Mark Twain Museums, Hannibal Missouri

Hannibal and the “Cannibal”

          I first heard that Hannibal, Missouri, might be a fun place to visit, when I read the book, “Cannibal Queen”, by Stephen Coontz.  Coontz was a former naval aviator who had written several best selling books, including “Flight of the Intruder”.  For his next book, he decided he would take his proceeds, buy a Stearman biplane, and fly it around the country.  The plane was named Cannibal Queen and his book details his flight through the lower 48 states.  One of the places he visited was Hannibal, the boyhood home of Mark Twain, and he made it sound like just the sort of place that would make a fun day trip.

            From 1C5, Hannibal is two hours by Cessna 152.  Brenda and I flew from Clow to Peoria, and topped off the tanks.  Peoria was where I purchased 5492B from Mac and Jeanie MacLaughlin, after it had spent many years there as a training aircraft. I was pleased to find that they still have an office on the airport, although they were out that day.  After tanking up, we departed and headed southeast, and navigated as I always do, by VOR and sectional chart.  Despite gaps in the VOR coverage, we were able to follow our course to Hannibal Regional Airport, a single asphalt strip two miles from town.  One thing that was immediately apparent was that Hannibal is doing everything possible to cash in on its claim to Mark Twain. The airport sports a large sign proudly proclaiming Hannibal to be the boyhood home of Mark Twain, and smaller signs listed phone numbers for the Clemens Hotel, and Huck’s Taxi. 

            After calling Huck’s Taxi to get a ride into town, we asked the airport attendant where a good place to eat would be.  She recommended the Mark Twain Dinette. While waiting for the cab, we struck up a conversation with a Cherokee-140 pilot who had landed shortly before us.  He and his wife were from Danville, IL, and were in town to pick up their car, which was having a right side steering wheel installed for postal work.  Too late, they offered us a ride into town, but we thanked them anyway.  It was about ten minutes before the cab arrived, prompting me to make several gripes about “Where the Huck our ride was”.  The cab arrived, though, and we took a circuitous route through a residential part of town to the local old folk’s home.  We picked up an elderly gentleman, who it turned out, had lived in Chicago for almost 30 years.   He had been a staff guitarist for NBC television studios, and claimed to have rubbed elbows with all the TV stars from the dawn of the medium.

           After dropping him off at his favorite restaurant, Hogue’s, which was outside of town, the driver took us to the Mark Twain Family Dinette, which was one block off the river front.  As we were being seated, the words “Municipal Airport” caught my ear and I turned around to see that we were seated next to the Cherokee-140 pilot and his wife.  We had a pleasant conversation, but it didn’t last long.  Our cab ride had been so circuitous that they were almost done with their meal when we arrived.

           With the help of Clemens legacy, Hannibal has done well sprucing up what would otherwise be an unremarkable town.   We bought tickets (good for all the various museums), and toured the visitors’ center, which featured a synopsis of the author’s life.  One thing I found interesting was how busy Hannibal was in the historic photos, compared to today; the steam boats and river traffic which inspired Clemens to become a river pilot are long gone. 

downtown Hannibal

           Seeing the museums doesn’t take very long, as some of them are just a room or two.  The largest is a gallery featuring original Norman Rockwell paintings used to illustrate later editions of Tom Sawyer.  After getting our fill of “culture”, we walked around the levee and took some photos of a replica riverboat, which carries passengers on short sorties on the Mississippi.

a replica river boat

            While looking at our map of the town, we noticed that birth house of the “unsinkable” Molly Brown on the edge of town.  We walked in that direction and found the small house. Unfortunately, the museum was closed.  I guess that’s as close as Missouri can get to cashing in on the Titanic craze. One things we didn’t have time to see was “Tom Sawyer’s Cave”, formerly “Injun Joe’s Cave” but since renamed out of political correctness. At least now I have a reason to go back.  From Molly Brown’s house, we caught “Huck’s” taxi back to the airport.  The gas pumps were closed, and the field was devoid of activity. We departed runway 35 and headed for Quincy, just 20 or so mile northeast.

            On refueling at Quincy, I noticed a line of L-39s and two large twin-tailed jets with large air-scoops that caught my attention.  “Are those Mig-29s?”, I asked.  The lineman replied that they were. “But aren’t those the top of line Soviet fighters?”.  “They’re A or B models.  Old ones sold to a Soviet satellite.  The owner bought them cheap, but Russia won’t sell spare parts for them, so they’ve been sitting here for three or four years.  All those L-39s will sell before those Mig 29s ever fly again.”  I guess the moral is never buy a Mig-29 from a guy out of breath on a street corner.

a Mig-29 minus some spare parts

            After paying for my fuel, we taxied to runway 14 for takeoff.  A large animal was on the taxiway, and at first I thought it must be a deer, but we quickly realized it was a coyote!  Brenda tried to take a picture, but it skulked off, after passing within a few of the plane, before we could get a good shot. Brenda kept pointing to the coyote as we took off, but I can only speculate if he found us as interesting. 

            Eventually we picked up the Peoria VOR, crossed it and headed northeast toward home.  I heard approach control mention “multiple targets” to another aircraft, and a few minutes later Brenda spotted several hot air balloons landing in a field near Mt. Hawley airport. After crossing the Illinois River, we were back over home ground. We crossed the river a second time east of Seneca, and passed north of Morris airport.  I called up the temporary tower at Lewis, in place because of a NASCAR race, but received no response.  I contacted Flight Watch on 122.0 and asked if the tower was still active, but informed me that it had closed half an hour ago.  We proceeded straight to Clow, and landed on runway 36 just as it was getting dark.