Missouri has long been known as the Show Me state, but the origins of that nickname aren’t entirely clear. Perhaps the best-known story involves a Missouri representative named Willard Duncan Vandiver. After a tour of the Philadelphia Navy Yard in 1899, the congressman was invited to a meeting of Philadelphia’s Five O’Clock Club, a gathering place for the city’s political and business elite. Vandiver hadn’t packed formal attire for the trip, and, when it was his turn to address the tuxedo-clad crowd, he jokingly accused Rep. John Hull of Iowa of stealing his suit and declared:
“I’m from a state that raises corn, cotton, cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I’m from Missouri. You have to show me.”
Other, less flattering tales suggest that the phrase may have originated in the lead mining camps of Colorado in the 1890s. After a strike depleted the ranks of local miners, Missouri miners were imported to take their place. While acquainting the Missourians with local mining practices, supervisors reportedly took to saying, “That man is from Missouri. You’ll have to show him.”