antique dealers, and various specialty craftsmen. Bald eagles like the place, too, migrating by the hundreds each winter to fish and nest at Lock and Dam 24. Highway 79 is the setting for another kind of migration each November when painters, sculptors, photographers, and crafters assemble for “Fifty Miles of Art”—an art festival of sorts that unfolds along the corridor between Hannibal and Clarksville. We learned of the event during our next stop in the town of Louisiana—another Victorian charmer—and home to some of Missouri’s best-known artists. There’s a mural movement underway here. Local artists have painted 24 large murals on the sides of buildings around the town, and there’s a sculpture park as well, featuring works by internationally acclaimed sculptors. Arriving in Hannibal, we quickly realized it doesn’t take a professor of literature to figure out who the town’s most famous resident was. His name prefaces half the signs here—and the names of his characters serve as prologue for the other half. Crossing the Mark Twain Memorial Bridge entering Hannibal, visitors are greeted by the Huck Finn Shopping Center, the Tom N’ Huck Motel, and the Mark Twain Dinette. While there’s not much subtlety surrounding the great author’s achievements, and his boyhood connection to the town, we, like most visitors, loved Hannibal in spite of all the Twainery. It was Twain’s childhood experiences here—as a young rascal then known as Samuel Clemens—that sparked his huge imagination, leading to some of the world’s most widely read novels.We toured all the “must sees,” including the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum (a National Historic Landmark), the Becky Thatcher House, and the Huckleberry Finn House. The museum and neighboring complex of restored houses offer a comprehensive interpretation of Clemens’ life. Interactive exhibits, aimed at involving youngsters but suitable for kids of all ages, engage visitors in some of Twain’s favorite novels—riding a raft with Huck and Jim, exploring a cave with Tom and Becky, or taking a turn at whitewashing that famous picket fence (still standing adjacent the boyhood home). As dusk approached, we hiked to the top of a limestone bluff above the town to have a look at Rockcliffe, a turn- of-the-century Gilded Age mansion with a million-dollar view of Hannibal and the river below. Sitting on the lawn out front of the big house, we marveled over all that we’d seen in little more than 150 miles on the Great River Road. Good reason, we surmised, to return one day to travel the rest of it.
Visitors view a relief sculpture honoring the builders of the Gateway Arch, located in the National Park Service visitor center beneath the Arch, St. Louis.
A reminder of the Gilded Age, the grand 30-room Rockcliff Mansion was built by lumber baron John J. Cruikshank in 1900. Rich in architectural detail and decorated in Victorian and Art Nouveau styles, the mansion is open for guided tours in Hannibal.
FOR MORE INFORMATION greatriverroad.com & roadtripusa.com/the-great-river-road
18 COAST TO COAST SUMMER 2016
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