[Fred Nerks]

The Piasa Bird (pronounced Pie-a-saw), is a local legend in the Alton area. Its foundings go back to 1673 when Father Jacques Marquette, in recording his famous journey down the Mississippi River with Louis Joliet, described the "Piasa" as a birdlike monster painted high on the bluffs along the Mississippi River, where the city of Alton, Illinois now stands.

According to the diary, the Piasa "was as large as a calf with horns like a deer, red eyes, a beard like a tiger's, a face like a man, the body covered with green, red and black scales and a tail so long it passed around the body, over the head and between the legs."

thanks for the link, it looks like another version of the 'water-monster' doesn't it?

[Greenperson]

Thanks for posting the photo. I don’t know how to do it or I would have. I’ve always been struck by how much the Piasa resembles creatures from other cultures. The story goes that the Piasa was a bird (a flying dragon? a thunderbird?). If it was a water monster, it could fly, as well as swim. Alton, IL, is on what’s known as The Great River Road because the highway follows the wide Mississippi River next to high limestone bluffs. The Piasa bird can be seen from the highway, painted on the pallisades.