Piasa Bird
Illinois
A winged, antlered, man-devouring creature painted on a limestone bluff -- Marquette and Joliet recorded seeing the original pictograph in 1673, and this 48-by-22-foot 20th-century repainting keeps the legend staring down at Great River Road traffic today, several hundred yards upstream from where the original stood.
Why Roamward picked it
A free, two-minute roadside pull-off directly on the Illinois Great River Road just north of Alton -- one of the corridor's oldest continuously-told legends and a natural pairing with the Alton riverfront/Lincoln-Douglas debate site cluster.
Hours, admission, and access change — confirm with the official source before you plan the detour.
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