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Hannibal
offers visitors many historic points of interest among which
are:
Mark
Twain's Boyhood Home
Tom
Sawyer and Huck Finn Statue, the only statue in the world
erected to the memory of literary characters
Statue
of Mark Twain
The
famous Mark Twain Cave
Monument
of Congressman Wm. H. Hatch
Federal
Building housing the Post Office and Federal offices
Birthplace
of Carrol Beckwith, noted American artist
Birthplace
of the late Admiral Robert E. Coontz
Becky
Thatcher's girlhood home
A
number of large metal markers, erected by the State Historical
Society of Missouri, are located throughout the city and on U.
S. Highway 36, pointing and describing historic sites.
0n
U. S. Highway 36 is a new million dollar highway bridge, the
Mark Twain Memorial Bridge, with its great expanse of steel
and concrete reaching across the Mississippi. This bridge
joins the important highways of the states of Missouri and
Illinois, giving superb transit facilities to thousands of
tourists who cross the nation on the shortest east to west
highway-U. S. 36. Another transcontinental highway, U. S. 61,
also extends through Hannibal.
Hannibal
is served by three railroads, has water transportation on the
Mississippi, is given daily service by bus and truck line.,
and has two privately owned airports. Hence, many distinct
advantages are offered the manufacturer and distributor, not
only by transportation facilities, but by her proximity to raw
materials, her supply of efficient native American labor, her
plentiful and low priced supply of power, and her exclusive
market territory--over two and a half million people in a
radius of 125 miles. Added to these advantages are
conveniently located industrial sites, abundant supply of good
water, modern housing, and the educational, recreational, and
shopping facilities of a metropolitan city.
For
Hannibal is indeed an enterprising river city, no longer the
"little white town drowsing in the sunshine" as it
as when Samuel Clemens played on the Mississippi and roamed
its surrounding hills. For today it has its shoe factories,
foundries, cement mills, railroad shops, woodworking plants,
stone quarries, printing shops, sheet iron works, and numerous
other industries common to population centers.
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St.
Elizabeth's Hospital
|
Hannibal
LaGrange College
|
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Levering
Hospital
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Campus
of Hannibal LaGrange College
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Hannibal
is proud of its progressive spirit which has made it
attractive not only as an industrial center, but also as a
place of human habitation. It has its churches, it. schools,
its hospital, and clubs; its financial resources, industries
and business; it has municipal light and water plants, and all
of the modern facilities that go to make up a growing city.
It
has been said that Nature made Hannibal a playground for youth
at the cost of not one cent to the town. Nevertheless, there
are recreational facilities, such as the modern Y.M.C. A., an
amusement park with a swimming pool, a large recreational
center operated by the city, and also a number of parks.
The largest of these parks, comprising 120 acres is Riverview
Park, Nature's grandest gift, the pride of Hannibal. It lies
high on the hill. with winding drives, picturesque woods, and
commanding views of the Mississippi River. Miles of improved
roads in the park take the visitor through wooded dell. and
along the crest of hills 200 feet above the river.
On the highest point, Inspiration Point, stands an imposing
statue of Mark Twain overlooking the river he loved so well.
The
Mississippi, when viewed on a moonlight night from these high
bluffs, is a thing of beauty never to be forgotten, shimmering
between banks of overhanging trees and vines, dotted with
lights of motor boats, with now and then a large excursion
steamer.
Mark
Twain and Hannibal are inseparable. Samuel Clemens' literary
genius immortalized this river town-with its Cardiff Hill, its
Cave, its Jackson Island. Here it was the boy Sam spent his
boyhood, the most impressionable years of his life. At the age
of four, he came with his parents from his birthplace,
Florida, Missouri, a village about thirty miles southwest of
Hannibal, famed for its Mark Twain park in which is placed the
house in which Clemens was born. Hannibal was just a little
town then, but for a boy with Clemens' imagination, it was a
wonderland. His fertile imagination drew inspiration from the
simplest, yet very beautiful, surroundings.
The great river, which played such a big part in the life of
Clemens, attracted him as a youth and challenged and developed
him as a man. It was on this river that Clemens became
familiar with the name "mark twain", a river term
indicating a depth of two fathoms, and a pleasant sound on a
dark night meaning "safe water". It was this
expression which Clemens took as his pen name.
Hannibal
has become a shrine to the lovers of Mark Twain. The scenes of
his boyhood haunts, from which he drew the setting for his
stories, the Church, the school, the grocery store, are as he
found them as a boy. The little home which John Clemens built
in 1844 is visited yearly by thousands who delight in roaming
through the rooms, viewing various exhibits, such as the
author's typewriter, his favorite chair, his curved stern cob
pipe, one of his immaculate white linen suits, and many
letters and pictures.
The
city has honored Mark Twain in many ways. On the one hundredth
anniversary of his birth, the citizens, of Hannibal paid
tribute to the memory of it. own and much loved Mark Twain by
dedicating a lighthouse in his honor. President Roosevelt at
the White House touched a key to illuminati, the Memorial
Light house whose great light now shines out over, the
Mississippi from Cardiff Hill to honor his memory. There is
also a Mark Twain Memorial Bridge which joins the important
highways of Missouri and Illinois, and various statues and
plaques erected in his honor. Located two miles south of
Hannibal is the famous Mark Twain Cave described by him in his
book "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer".
The cave is preserved today exactly as it was in the days of
young Sam Clemens. It is a marvel of deep passages that lead
back into the bluffs and far down into the earth even below
the river. It's long corridors, royal chambers hung with
stalactites, its remote hiding places and other interesting
features, such as the hanging rock marking the spot where Tom
and Becky stayed while lost in the cave, make it of interest
to everyone.
