Built in 1935 in Hannibal as a memorial to Mark Twain on the 100th birthday of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, the Mark Twain Memorial Lighthouse was the second lighthouse at the site and was erected as a symbol of his years as a riverboat pilot, although it was purely ornamental and too far inland for river navigation. Construction began in 1934, and the metal framework structure, covered with sheet iron and plywood, was completed in less than two months. President Franklin D. Roosevelt lit the beacon from Washington, D.C., by pressing a gold key connected by telegraph lines, and Clara Clemens Gabrilowitsch, Mark Twain’s daughter, spoke about her father in a live radio broadcast from Detroit during the centennial celebration. In 1947, stone steps with an iron railing were built from the rock quarry below the lighthouse to the top of the hill. A fierce windstorm leveled the lighthouse in 1960, and it was rebuilt in 1963 with wood and cedar shingles and rededicated with President John F. Kennedy lighting the beacon while Girl and Boy Scouts lined the steps with candles and passed the flame from scout to scout up the hill. A two-year renovation revitalized the lighthouse in 1994, and it was rededicated with President Bill Clinton lighting the beacon while Boy and Girl Scouts lit a string of flashlights. In 2000, relocation of the Mark Twain Memorial Bridge made it impossible to walk up the steps from the Tom and Huck Statue to the lighthouse. The lighthouse stands 54 feet tall, 200 feet above the Mississippi River, and 244 steps from the statue to the lighthouse.