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If you saw the 2025 hit “Superman” movie, you saw a string of fierce battles in the skies above the hero’s adopted home of Metropolis, as Superman took on giant creatures and monstrous villains.
Luckily, things haven’t been as calamitous in Metropolis, Illinois, which was officially recognized as “Superman’s Hometown” more than 50 years ago. But the community is expecting some excitement this weekend, as the annual Superman Celebration brings thousands of people to town.
The small city of about 6,000 people is in Massac County, in the southern tip of Illinois. In 1972, the Illinois Legislature passed a resolution recognizing the connection between the fictional Metropolis and the Illinois city. And that honor isn’t something the city of Metropolis takes lightly.
“It’s the perfect small American town with a Superman spin,” said Morgan Hambrick Siebert, curator of the Super Museum and daughter of its founder, Jim Hambrick.
Each June, the Superman Celebration draws people who make their own elaborate costumes or just come to celebrate everything related to the hero. One of the main draws is meeting actors from different generations of Superman TV shows and movies, who have frequented the event as special guests since the celebration began in 1979. The festival (which this year runs from June 12-14th) also features vendors selling food, crafts, comic book memorabilia, and more, as well as a carnival with rides and games.
The tourism office for Metropolis and Massac County says they regularly get visitors from several states away, with some super fans traveling from as far away as Australia and Japan.
A Rural Metropolis
In the Superman universe, Metropolis bears an uncanny resemblance to New York City. Rural Metropolis, Illinois, might have more in common with Smallville, Kansas, the fictional community where Superman/Clark Kent was raised. But that didn’t stop the Illinois city, which was founded 99 years before the character Superman was created, from forging a powerful bond with the Man of Steel.
The first Superman comic was published in 1938. The character was invented in Cleveland, Ohio, by the team of writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Schuster.
The character grew increasingly popular and ubiquitous over the years, with several comic book titles, newspaper comic strips, a radio show, animated short films, and the “Adventures of Superman” TV series, which ran from 1952 to 1958. The Richard Donner-directed “Superman” film starring Christopher Reeve became a hit in 1978.
But even before the 1978 film, residents and officials of Metropolis, Illinois, were exploring how they could capitalize on its Superman connection.
The Super Museum in Metropolis, IL houses 75,000 pieces of Superman memorabilia. (Credit: Photo courtesy of the Super Museum)
One ambitious but ultimately failed attempt was a proposed amusement park in Metropolis and Massac County, according to the curators of the Super Museum. The Illinois Legislature endorsed the city’s “Project Superman” in April 1972 – recognizing the small city as Superman’s home – and design work began on a 1,000-acre Amazing World of Superman amusement park. Besides a 100-foot-tall statue of Superman, the park was to include a main street symbolizing Smallville, a movie theater, shopping mall, hotel, moving sidewalk, and elements familiar to Superman fans, including Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.
Newspapers, particularly those in the Southern Midwest, covered the development – or lack of development – of the amusement park beginning in April 1972. A visitors’ center opened and Superman souvenirs were available, but grand plans for the large park and towering statue never became reality, in part because oil shortages in the 1970s doomed construction of an interstate highway that would have provided easy access to the park.
By 1974, the Associated Press circulated stories – with headlines like “Amazing World of Superman Turns Out to Be a Super Flop’ – noting that the project was put into mothballs and exhibit materials were auctioned off.
But the citizens of Metropolis didn’t give up. In 1978, the city held its first annual Superman Celebration. In 1993, they raised a 15-foot bronze statue of the hero. That same year, Superman enthusiast and lifelong collector Jim Hambrick opened the Super Museum, which boasts 75,000 pieces of Superman memorabilia covering the DC Comics publications as well as radio, TV, and movie incarnations.
Building the Super Museum
It was probably inevitable that Jim Hambrick would one day have a Superman museum.
“He collected for 65 years, since he was five years old,” said his daughter, Morgan Hambrick Siebert. His first piece was a 1954 lunchbox featuring Superman fighting a giant robot.
Jim Hambrick found out early on that people would pay to see anything related to Superman, Supergirl, and many affiliated characters. “When he did begin collecting in earnest, by the time he was 10 or 11, he was asking kids to pay a nickel to come into his room to see his collection,” said Hambrick Siebert.
A display case at the Super Museum in Metropolis, IL. The museum’s collection was the life’s work of its founder, Jim Hambrick. (Credit: Photo courtesy of the Super Museum)
Jim Hambrick grew up in Southern California, where he kept an eye out for memorabilia. In addition to collecting thousands of commercial products like toys and merchandise, he also acquired original movie and TV costumes and props, including Superman suits and other costumes worn onscreen.
Hambrick came to know Superman creators Siegel and Shuster and actors like Noel Neill and Jack Larsen, who played Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen in the 1950s Superman series.
“My dad was in newspaper headlines (for his collection) and he worked with DC and Warner Bros., and Metropolis reached out to him,” she said. “We moved here from California 33 years ago. I’ve been helping my dad run the museum since I was seven, and 16 years ago I took over.
Hambrick died in December 2024, leaving behind a lifetime of collecting Superman memorabilia – and an entire museum to showcase it.
Superfans Return
As this year’s Superman Celebration begins in Metropolis, the festival’s meaning is found in the people who keep it going year after year.
This includes people like Karla Ogle, a longtime Metropolis florist who has been the co-chair of the Superman Celebration for 25 years. Despite this role, Ogle has a surprising confession.
“I’m not a big Superman person. I don’t have the first Superman thing on display in my house,” she told the Daily Yonder. “When I tell people that, they say, ‘You’re kidding.’”
She may not be “a Superman person,” but she certainly is a fan of Metropolis. “I was born and raised here, I love being here, I love having a business in Metropolis,” she said.
Ogle said the festival has helped turn Metropolis into more than just a tourist stop.
“The town has a lot of charm and it has a lot of history. And with the Superman festival, people say, I’ve been coming for 15 or 20 years. A couple of people have moved here when they retired because they loved the town.”
To see all of the festivities planned for this year’s Superman Celebration in Metropolis, Illinois, you can check out the event’s website.
Keith Roysdon is the author of two novels, “Seven Angels” and “That October,” and co-author of four award-winning true crime books. His fiction, news articles, and pop culture pieces are widely published.
This article first appeared in The Good, the Bad, and the Elegy, an email newsletter from the Daily Yonder focused on the best, and worst, in rural media, entertainment, and culture. Every other Thursday, it features reviews, recommendations, retrospectives, and more. Join the mailing list today to have future editions delivered straight to your inbox.
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