Road Trip Through History
Road Trip Through History: The Mother Jones Monument
Driving from Chicago to the Missouri Ozarks and back over the last mumble years,(1) I have passed the sign for the Mother Jones monument many, many times. It is a plain, almost amateurish, sign, without the official imprimatur(2) of a brown tourist attraction sign(3) or the flash of billboard advertising a show in Branson. Nothing…
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Road Trip Through History: Unexpected Stories in Quincy Illinois
Quincy, Illinois, was our final stop on this segment of driving the Great River Road.* It wasn’t so much a stop as a pause on our way home. But it was a good pause, with some unexpected stories. The town has a number of museums and restored historical homes. It also has an interesting outdoor…
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Road Trip Through History: In Search of Mark Twain in Hannibal MO
Unlike most of the places we’ve visited on our expeditions along the Great River Road, I had been to Hannibal, Missouri, before. But it had been a long time—decades in fact. When we drove into town on this trip, I carried two sharp memories—a recreation of the famous scene in which Tom Sawyer tricks other…
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