(Not Really) Roughing it on the Mark Twain Trail
From Hannibal, Missouri, to San Francisco, California
Categories: Renegade Roads
By: Johnny D. Boggs 11/01/2007
Steaming into KC
The Arabia Steamboat Museum chronicles life on the Missouri as superbly as Twain depicted life on the Mississippi. On September 6, 1856, the Arabia hit a snag and sank. Rediscovered and salvaged 132 years later, the Arabia is now one of the West’s best museums. Twain would have loved visiting it. Or not. The museum also shows how dangerous steamboat travel could be, and that might have struck close to home. Twain’s brother, Henry, was killed on June 21, 1858, in a steamboat accident.
I’m still not done with Missouri. When Twain went west, he took the stage. So from Kansas City, it’s up to St. Joseph. After Orion Clemens was appointed secretary to the territorial governor of Nevada, Twain joined his brother on the Overland Trail. “I dreamed all night about Indians, deserts, and silver bars....” he wrote.
Ah, those old stagecoaching days. St. Joseph, of course, was also the jumping-off point of another Western legend that captivated Twain on his journey: the Pony Express. This mail service began in St. Joe on April 3, 1860, and St. Joe’s Pony Express Museum illustrates the story of the short-lived operation with exhibits sure to please kids as well as grown-ups.
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