History

In 1875, Willy Clune was a 12-year-old Catholic school boy living on the Avenue — Hannibal’s historic Palmyra Avenue.

The evening before her wedding, April 28, 1924, Hattie Flood was giddy with anticipation. At home in her parents’ small, pastel stucco house, located in a residential area at 837 East 23rd St.…

In September 1919, rumors were starting to circulate around Hannibal that 50-year-old Thomas O’Donnell, co-owner with his brother, Robert, 47, of O’Donnell’s Bros. Funeral Home, might be plann…

When the fire bell rang at 2:15 p.m. Friday, Feb. 9, 1906, the two horses assigned to South Hannibal’s Union Street fire station started jumping with anticipation.

The hallways and staircases, parlors, sleeping quarters and formal entertaining areas, all contained within the manse built by John J. Cruikshank Jr., for his young family circa 1870, undoubte…

A single story, brick, five-bay house rests upon one of Hannibal’s highest rock bluffs, overlooking the vastness of the hills and valleys carved throughout the centuries by the greatest North …

A mystery unfolds in the form of unidentified photographs, tucked away long ago inside a hidden drawer built into a storage chest.

Four historic oaks surround a two-story frame house at 3520 Hamilton Street, in the Oakwood neighborhood of Hannibal, Mo. If those trees could somehow talk, they could share insight into the d…

The brutality of the infamous Palmyra, Mo., Massacre on Oct. 18, 1862, during which 10 Confederate prisoners were shot by firing squad, ultimately convinced Jackson Riley to close out his busi…

The wooden banister might have been braided in smilax, caught with white rosebuds at midday Tuesday, April 21, 1903, in fashion with home weddings of the day. Edna Margarette Bridgford, 23, ha…

In mid August 1861, Ellen Benton, a guest in the hill-top home of her sister, Sarah Benton Selmes, penned a diary entry describing the state of anxiety existing in Hannibal, Mo., following the…

Nearly six decades have passed since Pat Murphy — then a senior at McCooey High School in Hannibal, Mo., — scored 56 points to set a new individual scoring record during a basketball game agai…

Americans’ love for their automobiles grew in earnest following the end of the first world war.

LOUISIANA, Mo. — The Louisiana Area Historical Museum has been missing a companion for one of its signature Civil War exhibits, but that’s about to change.

The building in which Melpontian Hall was contained was standing on the northeast corner of Third and Center streets in Hannibal, Mo., as early as April 1855, when the Episcopal and Universali…

Early on Saturday morning, June 11, 1927, a car packed with Northeast Missouri natives and their travel gear, left Hannibal, Mo., en route to Enid, Okla. C.W. Barrett, 78, publisher of The Can…

While he was reading the proceedings in the council chambers at Hannibal’s City Hall on Monday, June 3, 1929, 51-year-old Charles E. Strode’s head fell forward onto his desk.

In 1879, Mrs. Julia M. Bennett could typically be found seated behind a desk in the Hannibal Courier’s newspaper office, located on the second floor of 123 N. Main St. There, she would judicio…

George Mifflin Dallas Conley is most likely a name will that not ring a bell with any current resident of Hannibal, Mo. He came to town from Jefferson County, West Virginia, circa 1878, and sl…

On March 23, 1903, a coal mine catastrophe occurred at Logan County, Ill., some 100 miles to the east of Hannibal, Mo. Six employees were killed in an explosion at the Athens Coal Company’s mi…

Just one week after graduating from Hannibal High School with the Class of 1912, Roy P. Schwartz performed the grim task of walking alongside a hearse carrying his friend and classmate, Cranda…

Along Market street in the Hannibal, Mo., neighborhood known as Oakwood, two brick buildings stand today which represent the business prosperity of Oakwood and its agricultural neighbors durin…

In July 1873, the Missouri, Kansas and Texas (Katy) Railroad announced, with great economic anticipation, that the northern extension connecting Sedalia to Hannibal in Missouri was open for business.

In the Bear Creek bottoms, south of what is now known as Market Street in Hannibal, Mo., once existed the Star Lime Company. During the kiln construction in May 1894, creatures of nature did t…

A Bible school class, meeting in an upstairs room over the Link mercantile store during the late 1880s, served as the precursor to what would become the first church in the little hamlet of Oa…

During the early morning hours of the last day of July, in the year 1917, the westbound Burlington fast passenger train Number 16, en route from Denver to St. Louis, was saved from a potential…

HANNIBAL — Fred Waller advertised in the Hannibal Messenger that he had a new brick house in Hannibal for rent, consisting of eight good rooms, a cellar, cistern and a well. Location, the sout…

HANNIBAL — Annie Stone Howell (1827-1907) spent much of her life in Missouri’s Marion and Monroe counties. Believed to be a “near kin” to the estimable Barton W. Stone of the Disciples of Chri…

Walking his rounds during the night shift of May 11, 1906, George W. Ham, a patrolman for the Hannibal, Mo., police department, encountered a well-dressed, albeit inebriated, 30-year-old man s…

Yards and yards of luxurious fabric and lace, adorning three charming brides, are represented in a late 19th Century photo passed down through the generations to Hannibal native Julia Drescher…

By MARY LOU MONTGOMERY

HANNIBAL — The day that the JC Penney store opened in the Huck Finn Shopping Center, and subsequently closed its operation at 116-18 S. Main, could arguably be among the most monumental times …

In order to properly introduce a key pioneer Hannibal business family, first let’s venture back in time to Tuesday evening, Nov. 27, 1877.

The March 28, 1925, edition of the Hannibal Courier-Post was in actuality a celebration of photography. Not action photography, as we are accustomed to today, but rather studio photography.

A silver-haired man’s memories of a bygone era serve as the catalyst for today’s look back into the past.

In 1891, under the conditions set out by the Civil Service Act, government jobs in Washington, D.C., were to be filled on a pro-rata representation basis, divided among the states. Also, the j…

In 1925, John H. Totsch, long-time justice of the peace for Mason Township, Marion County, Missouri, told a Quincy Daily Journal reporter a story that he had repeated many times before: On Val…

During the cold of winter, February 1887, a “mad” dog created quite a stir on the O’Connor farm, located on the state road just to the west of Mount Zion Church in Miller Township, Marion County, Mo.

By Mary Lou Montgomery

Tu loquerisne Latine?

Imagine this scene from Monday, Jan. 21, 1901:

In his 87th year, during the final month of 1894, retired tanner and merchant Robert D. Brewington of Hannibal, Mo., professed to the Hannibal Courier-Post that he was the oldest living Odd Fe…

By MARY LOU MONTGOMERY

In late May 1910, Dr. Edna Day, head of the home economics department at the University of Missouri-Columbia, Mo., invited Miss Dora Battson, principal of the Training School for Nurses in Col…

By MARY LOU MONTGOMERY

The likeness of Mary Kenney O’Sullivan is depicted in bronze at the Massachusetts State House in Boston. The monument, titled “Hear Us,” was dedicated in 1999 by State House Women’s Leadership…