America has been the home to many legendary writers over the past two centuries.

And a number of these authors called small towns home.

Ernest Hemmingway took residence in Sun Valley, Idaho, as he was an avid outdoorsman.

Mark Twain spent much of his life in Hannibal, Missouri. The surrounding town provided the settings for many of his best known works.

And poet Emily Dickinson called Amherst, Massachusetts home.

At all three of these locations — and definitely worth a visit — you can still find their memoirs, important artifacts, and the historians who continue to tell their very American stories, helping to preserve their legacies.