Missouri
Facts
Missouri - The Show Me State
Why is Missouri known as the Show Me State?"
The origins of this nickname are actually a mystery! No one knows exactly when or where the expression originated. Much of the credit for popularizing the term goes to Congressman Willard Duncan Vandiver of Cape Girardeau County.
Vandiver – a scholar, writer and lecturer who served as a U.S. Representative from 1897 to 1905 – used the expression during an 1899 speech in Philadelphia. Vandiver bore a strong facial resemblance to another famous Missourian, Mark Twain, and was noted as a colorful orator. Speaking to Philadelphia's Five O'Clock Club, he questioned the accuracy of an earlier speaker's remarks, concluding with the phrase, “I'm from Missouri and you've got to show me.” The expression soon caught the public fancy, portraying Missourians as tough-minded demanders of proof.
Some have suggested other origins for the phrase. About 1897, one version goes, hundreds of free railroad passes were issued to people connected with the Missouri legislature. The conductor, when told that passengers on the train had passes, would insist, “You've got to show me.”
Another version dates to 1898, shortly after the start of the Spanish-American War. About 60,000 soldiers were stationed in Chickamauga Park in Tennessee. Gate guards were from St. Louis and soldiers were told that anyone claiming to have passes to town would be stopped at the gates, for the guards were from Missouri and had to be shown. The “Show Me” expression also appears in songs and poems published in the late 1890s.
Missouri's Name
How did Missouri get it's name?
Father Jacques Marquette, accompanying explorer Louis Joliet, traveled down the Mississippi River in 1673. During the trip he wrote, “We descend following the course of the river, toward another called Pekitanoui, which empties into the Mississippi, coming from the northwest.”
Although he called the river “Pekitanoui” – a name apparently given to him by the Sauk Indians – he noted on his map that a large tribe of Indians called the OuMissouri lived upstream. The name had been given to them by their enemies, the Fox tribe of Algonquins, and in the Fox language means “people with big canoes.”
The Missouris, a branch of the Sioux, called the river Nishodse, which means “muddy water.” This may explain the wide-spread (but incorrect) assumption that Missouri means muddy water. Whatever its earlier names, the mighty river which flowed into the Mississippi eventually was identified with the Indians who lived along its banks. It became the Missouri River.
Later, when settlers came, the vast area it drained (extending westward to the Rocky Mountains) became known as the Missouri Territory. In 1821, when the new state was formed in this territory, it adopted the name Missouri.
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