The childhood stomping grounds of Walt Disney, the headquarters of the legendary Pony Express that delivered communications more than twice as fast as competitors and the birthplace of an invention by which all other innovations are measured: sliced bread.
Those are just three of the iconic American innovators, big ideas and inventions you’ll encounter on a road trip along U.S. Route 36 in northern Missouri. The four-lane, east-west roadway known as The Way of American Genius covers nearly 200 miles of rolling farmland and small towns stretching from Hannibal on the eastern border to St. Joseph at the western edge of the state.
It’s a great destination for a fly and drive trip. Fly into either anchor city: St. Joseph’s Rosecrans Memorial Airport (KSTJ) or Hannibal Regional Airport (KHAE). If you choose KHAE, you’ll encounter your first genius without leaving William P. Lear Field, named for the National Aviation Hall of Fame enshrinee who was born in Hannibal in 1902.
Readers of this magazine will likely recognize Lear for his development of the Learjet, the first mass-produced business jet that debuted in 1963 and transformed private air travel. Some might not know how prolific an inventor he was, though. He held 160 patents, from car radios to eight-track tape players before turning his attention to designing navigational aids for aircraft in the 1930s. Lear received the 1949 Robert J. Collier Trophy, awarded annually for the greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America, for developing the F-5 autopilot with a control for landing aircraft in “zero-zero” weather.
You’ll come across the hometowns of innovators and birthplace of innovations as you travel The Way of American Genius; some are well-known and others obscure, which only adds to the fun.
Explore indoor and outdoor attractions and lessons in American ingenuity while exiting the highway to cruise quintessential main streets. There are parks, lakes and conservation areas along with museums, shops and tours of farms, wineries, breweries and distilleries. Stop for a snack or a meal at mom-and-pop cafes, bakeries and ice cream shops. You can camp, find a familiar hotel brand or a small bed-and-breakfast operation.
Here’s what to expect at six stops along the route, from east to west.
Hannibal: Mark Twain’s inspiration
Samuel L. Clemens, aka Mark Twain, lived in Hannibal 1839 to 1853, from the age of 4 to 17. Many of the author’s most well-known characters and books are based on real people and places in the river city.
The Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum is a National Historic Landmark. The complex also includes an interpretive center where you get to know his friends and family through interactive exhibits connected to his novels, from riding a raft with Huck and Jim to exploring a cave with Tom and Becky. Other museum properties include the Becky Thatcher House, the Huckleberry Finn House, the Judge Clemens Justice of the Peace Office, Grant’s Drugstore and a museum gallery with family artifacts and a collection of 15 Norman Rockwell paintings.
Relive his time on the Mississippi River, as a boy and later as a steamboat pilot, by taking a narrated Mark Twain Riverboat tour. While most attractions are walkable in this town of 18,000 residents, the Mark Twain Cave is 1 mile south of Hannibal. During the city’s bicentennial in 2019, the long-sought Clemens’ signature was found and authenticated in the cave. You can see it along with six miles of walls filled with 250,000 visitor signatures (a practice no longer allowed).
You’ll find many ways to follow in Twain’s footsteps and learn more about him, including trolley tours, storytelling performances by Twain reenactors and visiting the Mark Twain Memorial Lighthouse on 10 acres of park atop Cardiff Hill, offering views of the river and Hannibal.
Marceline: Where Walt first found the Disney magic
Disney fanatics regularly make pilgrimages to Marceline, the boyhood home of Walter Elias “Walt” Disney. Even for casual fans of mouse ears or animation, time spent in this town of 2,200 is a reminder that the soul of Disney is a real person, not a corporate brand.
credit VisitMo.com
A few hours in Marceline offers a chance to walk in the footsteps of Disney the man along the main street that first inspired his vision of Disneyland’s Main Street U.S.A. and at the family farm where he said he found the magic. You can talk to residents who personally knew the Disney family and explore exhibits that preserve those connections at the Walt Disney Hometown Museum.
Walt moved to Marceline with his family in 1906 at the age of 4. Although the family would move to Kansas City when he was 9 years old, Walt would later say that it was in Marceline that he found the magic of his life. “To tell the truth, more things of importance happened to me in Marceline than have happened since or are likely to in the future,” Walt said as an adult.
The 10,000-square-foot museum in the town’s restored railroad depot houses a collection of 4,000 rare artifacts, many that were given to Marceline upon the death of Walt’s last sibling, his sister Ruth. Except for a rotating gallery of loaned items from worldwide collectors, exhibits at the museum focus on Disney’s time in the town as a child, his return visits and how Marceline showed up in his work.
Don’t leave town without a visit to the Disney Family Farm, privately owned by another family but open to visitors at no charge during daylight hours. There’s a replica of the family’s barn you can go in, and a cottonwood planted by Walt’s grandson in 2004 using a seed harvested from the original tree Walt said he sat under to daydream and sketch as a youngster.
Laclede: Birthplace of Gen. John J. “Black Jack” Pershing
Fewer than 400 people live in Laclede, which is about midway between St. Joseph and Hannibal. The town’s most famous son is Gen. John J. Pershing, who became the only active-duty six-star general in U.S. history after leading American Expeditionary Forces during World War I.
The Gen. John J. Pershing Boyhood Home State Historic Site takes visitors on a journey through the life of Pershing. Start with a guided tour of the interior of the nine-room Gothic-style house where Pershing lived from 1866 until 1882, when he left for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The Prairie Mound School where he taught prior to going to West Point was moved on site and has self-guided exhibits depicting a timeline of his early career. Follow his military career with exhibits inside the Historic Site Office and Pershing Memorial Museum and Leadership Archives.
credit melinda schnyder
The grounds also include a larger-than-life statue of Pershing and the First World War Commemorative Garden. It features the Pershing poppy growing in soil from the eight World War I American military cemeteries in Europe that Pershing established after he retired from the Army in 1924 and while he served as chairman of the American Battle Monuments Commission. Poppies are the international symbol of war service and sacrifice, and this is a variety created by the Smithsonian blending American Legion and Flanders Field poppies.
About four miles outside Laclede, Pershing State Park is a popular spot for camping, hiking through wetlands and fishing in Locust Creek and four small lakes.
Chillicothe: Home of sliced bread
On July 7, 1928, baker Frank Bench and inventor Otto Rohwedder sold what is recognized as the first loaf of machine-sliced bread at Chillicothe Baking Company. Thanks to the first commercial automatic bread-slicing machine Rohwedder developed and sold to the bakery, most of us haven’t known a world without a standardized way to slice bread and keep it fresh. The convenience of sliced bread meant more bread consumed and created a market for pop-up toasters that hadn’t taken off until the slicer brought standardization to the baking industry.
The city wasn’t aware of its historic first until the early 2000s. Now there’s an annual Sliced Bread Day Festival (2025’s event was in June) and the original bakery building has been renovated and turned into the Sliced Bread Innovation Center. This free attraction offers a documentary and exhibits about sliced bread as well as other local innovations. The building doubles as a welcome center, with tips on what else to see in the town of 9,000 residents and along Highway 36.
You’ll see an early model of a commercial slicer at the center but for the earliest surviving version of Rohwedder’s invention, head to the Grand River Historical Society Museum. Among area history displays is the massive machine that is on long-term loan from the Smithsonian Institution. If you’re traveling just to see this, be sure to call ahead and ensure it’s still on display.
Hamilton: J.C. Penney hometown & Quilt Town, U.S.A.
At one time, Hamilton was best known as the home of James Cash Penney, born and raised on a nearby farm before going on to found one of America’s largest retail chains. Younger generations are likely more familiar with a more recent business success: Missouri Star Quilt Company opened in 2008 and offers the largest selection of precut fabrics in the world.
The two concepts intersect in the town’s walkable downtown. Visitors can learn about Penney’s life and the history of the company at the free J.C. Penney Museum, which shares a building with the community library, or take a look at Penney’s boyhood home, which was moved to Davis Street, Hamilton’s main drag.
Also along Davis Street are Missouri Star’s more than 12 themed quilting shops ranging from collections of wool or batik fabrics to shops offering floral or seasonal patterns. Among the shops is Penney’s Quilt Shop, in what was originally the J.M. Hale and Brother Dry Goods Company. Penney’s first job off the farm was there, and Penney opened the 500th J.C. Penney store in that same building in 1924.
Next door is Man’s Land, a respite from fabric shopping offering comfy seats, televisions and a pool table. There’s a sewing center for multiday retreats and events, and an education center for shorter classes. Inspired by the Internet celebrity of matriarch Jenny Doan, who stars in YouTube videos teaching quilting techniques, the Doan family has turned Hamilton into Quilt Town, U.S.A., regularly attracting thousands of visitors a week to the town of 1,800 residents.
In 2019, the Missouri Quilt Museum opened in a three-story, century-old schoolhouse that occupies a city block. Outside get a photo with the 22-foot-tall spool of thread and inside find collections and exhibits on the history of sewing, fabric and quilting in North America, from the pilgrims to modern day.
St. Joseph: Start of the Pony Express & end of Jesse James
St. Joseph is the largest city along Missouri’s stretch of Highway 36, with a population of approximately 75,000 people.
The city on the Missouri River at the state’s western border was chosen as the eastern terminus of the legendary Pony Express in 1860 because it was already connected to the east by railroad and telegraph. Using a system of horseback riders hauling saddlebags of mail, the Pony Express delivered mail from Missouri to California in 10 days compared to 20 days by stagecoach and 30 days for a letter to travel from New York to California by steam ship.
St. Joseph has more than a dozen museums, including two with significant Pony Express exhibits. Learn how the short-lived mail service revolutionized communication (until 19 months later when the transcontinental telegraph came into play) at the Pony Express National Museum. The exhibitions are housed in a restored building on the same land where the service’s original stables stood in 1860. Among the highlights are the Hall of Riders, which shares tales of life on the trail along with artifacts from several of the 220 riders’ personal collections.
A replica of the station where horse and rider rode up to pick up mail when starting the nearly 2,000-mile trek is at its original location, a section of the first floor of the Patee House, a luxury hotel opened in 1858. It’s now the Patee House Museum, with exhibits on area history including the invention of the Cherry Mash candy and Aunt Jemima pancake mix. The Jesse James Home Museum, where infamous outlaw Jesse James was killed in 1882, was moved to the Patee House property from a few blocks away in the 1970s and is open to tour.
The free Walter Cronkite Memorial on the campus of Missouri Western State University chronicles the life of the St. Joseph native and famed anchorman who helped launch the CBS Evening News. Interactive displays include a towering video wall with Cronkite’s broadcasts of famous events from 1962 to 1981, from JFK’s assassination to the Beatles phenomena. There’s also a replica of his CBS newsroom circa late 1960s to early 1970s where you can put on a pair of his signature glasses and have your photo taken behind the news desk.
Also on the campus of Missouri Western State University, the football geniuses behind the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs are on display each summer. St. Joseph is the long-time home of the Chiefs training camp, which starts July 21 and runs through mid-August. Many practices are open to the public and there are weekly special events for fans; watch chiefs.com/trainingcamp for a schedule.
Plan your trip
I’d lived in or traveled frequently through Missouri for 45 years before I finally bypassed Interstate 70 to instead travel an hour north to cross the state using Highway 36. There are many more than six worthy stops along the highway; hopefully my account gives you an idea of what you’ll find if you make the trip.
Consult americangeniushighway.com for maps, audio tours and more details of the genius you’ll find within the highway corridor, which encourages exploring 36 miles north and 36 miles south of the actual highway. While this journey celebrates great ingenuity of the past, it also showcases people and places making their mark today.
Origin of U.S. Highway 36
Prior to the establishment of the railroad in the late 1850s, the Hannibal to St. Joseph stagecoach route was called the Hound Dog Trail. Missouri’s U.S. Highway 36 started out as a parallel route of the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad.
The end point of this railroad in St. Joseph was the reason St. Joseph was selected for the eastern terminus of the Pony Express. St. Joseph and Hannibal were the second and third largest cities in Missouri during this time, prior to the Civil War.
Most roads at the time were little more than improved wagon trails. In fact, many of the major highways were vestiges of old trails, such as the Oregon Trail or Santa Fe Trail. There were paved roads, but most were cobblestone and almost all were in major cities.
The formal organization of the Pikes Peak Ocean to Ocean Highway Association was completed in St. Joseph in 1914 by a federation and alliance of state and interstate associations already in existence.
The Lincoln Highway, from New York to San Francisco, was the first official highway to make it all the way across the United States. The second route to cross the United States was the Pikes Peak Ocean to Ocean Highway, now known as U.S. Highway 36. The route traversed 3,564 miles beginning in New York through Philadelphia and ending in San Francisco.
There were no national or state departments of transportation or highway organizations when many roads were paved, so automobile clubs formed to develop and promote their own routes. By 1925, there were more than 250 named highways, each with their own color-coded signs. These signs were often placed haphazardly, with the lack of consistency confusing drivers.
The United States Highway System is a nationwide system of highways that developed to enable travelers to follow standardized routes across any part of the nation. The development of the U.S. Highway System was the first time in history that a national standard was set for roads and highways. Pikes Peak Ocean to Ocean Highway was designated as U.S. Highway 36 in 1926.
Source: americangeniushighway.com