Take a list of state abbreviations in a text file and put them into a Python list

make_list_from_file.py

# copy a column from a table into a plain-text file in Atom, save it
# mine is named states.txt 
# here's how to get each line in that file into Python as a list of items

myfile = open('states.txt')
states_raw = myfile.readlines()
# now states_raw holds a list made from lines in states.txt

myfile.close()

# new empty list for clean strings after stripping 
states = []

for state in states_raw:
    states.append(state.strip(' \n'))

# print the full list just to see it 
print(states)
len(states)

states.txt

AL
AK
AZ
AR
CA
CO
CT
DE
FL
GA
HI
ID
IL
IN
IA
KS
KY
LA
ME
MD
MA
MI
MN
MS
MO
MT
NE
NV
NH
NJ
NM
NY
NC
ND
OH
OK
OR
PA
RI
SC
SD
TN
TX
UT
VT
VA
WA
WV
WI
WY