Did You Know Hannibal Was 3 Times Larger than Columbia, Missouri?

If you find a time machine, you'd have to venture way back to the time when Hannibal was 3 times larger than Columbia, Missouri, but it's true. There's a new memento from a scrapbook that's just been found that recounts that era.

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I saw this fascinating share on the Missouri sub-Reddit that is a clipping from a newspaper that claims to be from 1891. It shows the population of Missouri towns at that time. Note that Hannibal in 1891 was the 5th largest town in Missouri. Columbia was a tiny village.

Missouri's largest towns (in 1890)
byu/como365 inmissouri

So much to unpack from this Reddit share. Notice how much smaller Kansas City was than St. Louis in 1891. My how times have changed. It was also an era when St. Joseph was thriving. This would have been just 30 years after the Pony Express ceased to operate out of St. Joe. At this point, it was a vital hub of the railroad heading west.

As far as Hannibal goes, Mark Twain would have been 56 years old in 1891 when this newspaper clipping was new if that date from the scrapbook is accurate. It was during this time period where Twain reportedly lost nearly $300,000 in his investment in a breakthrough typesetting machine that unfortunately failed because it broke down a lot.

This photo share from a scrapbook tells the story of when Missouri was a vastly different place than it is today.