Piasa Bird on the cliff face.

The Piasa Bird

Alton, Illinois

A fearsome monster known as the Piasa (PIE-a-saw) once terrorized the Illini people near what is now Alton, Illinois. It ate deer at first, but corpses from a war gave it a taste for human flesh. Swooping down, it would snatch victims in its talons and carry them back to a cliffside cave, tearing them apart for dinner. According to one translator, its name meant, "The bird that devours men."

Drawing in a 1678 French explorer map.

The first European explorers in the area were startled to see a painting of the Piasa on a limestone bluff overlooking the Mississippi. It had horns, red eyes, fish scales, a long tail, and a snarling, bearded face. The painting didn't last long, however, as the Illini would fire arrows (and later bullets) at it whenever they passed.

Centuries passed. The Piasa was essentially forgotten until the 1920s, when two brothers from Alton, Herbert and Orland Forcade, chose a likely cliff and painted what has become the accepted modern version of the Piasa.

That painting was destroyed in 1950 when the road was widened, and subsequent attempts would never last long on the crumbly limestone. So Alton residents painted a Piasa on steel in 1984 and bolted it to the cliff. Rust brought it to ground in 1995 (It now terrifies visitors at a high school football field).

Legend of the Piasa marker.

The cliff stood vacant for a couple of years until another Alton resident, Dave Stevens, repainted the Piasa on the bluff in 1999. His work is the most impressive yet, 22 feet high and 48 feet long.

Historical marker.

The Piasa painting is a never-ending project, requiring frequent maintenance and touch-ups. The people of Alton have a long-standing commitment to their monster, now a cryptozoological landmark for those who plan their vacations around such things. The current Piasa has been outfitted with a parking lot, porta-potties, and three different historical markers to chronicle its longevity.

The plaques, signs, and monuments clarify that the large caves behind the painting were not the lair of the Piasa; they were quarried in the early 1900s by the Mississippi Lime Company. Understandably, if you have post-trip nightmares about the Piasa, no doubt it'll drag you into one of these warrens before it guts you.

Monsters -- and their legends -- are hard to kill. The Illini supposedly drove the Piasa away in ancient times. Then 19th century explorers reportedly found a nearby cave filled with human bones, and sightings persist in the area of a giant bird.

As we were driving away from the Piasa we saw a stretch limousine pull up, disgorging a wedding party to pose in front the fearsome monster for hilarious photos -- where eternal romance takes flight. Maybe they had some laughs. Maybe they ended up as Piasa appetizers.