Gateway Arch - St. Louis, Missouri - A "Must" item for your bucket list.

Gateway Arch - St. Louis, Missouri

“I know that the acquisition of Louisiana has been disapproved by some…that the enlargement of our territory would endanger its union….The larger our association the less will it be shaken by local passions; and in any view is it not better that the opposite bank of the Mississippi should be settled by our own brethren and children than by strangers of another family?”

Thomas Jefferson


Quite possibly the most stunning architectural achievement in the history of our Country, could be, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri. For many years, the local populace of St. Louis and the Federal Government had the idea to commemorate and memorialize the westward expansion of the United States. In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson aquired the Louisiana Purchase from France. Jefferson’s goals were two fold, to remove the French presence in the region and to achieve navigation superiority of the Mississippi River. For a price of roughly 15 million dollars, Jefferson acquired 828,000 square miles of territory (about 3 cents per acre). This unimaginably vast amount of territory represented all or part of 15 U.S. States today. After the purchase of this vast frontier, Jefferson commissioned the Lewis & Clark – Corps of Discovery expedition to find the most direct water passage way across the Country and to get an idea of what the nature was of this vast new territory of Louisiana that the U.S. Government now owned. The Louisiana Purchase and subsequent Lewis & Clark expedition captured the imagination of the young Nation and settlers began to flow west to claim and tame the wilderness. The portal through which they all passed on their journeys west was St. Louis. In honor of all these magnanimous events in our Nation’s history, a site was selected along the Mississippi at St. Louis in 1935 and 40 blocks along the riverfront were cleared. World War II put a halt to all forward progress but shortly after the war concluded, a design competition was held and one proposal in particular blew all of the other ideas away and that was Ero Saarinen’s Arch. It must have been quite an amazing site for the inhabitants of St. Louis to witness the legs of this monster growing up out of the ground and eventually meeting in the sky. When they finally put the last middle piece in that connected the two legs of the Arch at the top the structure towered over St. Louis at 630 feet tall, thereby making it the tallest man made monument in the United States. 5,199 tons of steel and 38,107 tons of concrete went into the construction of the Arch. It was then covered with a gleaming skin of stainless steel 1/4 inch thick. It’s legs are 54 feet in diameter at the base and 17 feet in diameter at the top of the Arch where they join. At this highpoint is an observation deck that can hold up to 140 people. The views through the plate glass windows from this observation deck are amazing. People are like ants far below. Barges and tug boats drift by on the brown, muddy Mississippi which at this point averages 15-18 feet in depth. Downtown St. Louis is laid out before you to the west, in particular, the Old Courthouse where Dred Scott sued the government for his freedom so long ago. The observation platform is bowed as you would expect it to be as it is part of the arch. There are 6 lightning rods in the top of the Arch and as you might imagine, this anomaly sticking out of the plain, gets hit by lightening quite often. It is said that the whole arch will sway up to 18 inches in a 150 Mph wind. The strangest thing about this Arch is the means by which you get up to the observation deck – the amazing cable train. Underneath the Arch is the Visitors Center and Museum of Westward Expansion where you buy your tickets to the top. Once you do, you enter a weird 40 passenger train made up of 8 egg like, white round capsules. Each capsule holds 5 people all crammed in together as if you are an astronaut in a pod going to space. Hoisting cables, drive motors and generators – power this train along the track. It is like nothing else I have ever ridden. It is not a train, and it is not an elevator……..maybe it’s a trainevator……whatever it is…….it is really cool. I always wonder to myself what would happen if you got half way up the arch and this trainevator lost power and brakes……….not a pleasant thought. Anyway, this thing travels at a max speed of 340 feet per min. If it did break down, there are 1,076 steps in each leg of the Arch so no-one would be stuck up there………just a long walk down. The entire Memorial cost $30 million dollars when it was built. The Arch accounted for $13 million of the total. This Arch and the grounds around it are one of the most incredible things you will ever see in the United States or for that matter, the world. I always like to go directly under it and lay on the grass and look up at the observation deck. It is a stunning scene. I also love to walk the grounds around the reflecting pools – along the paths through the trees – there is always a beautiful view of the Arch reflecting in the water of the pool – rising above the canopy of the trees. I highly recommend that you put this Monument on your bucket list of “Must See” destinations before you die. It is open every day but Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years Eve. For more information visit http://www.nps.gov/jeff/index.htm

Looking up the leg of the "Arch" from the base. St. Louis, Missouri