Florida in Missouri?

Studying a map can reveal things to you that you never expected to see.  That's what happened when I was examining the roads in Missouri around Marceline.  As I looked eastward on highway 36, I saw something that made me look twice.  

You see, there is a small town in Missouri named Florida!  You can't really call it a town any more, but it is marked on the map, and it turns out that it is the birthplace of Samuel Clemens and is now home to the Mark Twain State Park.

So of course we had to go to Florida!  The whole time we were in Hannibal, if someone asked me where we were from, I would tell them we're from Florida, the state, not the Florida, the nearby birthplace of Mark Twain!

Florida is 36 miles from Hannibal, so going to check it out was a morning adventure.  The state park's visitor and interpretive center opens at 10 AM, so we had a leisurely start to our day.  When we got there, the closed sign was still in the window, but they just hadn't gotten around to turning it around to Open.

The state park includes the Mark Twain Birthplace State Historic Site which is the Interpretive Shrine which was built around Clemens' birthplace rather than having it disassembled and moved like other historical figures' homes have had happen.

Inside you'll find the old house where Samuel Clemens was born.  It was a small two-room building.  Here are some pictures of the house and what it might have looked like when the Clemens' lived there.  There is also a photo of a write-up about when Samuel Clemens was born in November 1835. 

In addition to the house, there is historical documentation and information about Florida and how it recognized the significance of Samuel Clemens to the area.

The Missouri State Parks used the labor of the Civilian Conservation Corps, Company 1743 - the Thunderbirds - to build the state park.  Here's a picture of the men from the company.

This is a photograph of the house before it became part of the state park.

The backstory for how the state park came into existence is interesting.  A teenaged girl named Ruth Lamson had visited the area in 1922 and thought it should be made into something for people to enjoy.  You can read more of the story in the pictures.

This is a picture of Ruth Lamson, "Dad" Violette who owned the Clemens' home when Ruth visited, and Frank Lamson, Ruth's father.

This is a chair that was owned by Samuel Clemens' mother, Jane.

This description of Mark Twain's writing style just seemed perfect!

I am 25% Finnish, so when I saw this Finnish printing of Huckleberry Finn, I had to take a picture of it.  His writing has been translated into over 70 languages.

This is another casting of Mark Twain's hand.  All throughout our trip, we saw similar things with other important people.

The visitor's center has original manuscript pages from some of Mark Twain's work which they rotate on display.  They also have facsimiles of some of the work.  It is so cool to see his handwritten stories.

This is a carriage that was used at the Clemens' home in Hartford, Connecticut.

I wasn't really sure what i had taken a picture of until I got home and was looking through what to share in this blog post.  This is a sweet letter to his wife Livy on the occasion of her 34th birthday.

We spent over an hour at the Interpretive Shrine just looking at everything and watching the film about Samuel Clemens' life, particularly his early life and association with Florida.  Then we drove the short distance to the town of Florida to see the site of where he was born.  It is really a cross-roads town.

This is the marker for where the house originally stood.

And just as you are turning off the road on the way to the state park, they have a Florida sign spelled out for picture-taking.

We had wondered what there was in Florida, Missouri, and I'm really glad that we saw it on the map during the planning phase for our trip.  It was worth the morning drive to visit and there was so much information there about Samuel Clemens and his family.  We always recommend visits to state parks; this one in Missouri is no exception (plus, Missouri State Parks are free)!

~ Cindy D.