Hannibal's 'Native Spirits' Mural Is a Trip Back in Time

This may be the most "non-news" news item you see all day.

Hannibal has a new mural.

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While it's true, the sight of oversize artwork adorning Hannibal's formerly blank walls is certainly nothing unusual these days, the story behind how this latest offering came about is worth sharing.

Hannibal newest mural is called, "Native Spirits," and it's the creation of local artist and educator Stephen Schisler.

Hannibal Arts Council

Regarding the subject matter, Schisler said, "I wanted to pay homage to populations now extinct from our region. Marking the Indian Removal Act of 1830, and the subsequent disappearance of many native Missouri species by the mid to late 1800s. Featured are the elk, buffalo, black bear, mountain lion and grey wolf. Their vague polygonal forms represent these figures as 'spirits' that may still walk among us. The gridding off of the background into county lines represents the arbitrary borders and systems that eventually replace, for better or worse, the wildness of the frontier."

This new mural came to be thanks to a partnership of the Hannibal Arts Council, the Rotary Club of Hannibal and Mike and Sarah Vorholt, the owners of the building at 113 South Main Street, whose back wall is the home of the Native Spirits mural.

So when you find yourself in the 200 block of Broadway, look south and enjoy Hannibal's newest mural.

LOOK: What 25 Historic Battlefields Look Like Today

The following is an examination of what became of the sites where America waged its most important and often most brutal campaigns of war. Using a variety of sources, Stacker selected 25 historically significant battlefields in American history. For each one, Stacker investigated what happened there when the battles raged as well as what became of those hallowed grounds when the fighting stopped.

These are the battlefields that defined the United States military’s journey from upstart Colonial rebels to an invincible global war machine.