Metropolis

Metropolis is a modest river town of about six thousand people that happens to share its name with Superman’s fictional home city, a coincidence the town has embraced with total, joyful commitment since the 1970s. A fifteen-foot bronze Superman stands in front of the Massac County Courthouse downtown, arms crossed, cape frozen mid-flutter, and Lia — who came in mostly skeptical of the whole premise — was posing for photos with it within minutes of getting out of the car.

Superman Square and the museum

The area around the statue has been rebranded Superman Square, complete with a phone booth, a mural of classic comic covers, and a small but genuinely well-curated Super Museum packed with decades of memorabilia, including props from the 1950s TV series and the Christopher Reeve films. The annual Superman Celebration each June draws thousands of fans to a town that otherwise moves at a very unhurried Ohio River pace the rest of the year, and even outside festival season, the earnestness of the whole setup won us over.

Fort Massac and the Ohio River

A couple of miles east, Fort Massac State Park preserves the site of a French fort built in 1757, later rebuilt by the Americans, marking one of the earliest European footholds on this stretch of the Ohio River. We walked the reconstructed earthworks as barges moved slowly downstream toward the Mississippi, a much quieter kind of history than the one waiting for us back at the courthouse square, and a good reminder that Metropolis had a real, complicated past long before comic books found it.

Getting There

The nearest regional airport is in Paducah, Kentucky, about twenty minutes across the river, with the closest major hub in Nashville, roughly two and a half hours southeast, or St. Louis, about three hours north. A car is essential for reaching Metropolis and its surrounding river sites.