No visit in Hannibal would be complete without a visit to the Mark Twain Cave.

 It is the oldest operating show cave in the state, giving tours continuously since 1886.^[1] The cave became a registered National Natural Landmark in 1972. Mark Twain Cave plays an important role in the novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer^[2] by Mark Twain and is named in honor of the Hannibal native.

Cave Entrance

One odd, even macabre, event in the caves' early history happened in late 1840s when Hannibal physician Dr. Joseph Nash McDowell purchased the cave and used it for several years as a laboratory for experiments on human corpses. His most notable experiment involved an attempt to petrify the remains of his deceased daughter.^[6] Twain's book Life on the Mississippi offered a rather gruesome description of the activities:

In my time the person who owned it [the cave] turned it into a mausoleum for his daughter, age fourteen. The body of this poor child was put in a copper cylinder filled with alcohol, and this suspended in one of the dismal avenues of the cave.

After two years the experiment proved a failure and the girls body was forcibly removed by angry Hannibal citizens who learned about it from children who discovered it while exploring the cave, and sometimes used the body to enhance the spooky atmosphere during the telling of ghost stories.^[8] Many townsfolk also believed that Dr. McDowell used bodies stolen from area graves for other experiments, a not uncommon practice prior to the 20th century. Twain would weave that suspicion into the plot of Tom Sawyer in a graverobbing scene involving Injun Joe.

  It's over 100 degrees outside but cool in the cave.

Donna sitting in the "Parlor"

  Could this be a relative?