CRIME RISES IN TWAIN'S TOWN

Drugs, Unemployment Cited In Transformation Of Hannibal, MO.

HANNIBAL, Mo. -- Apart from some murder and grave-robbing in "The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer," Mark Twain immortalized his home town of
Hannibal as a sleepy place where life rolls by as slowly as a barge
going down the Mississippi. But that's pure fiction nowadays.

Drugs and a lack of jobs have brought a boom in armed robbery and
theft to this community of 18,000 that calls itself "America's
Hometown." A street in Hannibal, where the property crime rate is
twice the national average. The city has long played up its
connection to Twain to attract tourism. (Photos By Tom Gannam --
Associated Press)

Robberies per year nearly quadrupled between 2000 and 2004 to 26, and
are running at about the same level this year as they were in 2004,
according to the police department. With a robbery occurring about
every other week, store clerks such as Bonnie Robbins have come to
accept the danger as one more occupational hazard.

"Around here, jobs are scarce," said Robbins, who was held up in May
while on the night shift at the Mark Twain Amoco on Mark Twain Avenue.

While Hannibal averages one homicide per year, last year the FBI
counted 190 burglaries and 1,227 cases of larceny (nonviolent theft,
such as shoplifting), for a property crime rate 56 percent higher
than the national average, according to Morgan Quitno Press, which
analyzes crime statistics for U.S. cities.

Most of the crime is blamed on people looking for money for drugs,
namely methamphetamine, which has become a major scourge across
Missouri, and crack, which arrives from big cities such as St. Louis
and Kansas City.

Many Midwestern towns have become "outcroppings" of rising crime even
as the national crime rate continues to fall, said Joseph F.
Donnermeyer, an Ohio State University professor of rural sociology
who studies small-town crime. Donnermeyer said Hannibal's economy is
a key factor.

Hannibal is the economic hub for a largely agricultural area where
average per capita income was $26,500 last year -- about 48 percent
less than the national average and about 31 percent less than the
Missouri average, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

About 11 percent of families in Hannibal live below the poverty line,
compared with 9.2 percent nationwide and 8.6 percent in Missouri,
according to the Census Bureau.

Twain once described Hannibal as a "white town drowsing in the
sunshine of a summer's morning." Hannibal was also the inspiration
for St. Petersburg, where Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn lived.

Hannibal has done a lot to exploit its Twain connection and create a
tourist economy, with such attractions as Twain museums; Twain's
boyhood home, where Samuel Clemens lived during the 1840s and '50s;
the Becky Thatcher house; statues of Huck and Tom; Mississippi
riverboat cruises; a tour of the cave that Tom and Becky visited;
and, for the past half-century, National Tom Sawyer Days, a festival
held around the Fourth of July every year, during which youngsters in
straw hats and rolled-up overalls compete in a fence-painting contest
inspired by the book.

Main Street is lined with antiques stores, restaurants and galleries.

But tourism can provide only so many jobs, said lifelong Hannibal
resident John Roberts. There are not many jobs at factories or other
businesses in the area to employ the town's young, he said. As a
self-employed house painter, Roberts often travels more than 90 miles
to St. Louis for work.

"This town just ain't growing. You got no jobs that pay anything,"
Roberts said.

A popular target for armed robbers is a strip of convenience stores
and gas stations that runs from Interstate 72 into the heart of the
historic riverside downtown.

"Mark Twain Avenue -- it's like the flip of a quarter to see which
one they hit next," said police Capt. Lyndell Davis.

Davis said his 38-member department has increased patrols along the
avenue and advised businesses on safety precautions, such as putting
more than one person on the night shift and keeping store windows uncluttered.

After being robbed twice in six months -- a clerk was held up in
November by a young man wearing a crude mask and wielding a shotgun
- -- the Mark Twain Amoco now locks its doors after midnight. Clerks
let in customers as they arrive.

"They're not getting in if they have a mask on, I'll tell you that,"
Robbins said.