History & Art in St. Louis

We drive back to St. Louis and Forest Park — hit by a powerful tornado a week earlier — for a pair of world-class museums.

Dad and I began our morning in O’Fallon, Missouri, at the Veterans Memorial Walk, established in 2001 to honor all U.S. service members. Five marble monoliths representing the major branches of the military serve as a reflective backdrop to an entire platoon of empty bronze boots — heels raised, on the march. An eternal flame burns to one side near a tribute to prisoners of war and those missing in action.

Missouri History Museum

We traveled from there to Forest Park, a 1,300-acre urban park just west of downtown St. Louis. The park includes three large museums, a zoo, an outdoor theater, a lake with a boathouse, an 18-hole golf course, gardens, a small forest, and baseball, cricket, and rugby fields.

About a week earlier, a powerful tornado passed directly through Forest Park. It began in the suburb of Clayton to the west and continued through the park, across the Mississippi River, and into Illinois, with peak winds of 152 mph. Four people died, and 36 were injured in the devastation, which caused $1.6 billion in damage — one of the costliest tornadoes in American history.

We saw huge trees ripped in half on the edge of the park, fronting houses missing roof tiles and siding.

Dad and I love visiting a quality history museum on our travels. In our short time in a given town, we want to learn a little about where we are, what the place has meant, what its people have accomplished, and what events have shaped the city’s psyche. It helps us take time to connect with a place when we’re moving hundreds of miles each day. It’s surface-scratching, but it’s what we can do, and it’s all interesting to us.

So we were excited to be going to the Missouri History Museum, which opened in 1913 in the Jefferson Memorial Building — the first national monument to Thomas Jefferson — with proceeds from the 1904 World’s Fair.

State history museums are typically impressive and engaging, covering a large span of events in a big space with modern, attractive displays. And thus we were dismayed to learn that entire second floor of the museum was closed for renovation as of that morning and for the next three years!

We soldiered on by digging into the largest exhibit on the first floor, covering the aforementioned 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, known officially as the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803). Roughly 19 million visitors came to Forest Park to see displays and performances from 60 different nations, and, frankly, simply to gawk at people whose dress and customs they had never witnessed. Dozens of temporary Beaux-Arts buildings were built for the spectacle, with white plaster splashed over wood frames.

Much of the rest of the first floor celebrated individuals and events in St. Louis and throughout the state: writer Mark Twain; agricultural scientist George Washington Carver; William Clark, co-leader of the Lewis & Clark expedition; Nobel prize-winning poet T.S. Eliot; Josephine Baker, a performer, World War II spy, and civil rights activist; President Harry Truman; and Dan Dierdorf of the St. Louis (football) Cardinals plus Dennis Eckersley of the St. Louis (baseball) Cardinals.

St. Louis Walk of Fame

We drove out of the park and into the arts-and-entertainment district known as the Delmar Loop for lunch. We had a quick look at a statue of Chuck Berry, the “Father of Rock and Roll,” who was born and raised in St. Louis. Just across the street from the statue is the St. Louis Walk of Fame, with Hollywood-style stars on the sidewalk honoring a modest collection of St. Louis heroes.

Lunch at Blueberry Hill

The stars were aligned directly in front of our lunch spot, Blueberry Hill. Opened in 1972 with a hot dog machine and a great beer selection, the restaurant today sprawls across three spaces and is loaded with memorabilia from music and pop culture. A sharp-looking darts room, pinball machines, and video games complete the lively vibe.

We sat in wooden booths that had been carved into by dozens of patrons. Blueberry Hill advertises itself as having the best burgers in St. Louis, but I chose my first Reuben of the trip, and Dad had a turkey sandwich with Gazpacho soup. We both thought the food to be pretty average. “Thus,” Dad wrote in his diary of our trip, “I hadn’t found my thrill.”

St. Louis Museum of Art

We returned to Forest Park for our second big museum of the day, the St. Louis Museum of Art. Its building was constructed for the 1904 World’s Fair as the Palace of Fine Arts and was converted into a museum two years later. Its collection includes over 37,000 objects spanning more than 5,000 years of art and cultural history from around the world.

We had given ourselves plenty of time for this massive collection of artistic expression and were rewarded. The museum’s galleries are pleasing on their own, and the treasures they contain are nearly overwhelming. We passed through history with them, inspired by the passion and precision of their makers.

And like the Missouri History Museum, it’s free. FREE!