Some travelers follow their favorite sports team across the country. Others plan their journey around great coffee or wine. You could certainly organize a trek through Missouri around major landmarks or roadside minutiae.
Missouri boasts its fair share of vibrant murals, often embedding deep historical realities within the artwork. Embarking on a mural tour of Missouri would lead right into the beating heart of its towns and cities and, no doubt, influence the traveler's vision of and for the state.
Columbia's rich array of murals
Here in Columbia, we have a serious history of supporting public art. This includes a strong mural culture.
A post on the city's website introduces several more prominent sites. They include David Spear's piece at 1000 N. College Ave., which speaks to the thunderous soul of legendary pianist John William "Blind" Boone. Spear's work accurately shows the king-size influence of Boone on local culture.
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Artist Adrienne Luther-Johnson's work continues cropping up around Columbia, with murals in the Arcade District, the North Village Arts District and elsewhere. The city's site also identifies rich pieces by the likes of Shannon Webster, Paul Jackson and Brittany Williamson.
Tunnels along the MKT Trail become portals to unity and wonder, with murals conceived and ushered into being by artists such as Madeleine LeMieux. And great murals continue to crop up around the North Village area, with its dedicated art walk.
Astute eyes will notice murals, great and small, in other less-traveled corners of the city and in public gathering places like Optimist Park. These pieces can't help but fold into an overall picture of who we are.
Tour other parts of Missouri through the murals identified below. This is not, by any means, an exhaustive list.
Cape Girardeau
A post from the Missouri Division of Tourism shines light on a number of significant murals statewide. Among them, the Mississippi River Tales Mural in Cape Girardeau which measures more than 1000 feet long and covers a 15-foot-tall wall existing to "(protect) the city from flooding." In 24 panels, the artwork details Mississippi River connections as well as "47 famous Missourians, from Calamity Jane to Yogi Berra."
Chillicothe
Murals "tell a story around every corner of this historic downtown," the Livingston County seat's website notes. Perhaps the most well-known outside town documents Chillicothe's history as the true home of sliced bread. Other murals document community history, the evolution of transportation, and — in artist Kelly Polling's work on the Livingston County Library — a remarkable swath of the literature available to residents. Visit https://www.downtownchilli.com/muralportfolio to see a fuller array.
Concordia
Murals not only tell a story, but are actively becoming the story in this Lafayette County community. As a recent article from Kansas City TV station KSHB documents, artist Ray Harvey is about halfway through a series of 10-12 murals that city leaders hope will "(brand) the town as the patriotic mural city of Missouri."
Cuba
Also on the Missouri Division of Tourism list: 12 panels located on Route 66 in this Crawford County town. These paintings "showcase the golden age of the famous highway and local and national history, including visits from Harry S. Truman, Amelia Earhart and Bette Davis," a description notes.
Hannibal
Favorite sons, real and created, like Mark Twain and his Tom Sawyer are among the figures depicted in Hannibal murals. Additionally, "ghost signs" feature "new paintings of old advertisements that could be seen on the town’s buildings in the 1800s," the Missouri Division of Tourism notes.
Jefferson City
Take a break from outdoor murals, stepping into the Capitol cool for a look at the work of a Missouri master, Thomas Hart Benton. His sprawling "Social History of Missouri" may capture the state's past, but is an important mirror image of our strengths and weaknesses even today.
Joplin
Black history, vibrant contributions to and through the arts, and Joplin's place on iconic Route 66 are among the themes which speak to residents and visitors from the community's walls. Joplin native and national treasure Langston Hughes is an especially felt presence, with his words and visage included in several pieces. See a longer listing at https://www.visitjoplinmo.com/blog/downtown-joplin-mural-tour/.
Kansas City
Public art guides from Visit KC and NPR station KCUR offer helpful resources to the mural-minded living in or visiting the Kansas City area. "There are well over 200 murals in the Kansas City metro, so ubiquitous that we are as much The City of Murals as we are The City of Fountains," KCUR's Libby Hanssen wrote back in 2021.
The KCUR article foregrounds the recent mural explosion beautifully instigated by the SpraySeeMo festival, as well as standouts like Michael Toombs' work at the American Jazz Museum, Alexander Austin's murals celebrating Negro Leagues baseball, and pieces gracing the University of Missouri-Kansas City campus.
Visit KC highlights pieces of civic pride such as the #KCLoves mural and Kansas City Love mural, two different pieces in the Crossroads area, and a beautifully thorough mural in the Power and Light District, also by Alexander Austin.
Louisiana
This Mississippi River town boasts a number of murals, depicting everything from riverboat travel to railroads, historic livery stables and lumber yards to examples of local beauty. A PDF guide accessible through the city's website lists a total of 24 murals, all of which were created in the early-mid 2000s.
Springfield
Earlier this year, Madison Yohn of the Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau posted a great list of "40+ Instagrammable Murals" in the Springfield area. Among the coolest and most interesting: a geometric orange-and-white mural by The Vecino Group; a Ferris Bueller-themed mural on Commercial Street by Imaginational; Chroma 417's Springfield Cardinals mural outside Hammons Field; Nikola Tesla and Marie Curie murals from artist François Larivière at the Discovery Center; and artist Susan Sommer-Luarca's murals of sea creatures around town.
St. Joseph
Murals in this northwest Missouri city document the lives of key cultural figures such as Abraham Lincoln, Chief Keokuk and jazz great Coleman Hawkins, as well as the community's place in westward expansion.
Over the last dozen years, seven murals have been created downtown, the St. Joseph Convention and Visitors Bureau's website notes — and the online portal offers a map to each locale.
St. Louis
Several resources prove invaluable to discovering great murals around the St. Louis area. The Murals of St. Louis Instagram account, with more than 11,000 followers, offers a great window into the city's public art. Recent posts have captured murals in progress, as well as zoomed in on the All For City mural dedicated to St. Louis City SC soccer and murals featuring the likes of Josephine Baker and Bruce Lee.
An Explore St. Louis post from 2022 showcases the work done at Walls Off Washington, in the heart of the city's arts community. And work by the now-defunct Riverfront Times (RIP) centers murals that feature blues music, Black history and more chimerical designs.
West Plains
This Ozarks community is home to murals by artist Michael McClure, which show the area during "successive time periods," and also foreground significant figures such as country artist Porter Wagoner and all-star pitcher Preacher Roe, according to the Division of Tourism.
Where to find WPA murals in Missouri post offices
If you love 20th-century history, murals, and need to send a few packages or postcards, a list of WPA murals in Missouri post offices can be found at http://www.wpamurals.org/missouri.htm. Among the communities tallied: Bethany, Canton, Ste. Genevieve, Union, Vandalia and Windsor. Check with specific locales to see if the murals still hang.
Aarik Danielsen is the features and culture editor for the Tribune. Contact him at adanielsen@columbiatribune.com or by calling 573-815-1731. He's on Twitter/X @aarikdanielsen.
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