Hannibal

Hannibal was the boyhood home of Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain. Mark Twain wrote such classics as Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. In Hannibal you will find the Mark Twain Museum. There is also a Mark Twain cave and many other fun places to visit.

Hannibal's first inhabitants, as far as we know, were the Mound Builders whose mounds can still be seen in and near the city. Centuries later the Missouri Indians lived here: the Sac and Fox Indians were the last to inhabit the area.

Father Marquette and Louis Joliet were the first explorers on record to see the river shore at the future site of Hannibal in 1673. The first explorer who landed at the site was the French monk, Louis Hennepin, in 1680. He named the body of water north of Hannibal the Bay de Charles.