Meeting of the Great Rivers Scenic Route
World`s Tallest Man, IL

Robert Pershing Wadlow was a shy bespectacled, friendly, young giant, when he died July 14, 1940, at the age of 22. He is still the tallest man in history. He was born, educated, and buried in Alton. There's a life-sized statue on College Avenue in Alton and a handsome marker at his long narrow tomb in Upper Alton Cemetery. In the Main Street Methodist Church there is a pipe organ he helped buy, which bears his name. There are some photographs of him still around, a collection of memorabilia at the Alton Museum of History and Art, a few newspaper clippings, and a book about him published shortly after his death.

That's about all the evidence of the nationwide sensation Robert Wadlow once created -- but he probably would not be disappointed at his oblivion. He never sought publicity. From the day reporters learned about a boy too big for his school desk, until the day of his death in a Michigan hotel room, his activities were followed by almost every major newspaper in the country. "He never had any privacy except in his own home," said his father, Harold F. Wadlow, Mayor of Alton from 1945 to 1949. "But Robert never complained."