Mark Twain Memorial Bridge (1936) Mark Twain Memorial Bridge (1936) The Mark Twain Memorial Bridge was a Cantilevered Through Truss Bridge carrying US 36 over the Mississippi River. It was replaced in 2000 with the extension of I-72 and subsequently demolished. The bridge, which replaced motor vehicle use of the Wabash Bridge, was opened in 1936 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and entered Missouri at the foot of Cardiff Hill which appeared in Twain's books The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. A crosswalk crossed the highway, connecting the Twain boyhood home with the lighthouse at the top of the hill.
Mark Twain: The Musical We’re Goin’ Fishin’, and they exit with a victorious Tom singing along with them. Twain explains that his joyous boyhood was over when his father died and he had to make a living. After a period as a printer’s apprentice, he ran away to become a pilot on the Mississippi River. We see the young Mark Twain, known then as Samuel Langhorne Clemens, express his excitement at the prospect of his life on a steamboat as he sings A Pilot on the Mississippi. The Civil War brought an abrupt end to Twain’s career on the river, and for a brief