Meet Me in St. Louis
Southwest's Spirit Magazine
June 2010
WHEN PIERRE LACLEDE and Auguste Chouteau set up a small fur trading post on the banks of the Mississippi River in 1764, they named the place "Saint Louis" to honor Louis IX, the only French king ever to be made a saint. At the time, Laclede declared, "This settlement will become one of the finest cities in America."
And he was right. The National Trust for Historic Preservation recently honored St. Louis by listing the city among its 2010 Dozen Distinctive Destinations, stating on its website: "Famous for its beer, legendary baseball teams, and the modernist Gateway Arch that has loomed over the city since the mid-1960s, St. Louis, Missouri, is one of America's great cities."
But there are many reasons that the city made the list. First up: its myriad architectural styles and unique neighborhoods. Architect Louis Sullivan's Wainwright Building has the distinction of being the nation's first skyscraper, and the Ebsworth House is the area's only building designed by legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Add to that countless red-brick buildings, cobblestone streets, and terracotta friezes.
"We have one of the largest intact stocks of Victorian brick architecture in the country," says Andrew Weil, assistant director of Landmarks Association, St. Louis' oldest historic preservation organization. "By 1900, St. Louis was the largest brick producing city in the world and also home to the largest terra-cotta-producing company in the world."
Of course, the city's main architectural attraction is the Arch. St. Louisans live in the shadow of architect Eero Saarinen's iconic monument, which draws about 1 million visitors to ride to the top each year. This artistic, figurative interpretation of the Gateway to the West stands in homage to the hardy souls who outfitted wagon trains here and headed west across the Great Plains in the early 19th century.
According to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, visitors who explore beyond the Arch will discover the city's many diverse and unexpected treasures. "Each year between 20 and 22 million people visit St. Louis, drawn by our entertainment, unique attractions, sporting events, or meetings and conventions," says Kathleen M. Ratcliffe, president of the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission (CVC).
Art aficionados can bask in the awe-inspiring glow of the world's largest collection of interior mosaics at the circa-1907 Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, and marvel at the Tiffany stained-glass Allegorical Window" at St. Louis Union Station, once the world's largest passenger rail terminal. First opened in 1894, today it's a festival-style marketplace with more than 80 stores and restaurants to tempt shoppers. And brewhounds will, er, hop over to Anheuser-Busch Brewery just south of downtown to tour the brew house and the Clydesdale stables.
What goes better with a good brew than baseball? St. Louis is a wildly enthusiastic sports town where fans wear red and head out to the ball field to root, root, root for Albert Pujols and the Cardinals at Busch Stadium. They also bleed blue for the St. Louis Blues hockey team, and paint themselves blue and gold to cheer on the city's NFL franchise, the Rams.
But the color green is the final reason why the National Trust for Historic Preservation chose St. Louis as a distinctive destination. In 2007, the city ranked ninth among U.S. metropolitan areas for the number of buildings certified under the LEED program. As of November, there were 39 LEED-certified buildings completed, with 174 under way.
In addition, the Great Rivers Greenway District is developing The River Ring, a plan that will result in a network of some 640 miles of trails connecting more than 45 greenways throughout the area. The Gateway Mall -- the "spine" of downtown St. Louis, from the Old Courthouse west to 21st Street -- is getting an adjustment, so to speak, with plans for development of new public green spaces.
What else is new? The renowned Missouri Botanical Garden recently opened a Center for Biodiversity
Informatics, allowing researchers around the world to create, integrate, and analyze their findings on biological diversity.
Not enough to do in St. Louis? (We doubt that!) Day-trippers can take the short jaunt from midtown to St. Charles, which served as the first capital of Missouri from 1821 to 1826. Today, downtown St. Charles boasts antique shops, galleries, boutiques, restaurants, and a riverfront park nestled alongside the Missouri River, which rushes from the Rocky Mountains to the Mississippi.
Quick -- name the first official federally designated wine district in America. That would be Augusta, Missouri, less than an hour from downtown St. Louis in St. Charles County. Missouri is home to more than 90 wineries, and the state ranks 10th in annual wine production in the U.S. Head to nearby Washington in Franklin County to explore the area's vineyards and picturesque downtown.
If the French explorer Pierre Laclede were alive today, he would drink a toast to St. Louis. Then he would probably log on to the CVC's website, explorestlouis.com, to help him plan his journeys -- and you should, too.
