Prove it! Missouri's unofficial nickname is the Show-Me State, based on the inhabitants' reputed skepticism. One legend attributes the phrase's popularity to Congressman Willard Duncan Vandiver. While a member of the House Committee on Naval Affairs, he said at an 1899 naval banquet, “I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me.” Even people who didn't hail from that state could be heard to question something with “I'm from Missouri . . . you'll have to show me.”