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On The Road Again
Superman Museum Metropolis, Ill. By RAY BALOGH | The Municipal
There is a place where one can visit Superman and learn about his life. That place, unsurprisingly, is called Metropolis. That Metropolis, population 6,106, was dubbed the “Hometown of Superman” by the state legislature on June 9, 1972, is located near the southern tip of Illinois and houses the world famous Superman Museum, which opened on Superman Square in 1993. Standing guard over the front entrance is a 15-foot bronze statue of the Man of Steel. The museum features more than 70,000 items laboriously collected by founder Jim Hambrick, who has amassed perhaps the world’s most comprehensive collection of Superman memorabilia. On display are samples of just about every Superman toy ever manufactured, movie props, promotional items, actors’ wigs and hairpieces, wristwatches and other collectibles, a View Master-type device shaped like a pistol and one of the only George Reeves Superman costumes still in existence. Reeves played the titular superhero on the television show, “Adventures of Superman,” which ran from 1952 to 1958. The museum hosts about 72,000 visitors a year and has been hailed as the “No. 1 Small Town Attraction in America.” It has been featured on “Entertainment Tonight,” “Unsolved Mysteries,” “Collector’s Call,” all the major networks and other documentary and news programs throughout the world. Hambrick is a lifelong Superman devotee, having started his collection with a Superman lunchbox his mother gave him on his fifth birthday. Riveted by the television series, he built a shrine around his lunchbox composed of crayon drawings he made in kindergarten. During grade school, he opened the first Superman Museum in his bedroom and posted a cardboard sign on the front porch of his home, which was one block away from the elementary school. He charged a nickel for admission and made about “a buck a week.” Several years later, Hambrick was asked to display his collection in the Daily News building in New York. Hambrick, initially apprehensive about the project, served as curator and was impressed “when the
LEFT: The 15-foot statue of the Man of Steel stands on his pedestal in front of the museum. A smaller Lois Lane bronze statue is located nearby. (All photos courtesy of the Superman Museum)
12 THE MUNICIPAL | JULY 2022
