Hannibal, Missouri, founded in 1819 on the Mississippi River, has come a long way from its humble beginnings when it was home to only 30 residents. During the late 1800s, millions of feet of lumber were processed in its mills. By 1905, Hannibal had become a major rail hub, with over 50 passenger trains arriving daily. Today, Hannibal honors the memory of its most famous citizen, Mark Twain, and thrives on the legacy of the everyday people who built this idyllic river town. With over 200 historic photographs, Bluff City Memories explores the town that Twain made famous. These images recall festivals, floods, fires, and buildings that are now long gone. They also document events such as President Theodore Roosevelt's speech to a crowd at Union Station in 1903, and the aftermath of a shootout involving 1930s desperado John Dillinger.

There's something magical about Hannibal, as if the town is frozen in time, as if you can look over your shoulder and see Tom and Huck making their way down to Bear Creek, fishing poles in hand. But set aside Twain for a moment (if that is possible to do in Hannibal) and drink in the broader vistas of the town's past. Imagine the pioneers who first settled between these bluffs, the riverboat calliopes singing their tunes as they pulled into port, the smell of fresh-cut lumber. Wave to the fashionable ladies parading down Broadway during the Gilded Age or save your greeting for visitors like FDR, Truman and Carter. Take countless more imaginative steps back through Hannibal's heritage in this accessible history by Ken and Lisa Marks.

The tragic story of 1967's largest cave search in history, where three Hannibal boys goes missing in the local caves near the Mississippi. Nonfiction at its best.

In the film version of the life of the "Unsinkable Molly Brown," she is rescued from the Colorado River and raised in the Rocky Mountains, but the actual Margaret Tobin Brown was born and raised in Hannibal, Missouri. Her formative years took place in the town's Gilded Age; the railroad brought in lumber barons, and as the wealth of Hannibal grew, so too did the dreams of young Margaret. Even though her future career as a philanthropist and socialite would span continents and she would become famous for surviving the sinking of the "Titanic," Molly Brown was always proud to be from Hannibal.

Mark Twain's boyhood home of Hannibal, Missouri, often brings to mind romanticized images of Twain's fictional characters Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer exploring caves and fishing from the banks of the Mississippi River. In City of Dust, Gregg Andrews tells another story of the Hannibal area, the very real story of the exploitation and eventual destruction of Ilasco, Missouri, an industrial town created to serve the purposes of the Atlas Portland Cement Company. In this new edition, Andrews provides an introduction detailing the impact of this book since its initial publication in 1996. He writes of a new twist in the Ilasco saga, one that concerns the Continental Cement Company’s attempt, not unlike Atlas’s one hundred years earlier, to manipulate the sale of a piece of land near its plant in the town. He explores the uneasy relationship between preservationists and the plant’s CEO and officials in St. Louis; the growing movement to preserve Ilasco’s heritage, including the building of a monument to commemorate the early residents of the town; and the grassroots petition drive and letter-writing campaign that stopped the Continental Cement Company’s machinations.

After living in Rockcliffe Mansion, where the haunted hallways were a rite of passage for countless Hannibalian youth, Ken and Lisa Marks learned firsthand that Hannibal, Missouri, is indeed haunted. Hannibal's own Mark Twain held a lifelong fascination with paranormal activity after experiencing an uncanny premonition of the death of his brother in 1858. Even skeptics will find it hard to resist the marvelously strange history of the limestone cave made famous in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer where the real-life, macabre Dr. McDowell experimented with his own daughter's corpse. Stories of the town's notorious red-light district and Hannibal's larger-than-life lumber barons provide even more spine-tingling evidence of the haunting of America's Hometown.

Hannibal, Missouri, on the banks of the Mississippi River, prides itself as "America's Hometown." This book is a photo journey through Hannibal's postwar years as captured through the lens of Otis Howell, news photographer for the Hannibal Courier-Post. The years between the end of World War II and Vietnam were exciting and nostalgic ones. They were the days of Elvis, Howdy Doody, "I Like Ike," Desotos, and Sputnik. In Hannibal, Bud's Golden Cream was a popular spot and people shopped at Silverburg's and Kresge's. A special treat was a Saturday matinee at the Rialto or the Star. KHMO's "Man on the Street" was a regular fixture at Broadway and Main. Hannibal: The Otis Howell Collection recalls people and places from the events of that time through over 220 rare images. Many of these photos have not been seen since they first appeared on the pages of the Hannibal Courier-Post decades ago.