We are in “Meet Me in St. Louis” today and we are going to the golden arch in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. They call it the “the gateway to the west” because explorers, trappers, and pioneers set out from the St. Louis area to go west.
Thankfully we found the perfect place for RV’s to park alongside the Mississippi river and the best part was that it was free . . . that's a surprise!! As we drove into the city we could see the Arch from miles away . . . it was very exciting!!
Once again we were on the Mississippi River, only this time at the top of the river! It’s hard to believe that 2 months ago we were at the bottom of the river riding a Riverboat on the great Mississippi and now we are at the top, where the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers meet. Do you know what river is the largest in the US? It’s not the Mississippi as most people would guess . . . it’s the Missouri. Everyone thinks of the Mississippi because it was the most use by boats and traders in the 18th and 19th centuries, but the Missouri is actually longer from west to east.
Once again we were on the Mississippi River, only this time at the top of the river! It’s hard to believe that 2 months ago we were at the bottom of the river riding a Riverboat on the great Mississippi and now we are at the top, where the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers meet. Do you know what river is the largest in the US? It’s not the Mississippi as most people would guess . . . it’s the Missouri. Everyone thinks of the Mississippi because it was the most use by boats and traders in the 18th and 19th centuries, but the Missouri is actually longer from west to east.
It was very awe striking to walk up to the massive arch. I had no idea it was so big! It is the biggest man made structure in the United States. We walked up to it and there was no way that we could fit the whole arch into a picture it’s so big. We walked up the stairs to the beautiful grassy area under the arch and directly in front of it is the capital building.
To either side of the bottom of the arch is a stairway down to the visitor center. We bought tickets for the ride up into the arch, the Lewis & Clark movie, and the Lewis & Clark museum. We watched the movie first on the expedition of Lewis & Clark and I have to say it is tied with Gettysburg as the best movie documentary shown at a visitor center. It was a wonderful film made by the history channel and when I talked to Dave later in the day, he said he could pull it up on Netfix . . . I highly recommend it!!
Next we got in line to go up into the arch. Tickets are required but once we were in the room they give you a number on a certain color so that they know how many are able to go up the elevators at once.
This arch has an amazing history and it’s hard to believe that we actually rode up to the top of it!!
St. Louis played a very important role in this huge migration to the western territories. It was founded as a French fur trading post in 1764 and became the center of commerce along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. For over 100 years trade built, shaped, and transformed St. Louis into a bustling metropolis. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark are most notably the first famous explorers into the territory along the Missouri River on to the Pacific Ocean. They left from their camp where the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers meet on May 14th 1804. Other well known explorers continued to set out from St. Louis, such as Zebulon Pike (also the man who climbed what's now known as Pikes Peak in Colorado Springs) on his southwest expedition (1806-1807), and Stephen Long to survey western rivers and mountains. (1819-1821). In 1882 St. Louis politician and fur trader William H. Ashley advertised for 100 men to work as trappers in the Rocky Mountains and those who answered became the first of the legendary mountain men. Mr. Ashley created the rendezvous system where trappers, Indians, and trader met to exchange furs and merchandise in St. Louis and this helped open the West to expansion.
From 1841 until the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, thousands of wagon train headed west on a four to six month journey. Many gathered supplies in St. Louis, taking steamboats to the trailheads near Independence, Missouri. Over 3000,000 settlers traveled west for many different reasons; some were seeking gold; some were seeking free land; and some just religious freedom.
St. Louis was also a major military depot throughout the 1800’s, supplying western forts with guns & ammunition, as the army fought the tribal groups and forced them into reservations. The city was a place of negotiation of many Indian treaties where the tribes reluctantly gave up their lands to the government. The Gateway Arch is a memorial site to all the events surrounding this mass migration and expansion of the west. It is called the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial because Thomas Jefferson was the force behind this major expansion. Although he estimated that it would take 1,000 generations for Americans to fully expand across the United States, but instead it took fewer than 90 years. The Memorial was designated a national historic site in 1935 to honor the frontier.
To create the memorial, 40 blocks of old buildings were leveled in the core of the downtown area. In 1947 a competition challenged architects to design a memorial that would symbolize the story of westward expansion. The judges chose Eero Saarinen’s Gateway Arch from 172 entries. The arch was built between 1963 and 1965, and it’s strength is due to the stainless steel outside, carbon steel on the inside, and concrete in the middle. Nothing like it had ever been built or even attempted at 630 feet high and 630 feet wide. The elevator system inside the arch was built in 2 weeks and is a combination of an elevator, Ferris wheel, and a steam boat. It was an interesting ride . . . very cramped and a little jerky on the turns, but what do you expect in such an amazing structure. It’s hard to believe we actually rode up to the top at all.
The view from the top was amazing and breathtaking. The shadow of the arch was on the east side. It had small little windows to look out through at the very top center of the arch. I'm sure they kept them small so that people don't get fearful of the look down.
After the amazing ride down the elevator that was a whole minute faster than the ride up (4 mins up and 3 mins down), we went to the Lewis & Clark Museum. They had an incredible display of artifacts and a wonderful timeline of their history. A nice young ranger was demonstrating the different skins of the animal and what they were used for. The main one was, of course, the buffalo, and he explained what each part of the buffalo was used for: the hide was used for moccasins; the fur for blankets; the horns for utensils, drinking cups, carving tools, cutting tools, etc.; the bladder for making a ball; the dung for making fires; and the meat for eating.
Lewis and Clark were sent by President Thomas Jefferson to explore the territory west of the Mississippi. They set out from St. Louis, Missouri in May of 1804 and didn’t return until September of 1806. They had an incredible journey traveling on the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean. They encountered many hardships in traveling on the river with losing supplies, getting stuck in shallow waters, rapid waters too rough to travel through, and encounters with Indians. They survived hunger, harsh winters, illness, difficult terrains, the Rocky Mountains, lack of supplies, and many other difficulties, but they were successful in mapping the new territory west. They were blessed with the help of many Indian tribes who showed them the territories, and ultimately they encountered an Indian woman, Sacajawa, who helped through the rest of their expedition west. Without her help they wouldn't have probably made it the entire way. God blessed their travels with every detatil along the way.
Lewis was the artist who mapped out the details of the expedition, and Clark was the naturaist who gathered plant, tree and animal samples to send back to Jefferson in Washington. They were a perfect team together using their differences to get the job done. They never disagreed, but worked together effortlessly to work through every detail of their expedition. Watching the movie tells the whole amazing story and I highly recommend watching it on Netflix!! There were many incredible displays in the museum such as the tipeewhich was made with the tanned buffalo hide and sewn together with hand spun yarn. It represented all the Indian encounters during their expedition. The prairie wagon is a great representation of all the wagon trains leaving St. Louis for the west after Lewis and Clark paved the way.
We closed down the museum and gift store and then walked to Starbucks to find a St. Louis, Missouri mug since we've started collecting them from all the cities that we have been to that have them. . . I don't know what we were thinking, but now Shelley and I are on a mission to get them all!!
As we drove back to the KOA, we searched for the area where the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers meet. We found the memorial site which was right down the street from out KOA, and we decided that we must come back in the morning since it was all closed. It was a wonderful experience to see the " Meet me in St. Louis" area and get to know the history in much more detail!
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