Show Low, Arizona: The Town Won in a Card Game

Show Low, Arizona, was won in a game of seven-up. The winning call was “show low,” and Corydon Cooley, who took the ranch, kept it as the name.

One card for the ranch

James McClintock, who wrote the big 1916 history of the state, says the name “needs a bit of interpretation.” The land had been held by Captain Cooley and Marion Clark, “both of whom were devoted to the game of ‘seven-up.’” In one game, the stakes had climbed until they covered about everything the two men owned. Clark told Cooley that if he could show low, he’d take the ranch. “Cooley showed ‘low.’”

McClintock told the story again in 1921, in his book on Mormon settlement, and called Show Low “one of the freak Arizona place names.” He added that the name “antedates the Mormon settlement,” and that Cooley later sold the place to W. J. Flake, one of the Mormon pioneers, for $13,000. The federal place-names database has the same game, with a punch line. Clark said, “If you can show low, you win,” and Cooley answered, “Show low it is.”

Who was holding the other hand

As it turns out, not every old history puts Marion Clark across the table. Thomas Farish, in volume 6 of his History of Arizona (1918), has a different player. In his version, Cooley and a man named Dodd came through with a party of scouts looking for a road from Fort Apache to Camp Verde. Cooley said, “This is my ranch.” Dodd said, “No, it is mine.” They played seven-up to settle it.

Cooley got within a point of going out, and Dodd said, “Show low and go out.” Cooley showed the three spot, “which proved to be low,” and Farish says “he jumped up and said he would call the place ‘Show Low,’ which name it bears to this day.” Clark is still in Farish’s story, but as a settler who had already claimed the spot and became Cooley’s partner before pulling out.

So you get two opponents, depending on the book. What doesn’t change is the game, the call and the winner, Cooley.

One word or two

If you look at the 1886 government map at the top of this page, you’ll see the town written as “Showlow,” on “Showlow Creek.” McClintock’s 1921 book spells it the same way. Farish and McClintock’s 1916 history use two words. That database today has Show Low, two words, and lists a decision by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names dated February 23, 1950. One word or two, it’s still the call from that game of seven-up.

Sources & further reading

• James H. McClintock, Arizona: Prehistoric, Aboriginal, Pioneer, Modern, vol. 2 (1916), p. 454. Cooley and Clark, “devoted to the game of ‘seven-up,’” the call, and the sale to W. J. Flake for $13,000.
• James H. McClintock, Mormon Settlement in Arizona (1921), p. 168. “Showlow Won in a Game of ‘Seven-Up,’” “one of the freak Arizona place names,” and a name that “antedates the Mormon settlement.”
• Thomas Edwin Farish, History of Arizona, vol. 6 (1918), p. 279. The version with Dodd, the three spot, and Cooley naming the place.
• GNIS feature 42850 (U.S. Geological Survey). Corydon E. Cooley and Marion Clark, “If you can show low, you win,” “Show low it is,” and the 1950 Board on Geographic Names decision.