Off-Day at the Arch
We journey east to St. Louis for a visit to The Gateway Arch before settling in for more barbecue in O’Fallon, Missouri.
Dad and I hit the road at 8:00 a.m. for a drive of nearly four hours to St. Charles, Missouri. That’s what the start of an off-day looks like for us. It was our one day away from a ballpark for the entire trip — after this, it would be 19 games in 19 different ballparks in 19 days — but it nevertheless kicked off with 250 miles on the road.
It would be the first of many multi-hour drives over the next three weeks. The drives are a central component of our overall journey — seeing America, chatting together, telling stories, listening to podcasts, laughing, and learning.
One of the things I learned on this day was that St. Charles was the first state capital of Missouri. We walked by the site of the old capitol building near our chosen spot for lunch.
Founded by the fur trade in 1769, St. Charles was originally called Les Petites Côtes (“The Little Hills”) by its largely French inhabitants. In 1804, Meriweather Lewis and 10 others joined William Clark and his crew on the Missouri River at St. Charles — just 25 miles upstream from the Mississippi — to begin their historic expedition. When Missouri was granted statehood in 1821, legislators selected St. Charles over eight other cities to host a temporary state capitol until the official building in Jefferson City was completed in 1826.
I’ll admit that I knew none of this when we planned a stop in St. Charles. And it’s the kind of stuff I want to know! I created a 100-page document for this road trip — I kid you not, exactly 100 pages — and I had zero information about St. Charles, other than it contained a well-rated restaurant with a pastrami-and-turkey sandwich.
That would be Lewis & Clark’s Restaurant, right on the charming Main Street, just a block west of the river.
After lunch, we pressed on for another half-hour to St. Louis, heading straight to Gateway Arch National Park. Just opposite the entrance, we turned to see the Old Courthouse, whose construction began just after the War of 1812 and ended during the Civil War. It’s where Dred and Harriet Scott filed suit for their freedom and citizenship in 1846, a battle they ultimately lost in a U.S. Supreme Court decision 11 years later — justice delayed and justice denied.
The Gateway Arch is the tallest structure in Missouri and the tallest arch in the world — an iconic symbol of the Midwest, of America’s Westward expansion, of exploration and settlement. In 1947, Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen’s was selected in a national competition to lead the landmark’s design. But let’s not forget German-American structural engineer Hannskarl Bandel, who worked with Saarinen to adjust his design and shift the weight distribution to achieve the architect’s goals for a soaring monument. Clad in stainless steel, the Arch is 630 feet tall and 630 feet wide, forming a perfect inverted catenary curve — a shape that gives it remarkable structural stability, all the while casting itself across the sky with simple grace.
Dad and I made our way into the underground museum, taking in displays on Thomas Jefferson’s passion for exploration, directed through the Lewis & Clark Expedition; American expansionism and the concept of Manifest Destiny, in which the United States was considered to be divinely ordained to spread its governance and culture across the continent; and the development of St. Louis as a critical Mississippi River port fueling rapid changes on the American frontier.
Construction of the Arch didn’t begin until 1963, two years after Saarinen’s death. We sat in the museum’s theater and watched a documentary on the project called Monument to the Dream, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject) in 1967. The film is fascinating to watch, a time capsule of its own. Directed by Charles Guggenheim, who won four Oscars and is the most decorated documentary filmmaker in Academy history, the film allows events to happen — just happen, without whooshing transitions and propulsive background music. There was more than enough drama in watching these crews work, hearing their managers give orders over walkie-talkies as they eased huge chunks of steel into position, carefully, precisely, employing enormous cranes perched atop each side of the Arch, hundreds of feet high, and every member of the crew praying for the two sides to meet perfectly in the middle.
I strolled under the Arch to get my first-ever look at the Mississippi River. There wasn’t much happening on this gray Memorial Day, but we would get a few more chances to see “The Father of Waters” on this road trip.
We made it back to our rental car and started west by way of Busch Stadium. The St. Louis Cardinals were out of town, so we took a couple of quick photos and were soon on our way to O’Fallon, Missouri, about 35 miles west.
O’Fallon is a suburban community of about 95,000 residents, whose main street is not a historic old downtown but wide avenues of retail and other commercial activity. We looked for the heart of O’Fallon near the Home Depot, the Dollar General, and the Walmart Superstore. We settled on City Hall, housed in handsome brick-forward buildings connected to St. Mary's Institute of O'Fallon, a convent and school officially known as the Motherhouse for the Congregation of the Sisters of the Adoration of the Most Precious Blood.
We checked into our hotel, had a good rest, and set out for dinner at Ethyl’s Smokehouse & Saloon, easily one of the best barbecue spots in the county. It exudes a well-manicured sense of nostalgia, beginning with the small-town movie marquee and gas pumps out front to the vintage signage inside.
But it keeps going. Beyond the main restaurant and bar is a gaming room with two pool tables, video games, and plenty of high-tops. Beyond that is an outdoor bar with more tables. And somehow, just beyond that bar, here in eastern Missouri, are two sand volleyball courts!
I had to try the meat platter (pork, ribs, and brisket) and found more than enough to like; Dad had the catfish, which was good but a little light on flavor without the tartar sauce.
Dad noticed that the name of our server was listed on our bill as “The Lizard” and asked her what that was about. And so we chatted with Elizabeth, a Special Education teacher and a single mom with a four-year-old son who loves her job. These are the conversations we strike up on the road, when we’re out of our bubbles, out of our shells, looking to connect with our destinations in some small way. The Lizard was generous with her time and seemed genuinely interested in our journey. We left Ethyl’s with full hearts and bellies, in equal measure.