What was the name of the Missouri town where Mark Twain grew up?

The Missouri town where Mark Twain grew up was Hannibal.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, later known by his pen name Mark Twain, moved with his family to Hannibal when he was four years old. The Mississippi River town became the setting and inspiration for much of his childhood imagination. Twain’s experiences there—including river traffic, local caves, friendships, and the town’s social divisions—later shaped his best-known fiction.

Hannibal is closely reflected in the fictional town of St. Petersburg in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Twain’s childhood home, the Mark Twain Boyhood Home, is preserved there, and nearby Mark Twain Cave is associated with the cave episodes in Tom Sawyer. The cave was known to Twain as McDowell’s Cave, and he reportedly carved his real name, Sam Clemens, into its wall.

A frequent mix-up is Twain’s birthplace: he was born in Florida, Missouri, in 1835, not Hannibal. Hannibal was the place where he spent his formative boyhood years. His father died there in 1847, after which Clemens left school and began working as a printer’s apprentice.