Situated at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, St. Louis was founded in 1764 as a trading hub. In its early days, it was a major fur trading post between the French and Indians. After Thomas Jefferson's purchase of Louisiana territory in 1803, Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and their crew said "good-bye" to the known as they left the streets of St. Louis to explore western territory in search of the Pacific Ocean. Their discoveries opened the gates to westward expansion, with all roads beginning in St. Louis. By the mid-1800's, as the belief in "Manifest Destiny" peaked, homesteaders headed to California, Oregon, and Utah to fulfill their calling from God. All stopped in St. Louis to stock up on supplies for the long journey west. St. Louis became the Gateway to the West. In 1935, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order to create a national historic park to honor the roots of these westward pioneers. The land included the St. Louis Courthouse where the pivotal Dred Scott case was tried. Forty blocks of old buildings were leveled to create a memorial, but it wasn't until 1947 that a nationwide competition challenged architects to design a monument that would commemorate the important role that the city played in westward expansion. Eero Saarinen's simple steel Gateway Arch was the favorite among the 172 entries. Construction of this one-of-a-kind structure began in 1963. Today visitors have plenty of options for experiencing the Arch. The outdoor park is always open to the public, and the museum inside the Visitors Center, which walks you through a timeline of St. Louis's history, is free. We chose the combo tickets (discounted with our National Parks Pass) for the tram to the top of the arch and the movie. You can also opt for a riverboat cruise ride. We almost skipped the movie, but I'm glad we didn't. Cinematographers paid as close attention to filming details as the engineers who put the actual arch together. The thirty minute movie tells the story of the remarkable construction of the arch from blueprint to locking in the last piece. Without this, we wouldn't have even begun to understand the complexity of building this 630 foot tall by 630 foot wide stainless steel structure. Being able to see what all those workers had to go through on a daily basis and the amount of problem solving and engineering that went into building this architectural marvel was quite inspiring.
We hadn't planned on going through St. Louis on our way back, but the image of the Arch kept coming up in our travels and it was calling Brickhead's name. It was neat to culminate our travels in the place where it all began. Our journey has had a lot of focus on the history of Native Americans vs. Pioneers, and we've seen quite a few preserved homes of the original homesteaders, so it's neat to think that the owner of those homes would have started their journey in what was our gateway back to the east. If you get to St. Louis, we recommend the stop, and be sure to take the tram to the top!
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