Grant's Drug Store

This structure, also known as the Pilaster House for the flat columns on its exterior, was prefabricated in Cincinnati, Ohio, shipped by steamboat, arrived in 1836, and was erected by James Brady, later Hannibal's first mayor. Dr. Orville Grant, his wife, and his mother-in-law lived upstairs. In 1846, financial problems forced the Clemens family to leave their home and move across the street with the Grants. In March 1847, Mr. Clemens rode on horseback to Palmyra, Missouri, during a sleet storm, contracted pneumonia, and died in one of the upstairs rooms. After his father's death, young Sam Clemens' mother could no longer afford the 25 cents per week she paid for his education, and at age eleven he left school to earn room and board as a printer's apprentice. The building later became associated with the resilience of the boy who grew up to become Mark Twain. It was given to the City of Hannibal in 1956 by Mrs. Sarah Mahan, restored and opened to the public in 1959, placed on Missouri Preservation's Most Endangered Buildings list in 2009, and is cared for by the Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum as a property on the National Register of Historic Places.

Hannibal, Missouri · United States