We visited Metropolis, Illinois- the official hometown of Superman. The town of Metropolis was founded in 1839 and was home to a 1700s fort before that. But it wasn’t until many years later that residents noticed that the town happened to share the name with Superman’s hometown. In 1972, the town was officially recognized by DC Comics as the Home of Superman, and the Illinois General Assembly later passed a resolution confirming. Since the late ‘70s Metropolis has held a yearly Superman celebration. The town newspaper is even The Metropolis Planet. While in Metropolis we visited the Superman Museum, World’s Largest Superman Statue, and several other smaller Superman sights around town.
Visiting the Superman Museum
The Superman Museum opened in 1993 and has been family owned and operated since then. But, the founder Jim Hambrick’s museum history goes back even deeper. In a 2002 interview, Hambrick told the story of how he got into collecting. When he was 5-years-old he got a Superman lunchbox for his birthday and it sparked his interest. He ended up collecting so much stuff that when he was 10 he started charging neighborhood kids a nickel to come to his room and see his collection- essentially the original Superman Museum.Today, the official museum has over 70,000 Superman items. From Facebook posts it seems like Jim’s son is the main family member running the museum these days.
Overview of the Superman Museum
It’s hard to capture in photos what a labyrinth this place is. The employee working that day told us to keep to the right, but we still ended up missing a whole middle section and had to go back. The set up feels a lot like an antique mall, free standing walls, shelves, and display cases make up different little nooks with themes. Some of the nooks are labeled, but not all of them.
The Superman Museum 16 Years Later
(Jen) visited the Superman Museum and statue back in 2008 on the way home from a family trip to Florida. I thought it would be fun to try to take some of the same photos and see how much has changed.
The Superman Museum Exhibits
One of the many cases of mixed pieces of Superman memorabilia
Posing with the World’s Largest Superman Statue
In November 1992, the same month that Superman died in the comics, the city of Metropolis ordered a large statue of Superman for the town square. The statue was unveiled in June 1993 after being brought over from the workshop in Utah where it was created. The 15 feet tall statue is the largest Superman statue in the world.
Metropolis’s Tribute to Lois Lane
A couple blocks down the road from the Superman statue, there’s also a statue of Lois Lane. This statue is specifically modeled after Noel Neill, who played Lane on The Adventures of Superman TV show. She’s been a supporter of Metropolis and a guest at many of their celebrations, earning her the nickname “the First Lady of Metropolis.”
Take a Stroll Around Metropolis
Metropolis fully embraces its Superman connection and there are several smaller site around town to visit. The Chamber of Commerce also sells Superman souvenirs, there is a large kryptonite rock on a street corner, themed murals, and even Superman themed elements in the splash park of the community pool.
A Metropolis Mystery
While visiting the kryptonite rock, we saw that it was next to a boarded up building with a yard full of interesting things. It turns out it was the Americana Hollywood Museum. We had seen signs for this museum, but I had seen online in my early research that it didn’t seem to be open anymore. I did some internet digging after we saw the building, since there were so many items in the yard still I wondered if maybe it was still open. It seems to be owned by the same family as the Superman Museum, and the gift shop from the Hollywood museum was the start of their store Hidden Gems (which we visited on this trip). It looks like they have sometimes been open during the Superman Celebration, but it’s been a few years since anything was posted about open hours. We are so curious if the building is still full of the exhibits, just sitting there boarded up.
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