The Piasa or Piasa Bird is a Native American dragon depicted in one of two murals painted by Native Americans on bluffs above the Mississippi River. Its original location was at the end of a chain of limestone bluffs in Madison County, Illinois at present-day Alton, Illinois. The original Piasa illustration no longer exists; a newer 20th-century version, based partly on 19th-century sketches and lithographs, has been placed on a bluff in Alton, Illinois, several hundred yards upstream from its origin. The location of the present-day mural is at 38.898055, -90.19915. The limestone rock quality on the new site is unsuited for holding an image, and the painting must be regularly restored. The original site of the painting was a high-quality layer of lithographic limestone, which was predominantly quarried away in the late 1870s by the Mississippi Lime Company
"The Piasa bird is said to have flown over the "Great Father of Waters" thousands of moons before the white man came, when magolonyn and mastodon were still living."
