. Nine years ago, he moved to Wabasha from California, where he had lived for 50 years, and donated the collection to the Eagle Center

"The simple answer is, I was sick of being called a hoarder," Cook joked. "I'd rather be called a donor ― sounds a little better."

Army uniform buttons

Cook finds his eagle artifacts on eBay, bids on them in auctions and is sent them by people around the country.

"In the past year, I bought 2,000 items," he said.

Son of a collector, Cook decided at an early age to collect something, though at first he wasn't sure what. In 1966, he saw the movie "A Thousand Clowns," in which a character says, "You can never have too many eagles."

Cook apparently took it to heart.

A few months after seeing the movie, Cook was drafted into the Army. He was issued a dress uniform that included a jacket featuring gold-plated brass buttons with eagles stamped on them. After his discharge, he cut the buttons from the uniform and saved them, later sewing them onto civilian blazers.

Having since accumulated tens of thousands of eagle items, Cook figures he may be the country's biggest eagle collector, although he said there aren't many altogether. There is no eagle collectors' society, according to Cook, who once vied with members of the Antique Doorknob Collectors of America to score an eagle doorknob on eBay. (A significant find, he said, coming from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C., part of the White House compound.)

Many of the items in Cook's collection are on display in the center, including eagle portraits by John James Audubon. But most are stored elsewhere, meticulously organized. He plans to gather pieces for rotating exhibits, including one later this year featuring images of eagles viciously attacking people or carrying off babies.

Eagles don't actually do those things. But like wolves, another animal that gets a bad rap and has its own celebratory center in Minnesota, the eagle's cultural image historically mixes the noble and the bloodthirsty.

Images of eagles as predators date back millennia. Prometheus, who in Greek mythology stole fire from the gods and gave it to humans, was punished by being bound to a rock, and an eagle was sent to eat his liver. The liver would then grow back overnight, only to be eaten again the next day in an eternal cycle.

More recently, a September 1992 cover of the Sun tabloid newspaper carried the headline "Giant Eagle Snatches Boy as Horrified Friends Watch" accompanied by a "photo" of a gigantic bird carrying a boy who looks to be about 10. The cover is reprinted in "Clearing the Air: Attack of the Giant Eagle," a paperback Cook published in connection with the exhibit.

It's probably best to take the Sun's story with a grain of salt. Other headlines from that issue include "Sleepwalker Steps Off Three-Story Building and Lands Without a Scratch," and "Elvis' Picture Found in Ancient Egyptian Tomb."