Mark Twain - Site of the Clemens Brothers' Print Shop
Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) walked the streets of Keokuk in the years 1855 and 1856. He worked for his brother, Orion, who owned a printing business "The Ben Franklin Book and Job Office” located on the third story of the Ogden City Book Store which stood on this site, 52 Main Street. The Clemens brothers, Sam, Orion and Henry, put together the first Keokuk Directory, made available for one dollar to Keokuk residents July 12, 1856. Young Sam listed himself as an "Antiquarian.” Keokuk would forever remain an important part of Clemens' life, and he would return to "that city on the river” many times. When he left in the fall of 1856, he had made an arrangement with the Keokuk Post to receive his first pay as a professional writer for articles about his travels, using the pen name "Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass.” Later in life he would change that pen name to "Mark Twain." Young Sam Clemens' journey as an author would take him from Keokuk to an honored place in American Literature.