[3] Metropolis is part of the Paducah, KY-IL Metropolitan Statistical Area in Southern Illinois.

The most complex society was the Mississippian culture, which reached its peak around AD 1100 and built a large city at Cahokia, near the Mississippi River and present-day Collinsville, Illinois, to the north opposite St. Louis, Missouri.

Its people built large earthworks and related structures, many of which have been preserved and protected at the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Afterward the defeated French abandoned the fort, and many moved west of the Mississippi River to escape British rule.

When the victorious British colonists arrived to take control of territory ceded by the French, the Chickasaw had already destroyed the fort.

Afterward in 1794, President George Washington ordered Fort Massac reconstructed, at a strategic site high above the Ohio River.

The city of Metropolis was founded in 1839 near the site of Fort Massac by a merchant from Pittsburgh and a local land owner; the two envisioned that the location on the Ohio River would become a transport hub and chose a befittingly grand name.

Prior to the American Civil War, some groups worked to establish a Western District of Columbia, to include present-day Metropolis and the nearby area of Kentucky.

[5] Metropolis is located in southern Massac County at 37°9′12″N 88°43′31″W / 37.15333°N 88.72528°W / 37.15333; -88.72528 (37.153332, -88.725374),[6] on the north shore of the Ohio River.

Illinois Route 145 lies east of the city and serves remote areas of nearby Shawnee National Forest.

Current services offered include ambulance, cardiac rehabilitation, cardiopulmonary, emergency department, imaging, laboratory, Massac Memorial Medical Clinic, rehabilitation services, sleep disorders center, specialty clinic, surgery, and transitional care.

The four-day annual celebration also boasts vendors selling food, comics, homemade crafts, and other merchandise, as well as discussion panels, auctions, a costume contest, and a variety of other events throughout the weekend.

A villain named Massacre arrives in the town, having gotten lost and thinking he was in the "other" Metropolis, the large city where Superman actually lives.

He attacks a security guard and threatens many citizens in order to get proper directions to Superman's Metropolis.