The Piasa Bird

On the bluffs above the Mississippi at Alton, Illinois, the French explorer Marquette in 1673 recorded a great painted monster the local people feared, a scaled, horned, winged creature they called the Piasa. The original is long weathered away, but a painted recreation looks out over the river from the rock to this day. It is one of the oldest recorded pieces of American monster-lore, tied to a real Native rock-painting tradition. Told as the folklore it is; the bluffs and the painting are real and free to see.