St. Louis
— — the gate the river built, and the country answered.
Not only on a wall.
“The Arch rises 630 feet above the Mississippi — a thin curve of stainless steel, widest at the base, the river running below. It was completed in 1965 to mark the place the country pushed west from. From the top, on a clear afternoon, you can see thirty miles in every direction. The Old Cathedral sits just to the south, and Forest Park spreads west across the city.
St. Louis, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
St. Louis sits on the western bank of the Mississippi in eastern Missouri, fifteen miles south of where the Missouri joins it. The city covers 66 square miles and is home to roughly 280,000 people, with 2.8 million across the metropolitan region. The Gateway Arch, designed by Eero Saarinen in 1947 and completed in 1965, rises 630 feet above the riverfront — the tallest monument in the United States. Forest Park, a mile west, covers 1,326 acres, larger than Central Park, and holds the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Zoo, and the Missouri History Museum.
The Mississippi runs 2,340 miles from northern Minnesota to the Gulf, and the Missouri runs 2,341 miles from the Rockies — the two longest rivers in North America. They meet fifteen miles north of downtown at the confluence in Columbia Bottom, a 1,100-acre state conservation area. The St. Louis riverfront sits on a limestone bluff just below. The Eads Bridge of 1874, the first steel bridge across the Mississippi, still carries Metro trains and traffic east into Illinois. Barge traffic moves through the year, slowed but not stopped by winter.
The Gateway Arch is open daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., later in summer. Trams inside each leg climb 630 feet to the observation deck in four minutes; on a clear afternoon the view reaches thirty miles in every direction. The Museum at the Gateway Arch beneath the monument is free, covering the Louisiana Purchase, Lewis and Clark, and the construction of the Arch itself. Forest Park, a mile west, is free year-round, with the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Saint Louis Zoo, and the Missouri History Museum on its grounds.