What to See in Alton - Top Sights and Attractions

Cable-stayed bridge in West Alton, Missouri. The Clark Bridge is a cable-stayed bridge across the Mississippi River between West Alton, Missouri and Alton, Illinois. Named after explorer William Clark like the bridge it replaced, the cable-stayed bridge opened in 1994. It carries U.S. Route 67 across the river. It is the northernmost river crossing in the St. Louis metropolitan area.

The new $85 million, 108-foot-wide bridge (33 m) replaced the old Clark Bridge, which was only 20 ft wide (6.1 m). The truss bridge was built in 1928. The new bridge carries two lanes of divided traffic in each direction, as well as two bike lanes. The old bridge carried only two lanes (similar to the upstream Champ Clark Bridge).

The bridge is sometimes referred to as the Super Bridge. Its construction was featured in a NOVA documentary entitled Super Bridge, which highlighted the challenges of building the bridge, especially during the Great Flood of 1993. Designed by Hanson Engineers under contract to Illinois Department of Transportation (DOT), the Clark Bridge was the first in the United States in which "such a light steel-framed cable-stayed design was combined with a cable saddle type of pylon". The bridge used 8,100 tons of structural steel; 44,100 cubic yards of concrete; and more than 160 miles of cable wrapped with four acres of yellow plastic piping.^[3]

The Haskell Playhouse is a children's playhouse located in Haskell Park in Alton, Illinois. Dr. William Abraham Haskell, a physician and one of the wealthiest residents of Alton, commissioned the playhouse as a present for his daughter Lucy's fifth birthday in 1885. Architect Lucas Pfeiffenberger designed the playhouse in the Queen Anne style. The house's design features a raised front porch with a projecting entrance, diagonal stickwork on the porch and first floor, and fishscale shingles on the second-story gable ends. An ornamental iron fence with a small spire tops the house's hipped roof. Lucy Haskell died of diphtheria four years after her playhouse was built, and by 1916 her mother Florence Haskell was the only surviving Haskell still living in Alton. Florence demolished the family's home that year but kept the playhouse as a memorial to her daughter; she donated the land to the city to serve as a memorial park.

The playhouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 30, 1974.^[6]

Museum in Alton, Illinois. The Alton Museum of History and Art, sometimes known as the Robert Wadlow Museum, in Alton, Illinois was founded in 1971 as a not for profit organization. It is located in Loomis Hall, named for Rev. Hubbel Loomis, on the grounds of the former Rock Spring Alton Baptist Seminary established by missionary John Mason Peck, later renamed Shurtleff College, and presently the home of the Southern IL University School of Dental Medicine. The building, which has Underground Railroad history, was constructed as the original chapel/classroom of the seminary c.1820 and the sanctuary was modified in the early 1900s to be a two-story building with a rear classroom and laboratory addition. The building is the state's second oldest remaining college building.

Although most known for its collection related to Robert Wadlow (the Alton Giant), it also has exhibits on Lewis & Clark, the Alton Confederate Prison and the Lincoln–Douglas debates as well as that of the region's Native American populations. It serves to help preserve the history and heritage of its community; it continues to demonstrate the artistic interests and achievement of its residents.

The museum also owns two homes in the town, the Koenig House and the Wilhelm House, which were donated to the museum by Corida Koenig Hanna in 1987. The Koenig House was repaired in 1990, but both homes present challenges for the museum despite their uses for programming.^[7]

Cliff painting of a mythical monster. The Piasa or Piasa Bird is a Native American mythical creature depicted in one of two murals painted by Native Americans on cliffsides above the Mississippi River. Its original location was at the end of a chain of limestone bluffs in Madison County, Illinois at present-day Alton, Illinois. The original Piasa illustration no longer exists; a newer 20th-century version, based partly on 19th-century sketches and lithographs, has been placed on a bluff in Alton, Illinois, several hundred yards downstream from its origin. The limestone rock quality is unsuited for holding an image, and the painting must be regularly restored. The original site of the painting was on lithographic limestone, which was quarried away in the late 1870s by the Mississippi Lime Company.^[8]