With Mark Twain’s humorous comments on Lover’s Leaps up and down the Mississippi as inspiration, the destination for our first road trip on this project was his own jumping off place, Hannibal, Missouri.
March 25, 2017 was not an auspicious day to head out on a photographic safari. We left home in a chilly downpour, heading up I-44 before cutting northward diagonally through eastern Missouri to arrive at Hannibal in early afternoon. We took Market Street past closed or about-to-close businesses to downtown, then drove south on Main Street to Bluff Road below Lover’s Leap. Bluff Road parallels the Mississippi River on the flat floodplain where once was a busy railroad yard.
High above, the precipice jutted out toward the river over the slumped talus slopes.
The Midwest has a palette of grays and browns in the first overcast days of spring. This sometimes bleak appearing landscape has its advantages, however. Later in the spring, when the trees leaf out, many details of a vista are hidden until the seasonal cycle moves through and the leaves fall again. An overcast sky provides even light, no harsh shadows or stark contrast – like a great soft box in the sky.
We circled around the bluff and took the steep road up to Lover’s Leap, now a city park. An additional perk comes with this new subject–generally speaking, these sites are located in very scenic if not spectacular natural settings.
Hannibal’s Lover’s Leap is notable for the distinct delineation of the strata of rock that compose it, as well as the sentimental story that gave it its name. The 46th Annual Meeting and Field Trip of the Association of Missouri Geologists was held at Hannibal, Missouri September 24-25, 1999. Lover’s Leap was visited and in their bulletin the group’s preference for hard mineralogical facts over softer romantic fables was apparent:
There are several versions of the legend of Lover’s Leap, but the view of the river and valley and exposed rock are the real attractions of Lover’s Leap. The exposure of strata seen from the base of the bluff shows the Devonian System Louisiana Limestone, and the Mississippian System type-section of the Hannibal Shale, the Dolbee Creek Limestone, a local division of the Burlington Limestone. The famous promontory is Burlington Limestone topped with Wisconsin-age loess.
Still overcast and gray, we didn’t anticipate finding other sightseers, but the vista entices visitors in all seasons.
The Hannibal Courier-Post Days Gone By column reprinted what is said to be the original lovers leap story, starting with a disclaimer: “Nearly every cliffed town, along nearly every river has a Lover’s Leap, and the legend behind the name of the high-topped bluff is nearly always the same. Hannibal is no exception.” Hannibal’s tale tells of a beautiful daughter of an Indian chief who loved a handsome warrior of an opposing tribe. Parental consent was not to be had.
James Fork of the White and all our books are available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble. We’ll let you know when Lover’s Leap Legends is published
I love reading your history lessons. My company does business in Hannibal and frankly, all along the Mississippi River so this research is very interesting to me.
I built a house on top of Naked Joe Bald (across from point 9) on Table Rock Lake. That is where the James and White rivers meet. I would love to put together a picture wall or a wall of pictures of “The Land Before the Lake”.
Love reading your material. I have a couple of your books.
Thank you for your kind remarks. As we said in James Fork of the White, though there were many scenic treasures lost when Table Rock Reservoir backed up, the lake is one of the better Corps of Engineers’ projects. We’re delighted to see that people such as yourself still care about the past of a very interesting region with a lively history.
We’ve got some photographs of Virgin Bluff on the James arm of Table Rock but we’ve been unable to find the exact legend.
The upper Mississippi is indeed the Mother Lode of these pseudo-Indian legends. In the final chapter, we’re going to be covering the legend of the White Canoe, a similar myth to the maiden-jumping-off-cliff stories. Sometime in the next month I’ll do a brief post on that bit of nonsense. Leland and I just got back from Niagara Falls where the dusky Indian princess is said to have gone over the falls as a sacrifice to the Thunder God.