Impressions of a Town

We kept mainly to the riverfront and historic sites but there’s a lot more to Hannibal, including a regional hospital, police department, newspaper, and radio stations. It’s a town of about 18,000 with all the amenities, troubles and politics that you’d expect. Knowing full well that my experience here was very brief and shallow, here are a few observations that I didn’t expect.

First, the culture has a southern tone and flavor. Most of the people we met have southern accents, which surprised me. The largest religious denomination is Southern Baptist. The one item on almost every menu is “tenderloin.” That’s a small cut of pork, fried or grilled, served on a hamburger bun. I had one at the Rumor Has It bar, where it was the special that night. They served it grilled with no condiments or garnishes of any kind, on an airy, white-bread bun. I think the meat was seasoned with salt and pepper. It tasted great.

Second, we saw more people smoking than we do in Lincoln. The restaurants and bars have smoking sections (the inn where we stayed is non-smoking). Anti-smoking attitudes don’t seem to have influenced this area, although our hosts said there’s a petition circulating to institute a ban.

The third thing I noticed is the integration of black and white people in public. Hannibal's population is 90% white and 6.5% black. There were interracial couples with children, eating out with both sets of relatives. People of all ages were at the festival and in the bars in mixed-race groups. I saw several store proprietors greet customers of another race with a hug. I’m not used to seeing blacks and whites hanging out together the way they do in Hannibal; it was nice to see that.