St. Louis, Missouri "St. Louis" redirects here. For saints named Louis and other uses, see Saint Louis. <td colspan="2" align="center" style="width:100%; font-size: 1.25em; white-space: nowrap;">City of St. Louis</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" style="text-align: center; padding: 0.7em 0.8em 0.7em 0.8em;;"> </td> </tr> <tr class="mergedtoprow"> <td class="maptable" colspan="2" align="center" style="padding: 0.4em 0 0.4em 0;"> Flag Seal </td> </tr> <tr class="mergedrow"> <td colspan="2" align="center">Nickname: , Gateway to the West,[1] Mound City</td> </tr> <tr class="mergedrow"> <td colspan="2" style="text-align: center;"> Location in the state of Missouri </td> </tr> <tr class="mergedbottomrow"> <th colspan="2" style="text-align: center; font-size: smaller; padding-bottom: 0.7em;">Coordinates: 38°37′38″N 90°11′52″W / 38.62722, -90.19778</th> </tr> <tr class="mergedtoprow"> <th>Country <th class="adr">United States </tr><tr class="mergedrow"> <th>State <th class="adr">Missouri </tr><tr class="mergedrow"> <th>County <th>Independent City </tr> <tr class="mergedtoprow"> <td colspan="2">Government </td> </tr> <tr class="mergedrow"> <th> - Mayor <td>Francis G. Slay (D) </td> </tr> <tr class="mergedtoprow"> <td colspan="2">Area </td> </tr> <tr class="mergedrow"> <th>  - City </th> <td>66.2 sq mi (171.3 km²)</td> </tr><tr class="mergedrow"> <th> - Land</th> <td>61.9 sq mi (160.4 km²)</td> </tr><tr class="mergedrow"> <th> - Water</th> <td>4.2 sq mi (11.0 km²)</td> </tr> <tr class="mergedtoprow"> <td>Elevation </td> <td>455 ft (138.7 m)</td> </tr> <tr class="mergedtoprow"> <td colspan="2">Population [2]</td> </tr> <tr class="mergedrow"> <th> - City</th> <td>353,837</td> </tr><tr class="mergedrow"> <th> - Density</th> <td>5,716.3/sq mi (2,207.1/km²)</td> </tr><tr class="mergedrow"> <th> - Metro</th> <td>2,803,707</td> </tr> <tr class="mergedtoprow"> <th>Time zone</th> <td>CST (UTC-6) </tr> <tr class="mergedbottomrow"> <th style="white-space: nowrap;"> - Summer (DST)</th> <td>CDT (UTC-5)</td> </tr> <tr class="mergedrow"> <th>Area code(s)</th> <td>314</td> </tr>

Website: http://stlouis.missouri.org

St. Louis (English /seɪnt ˈluːɪs/, French /sɛ̃ lwi/) is an independent city^[3] in the U.S. state of Missouri. It is bordered by the Mississippi River on the east and by St. Louis County on the north, south, and west. St. Louis is the largest metropolitan area in Missouri. Sometimes written as Saint Louis, the city is named for King Louis IX of France. St. Louis is famous for its multiple French and German influences as well as having a Victorian past. Two events at the beginning of the 20th century, the 1904 World's Fair and 1904 Olympic Games (the first ever held in the United States) are of particular pride to St. Louisans. In the 21st century, St. Louis has transformed from a manufacturing and industrial economy into a globally known focus for research in medicine, biotechnology, and other sciences.

The city has many nicknames, the most popular being "Gateway City", as it is seen as the Eastern/Western US dividing mark. St. Louis is also called "Gateway to the West" on behalf the many people who migrated west through St. Louis via the Missouri River (first leg of the Oregon Trail) and other wagon trails. St. Louis is also called "Mound City"^[4]. This term originated with the Native American burial mounds that once were common in the city. These were largely destroyed to level the ground as the urban area grew. The most popular abbreviation for St. Louis is "STL" in reference to the airport code for the city and the long-standing use of an interlocked S, T, and L by the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team (the St. Louis Browns also used an interlocked STL).

The City of St. Louis lies at the heart of Greater St. Louis, a sprawling region of nearly three million people in both Missouri and Illinois. The Illinois portion is commonly known as the Metro-East. The Greater St. Louis area was the 18th largest Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) area in the U.S. as of the July 2006 US Census estimate, with more than 2,800,000 people.

[edit] History

Main article: History of St. Louis, Missouri

Prior to the arrival of French explorers in 1673 the area that would become St. Louis was a major center of the Mississippian mound builders. The presence of numerous mounds, now almost all destroyed, earned the later city the nickname of "Mound City". European exploration of the area had begun nearly a century before the city was founded. Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette, both French, traveled through the Mississippi River valley in 1673, and five years later, La Salle claimed the entire valley for France. He called it "Louisiana" after King Louis XIV; the French also called their region "Illinois Country." In 1699, a settlement was established across the river from what is now St. Louis, at Cahokia. Other early settlements were downriver at Kaskaskia, Prairie du Pont, Fort de Chartres, and Sainte Genevieve. In 1703, Catholic priests established a small mission at what is now St. Louis. The mission was later moved across the Mississippi, but the small river at the site (now a drainage channel near the southern boundary of the City of St. Louis) still bears the name "River Des Peres" (French Rivière des pères, River of the Fathers).

In 1763, Pierre Laclède, his 13-year-old "stepson" Auguste Chouteau, and a small band of men traveled up the Mississippi from New Orleans to found a post to take advantage of trade coming downstream by the Missouri River^[5]. In November, they landed a few miles downstream of the river's confluence with the Missouri River at a site where wooded limestone bluffs rose forty feet above the river. The men returned to Fort de Chartres for the winter, but in February, Laclède sent Chouteau and thirty men to begin construction, laid out in a grid pattern as an imitation of New Orleans. St. Louis was a river city, and it therefore developed in response to its relationship to the river. Development, particularly economic development, clustered around the settlement’s Mississippi River bank on what was called "the levee" and is now called "the landing." This long, smooth bank of land, which would later be paved with cobblestone, sloped into the river at an incline that was gradual enough to permit the river vessels of the time to beach onto it in order to be unloaded and loaded. All products at this time were shipped to and from New Orleans, orienting St. Louis' 18th-century trade north-south.

The settlement began to grow quickly after word arrived that the 1763 Treaty of Paris had given Britain all the land east of the Mississippi. Frenchmen who had settled to the river's east moved across the water to "Laclède's Village." Other early settlements were established nearby at Saint Charles, the independent village of Carondelet (later annexed by St. Louis and now the southernmost part of the current City), Fleurissant (renamed Saint Ferdinand by the Spaniards and now Florissant), and Portage des Sioux. In 1765, St. Louis was made the capital of Upper Louisiana.

From 1766 to 1768, St. Louis was governed by the French lieutenant governor, Louis Saint Ange de Bellerive, who was not appointed by French or Spanish authorities, but by the leading residents of St. Louis. After 1768, St. Louis was governed by a series of governors appointed by Spanish authorities, whose administration continued even after Louisiana was secretly returned to France in 1800 by the Treaty of San Ildefonso. The town's population was then about a thousand. During the period when commandants appointed by Spanish authorities governed St. Louis, meetings of leading residents were also held from time to time, and "syndics" were sometimes elected to carry out certain governmental tasks.

In 1780 St. Louis would be attacked by the British as part of the American Revolution^[6]. A combined Spanish and French creole force would protect the city.

Apotheosis of Saint Louis, a bronze statue of the city's namesake on horseback, was widely used as a symbol of the city before construction of the Gateway Arch.

St. Louis was acquired from France by the United States under President Thomas Jefferson in 1803, as part of the Louisiana Purchase. The transfer of power from Spain was made official in a ceremony called "Three Flags Day." On March 8 1804, the Spanish flag was lowered and the French one raised. On March 10, the French flag was replaced by the United States flag. French continued, along with English, to be one of the major spoken and written languages in St. Louis until the 1820s.

St. Louis first became legally incorporated as a town on November 9, 1809, though it elected its first municipal legislators (called trustees) in 1808.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition left the St. Louis area in May 1804, reached the Pacific Ocean in the summer of 1805, and returned on 23 September 1806. Both Lewis and Clark lived in St. Louis after the expedition. Many other explorers, settlers, and trappers (such as Ashley's Hundred) would later take a similar route to the West. Missouri became a state in 1821. St. Louis was incorporated as a city on December 9 1822. A U. S. arsenal was constructed at St. Louis in 1827.

The steamboat era began in St. Louis on July 27 1817, with the arrival of the Zebulon M. Pike. Steamboats signified significant progress in river trade, as steam power permitted much more efficient and dependable river transportation. Unlike the hand-propelled barges and keel boats that preceded the steamboat as the choice vehicle of Mississippi River trade, steamboats could travel upriver, and against the current, just as easily as downriver. Rapids north of the city made St. Louis the northernmost navigable port for many large boats, and Pike and her sisters soon transformed St. Louis into a bustling boom town, commercial center, and inland port. By the 1830s, it was common to see over 150 steamboats at the St. Louis levee at one time, and by the 1850s, St. Louis had become the largest U. S. city west of Pittsburgh, and the second-largest port in the country, with a commercial tonnage exceeded only by New York.

In 1836 the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce was founded according to the current Chamber's literature. This would make it one of the oldest Chambers of Commerce in the United States. Along the way, it’s been involved with projects as diverse as securing funding for Charles Lindbergh’s historic 1927 transatlantic flight (thus the naming of the plane “The Spirit of St. Louis”) and rallying community support for the design, funding and construction of St. Louis’ famed Gateway Arch. The current chamber is now called the St. Louis Regional Chamber of Commerce, represents the Bi-State region. The Regional Chamber and Growth Association organization is run currently by Richard Fleming.

Immigrants flooded into St. Louis after 1840, particularly from Germany, Bohemia, Italy and Ireland, the last driven by an Old World potato famine. During Reconstruction, rural Southern blacks flooded into St. Louis as well, seeking better opportunity. The population of St. Louis grew from less than 20,000 in 1840, to 77,860 in 1850, to more than 160,000 by 1860. At this time, public transit developed in order to effectively circulate the vast numbers of new residents in the city. Omnibuses began to service St. Louis in 1843, and in 1859, St. Louis' first streetcar tracks were laid.

Two disasters occurred in 1849: a cholera epidemic killed nearly one-tenth of the population, and a fire destroyed numerous steamboats and a large portion of the city. These disasters led to political action: old cemeteries were removed to the outskirts of the town; sinkholes were filled and swamps drained; water and sewer public utilities started; and a new building code required structures to be built of stone or brick. Furthermore, particularly after the 1849 fire, St. Louis' population decentralization westward accelerated, a pattern of migration that remains extremely evident even today.

In the first half of the 19th century, a second channel developed in the Mississippi River at St. Louis. An island ("Bloody Island") formed between the two channels, and a smaller island ("Duncan's Island") developed below St. Louis. It was feared that the levee at St. Louis might be left high and dry, and federal assistance was sought and obtained. Under the supervision of Robert E. Lee, levees were constructed on the Illinois side to direct water toward the Missouri side and eliminate the second channel. Bloody Island was joined to the land on the Illinois side, and Duncan's Island was washed away.

Militarily, the Civil War barely touched St. Louis; the area saw only a few skirmishes, in which Union forces prevailed. However, the war shut down trade with the South, as Union troops blockaded the Mississippi River from 1861 through the end of the war. Trade in St. Louis declined to about one-third its average, as the economy of the South, one of the markets St. Louis depended on, was devastated. Missouri was nominally a slave state, but its economy did not depend on slavery, and it remained loyal to the Union throughout the Civil War. The arsenal at St. Louis was used during the war to construct ironclad ships for the Union, and shipbuilding continued at the Port of St. Louis even into the latter half of the 20th century.

Eads Bridge, the first road and rail bridge to cross the Mississippi River, was completed in 1874.

On August 22, 1876 the City of St. Louis voted to secede from St. Louis County and become an independent city. At that time the County was primarily rural and sparsely populated, and the fast-growing City did not want to spend its tax dollars on infrastructure and services for the inefficient county; the move also allowed some in St. Louis government to increase their political power. This decision would later come back to haunt the City of St. Louis, as the results of that separation are still problematic today.

Washington Avenue Loft District

As St. Louis grew and prospered during the late 19th and early 20th Century, the city produced a number of notable people in the fields of business and literature. The Ralston-Purina company (headed by the Danforth Family) was headquartered in the city, and Anheuser-Busch, the world's largest brewery, remains a fixture of the city's economy. The City was home to both International Shoe and the Brown Shoe Company. St. Louis was also one of the cities to see a pioneering brass era automobile company, the Success;^[7] despite its low price, the company did not live up to its name.

Notable residents in the field of literature included poets Sara Teasdale and Marianne Moore, T. S. Eliot, William Burroughs, and Kate Chopin, as well as playwright Tennessee Williams.

St. Louis is one of several cities claiming to have the world's first skyscraper. The Wainwright Building, a 10-story structure designed by Louis Sullivan and built in 1892, still stands at Chestnut and Seventh Streets and is today used by the State of Missouri as a government office building.

Nikola Tesla made the first public demonstration of radio communication here in 1893.

In 1896, one of the deadliest and most destructive tornadoes in U. S. history struck St. Louis and East St. Louis leaving a mile-wide continuous swath of destroyed homes, factories, mills, saloons, hospitals, schools, parks, churches, and railroad yards. Killing more than 255, damages adjusted for inflation (1997 USD) make it the costliest tornado in U. S. history at an estimated $2.9 billion. Several other tornadoes have hit the city including 1927 (79 killed, 550 injured) and 1959 (21 killed, 345 injured).

By the time of the 1900 census, St. Louis was the fourth largest city in the country.^[8] In 1904, the city hosted a World's Fair, which led the Olympic Games to be moved from Chicago, originally selected to host the games, to St. Louis to coincide with the Fair.^[9] With these games, the United States became the first English-speaking country to host the Olympics. Citizens of St. Louis still look back fondly on the events of 1904; there were several events held in 2004 to commemorate the centennial.

St. Louis had developed a lively immigrant gang culture by the early 20th century, leading up to much bootlegging activity and gang violence. One gang leader, from an Irish part of the city referred to as "Kerry Patch" (now almost entirely non-Irish-populated, the area is now part of the Old North St. Louis neighborhood) was named "Jelly Roll" Hogan. Hogan's gang is mentioned in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie. In the 1920s there were shoot outs on Lindell Boulevard between Hogan's Gang and the gang known as Egan's Rats. A priest was brought in to broker peace between the gangs in 1923, but this truce only lasted a few months before two more people were killed in a public shoot out. In 1923, Egan's Rats made off with $2.4 million in bonds from a mail truck. Hogan during this time was a state representative. He was elected in 1916, eventually became a state senator, and spent forty years in elected office.

Although St. Louis did not segregate people on street cars like other cities, racial discrimination in housing was commonplace, and discrimination in employment was not uncommon before World War II. During World War II, the NAACP successfully campaigned, through protests and picket lines, to persuade the Federal government to allow African-Americans to work in war plants. Some 16,000 jobs were gained in this way. White southerners no longer had to be brought to St. Louis to do the work. State court rulings and local civil rights campaigns in the two decades after the war undid the legality of race-based restrictions on real estate ownership and opened some clerical positions in local banks, etc. that had been more common prior to WWII.

St. Louis, like many other Midwestern cities, experienced major expansion in the early 20th century due to the formation of many industrial companies. Like many U. S. cities, the city reached its peak population at the 1950 census. The Gateway Arch was built in the mid-1960s. In January 1999, the city hosted Pope John Paul II for a day. Suburbanization in conjunction with the GI Bill, interstate highway construction, and changes in housing preferences shifted the population out of the city and into newly-formed suburbs. Although the overall population of the St. Louis MSA has always been growing, the St. Louis city population itself had been decreasing.

Recently, there has been revitalization in Downtown St. Louis and along a corridor extending to the west through Midtown and the Central West End neighborhoods. The St. Louis Cardinals' new Busch Stadium opened in 2006. Ballpark Village would have been built where northern half of the former Busch Stadium stood, but those plans have been put on hold. For several years, the Washington Avenue Loft District has been gentrifying with an expanding corridor along Washington Avenue from the Edward Jones Dome westward almost two dozen blocks. Revitalization continues, including new construction, as the corridor extends to the west to Forest Park.^[10]

Because of the major upturn in urban revitalization, St. Louis received the World Leadership Award for urban renewal in 2006. ^[11] In 2006 the U. S. Census Bureau reported St. Louis had a net population gain of 5,648 from the 2000 Census, to 353,837, the first gain the city has had since 1950.^[2] However, since then, the State of Missouri released census estimates projecting the city will lose 3,000 residents by 2030.^[12]

[edit] Geography

Main article: Geography of St. Louis, Missouri

[edit] Topography

A simulated-color satellite image of the St. Louis area taken on NASA's Landsat 4.

According to the United States Census Bureau, St. Louis has a total area of 66.2 square miles (171.3 km²), of which, 61.9 square miles (160.4 km²) of it is land and 11.0 km² (4.2 sq mi or 6.39%) of it is water. The city is built primarily on bluffs and terraces that rise 100-200 feet above the western banks of the Mississippi River, just south of the Missouri-Mississippi confluence. Much of the area is a fertile and gently rolling prairie that features low hills and broad, shallow valleys. Both the Mississippi River and the Missouri River have cut large valleys with wide flood plains.

Limestone and dolomite of the Mississippian epoch underlies the area and much of the city is a karst area, with numerous sinkholes and caves, although most of the caves have been sealed shut; many springs are visible along the riverfront. Significant deposits of coal, brick clay, and millerite ore were once mined in the city, and the predominant surface rock, the St. Louis Limestone, is used as dimension stone and rubble for construction.

The Rivers around St. Louis

Near the southern boundary of the City of St. Louis (separating it from St. Louis County) is the River des Peres, virtually the only river or stream within the city limits that is not entirely underground.^[13] Most of River des Peres was either channelized or put underground in the 1920s and early 1930s. The lower section of the river was the site of some of the worst flooding of the Great Flood of 1993.

Near the central, western boundary of the city is Forest Park, site of the 1904 World's fair, the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904, and the 1904 Summer Olympics, the first Olympic Games held in North America. At the time, St. Louis was the fourth most populous city in the United States.

The Missouri River forms the northern border of St. Louis County, exclusive of a few areas where the river has changed its course. The Meramec River forms most of its southern border. To the east is the City and the Mississippi River.

[edit] Climate

St. Louis has been known to be a humid continental climate (Koppen climate classification Dfa) as well as a humid subtropical climate (Koppen climate classification Cfa), falling within the boundaries of the two climates, and has neither large mountains nor large bodies of water to moderate its temperature. Both cold Canadian Arctic air and hot, humid tropical air from the Gulf of Mexico affect the region. The city has four distinct seasons. The average annual temperature for the years 1970-2000, recorded at nearby Lambert-Saint Louis International Airport, is 56.3 °F (13.5 °C), and average precipitation is 37.15 inches (942 mm). The normal high temperature in July is 89 °F (32 °C), and the normal low temperature in January is 21 °F (−6 °C), although these values have been known to vary at times. Temperatures of 100 °F (38 °C) or more occur no more than five days a year and temperatures of 0 °F (-17.8 °C) or below occur 2 or 3 days a year on average. The official record low is -23 °F (-30.6 °C) on January 29, 1873, and the record high is 115 °F (46.1 °C) on July 14, 1954.^[14]

Winter (December through February) is the driest season, averaging about 6.7 inches of total precipitation. Average annual snowfall is 19.8 inches (500 mm) per year. Spring (March through May), is typically the wettest season, with approximately 10.8 inches (270 mm) of precipitation. Dry spells lasting one or two weeks are common during the growing seasons.

St. Louis usually experiences thunderstorms on the average 48 days a year. ^[15] Especially in the spring, these storms can often be severe, with high winds, large hail and tornadoes. St. Louis has been affected on more than one occasion by particularly damaging tornadoes.

A period of warm weather late in autumn known as Indian summer can occur – roses will still be in bloom as late as November or early December in some years.

[edit] Flora and fauna

Before the founding of the city, the area was prairie and open forest maintained by burning by Native Americans. Trees are mainly oak, maple, and hickory, similar to the forests of the nearby Ozarks; common understory trees include Eastern Redbud, Serviceberry, and Flowering Dogwood. Riparian areas are forested with mainly American sycamore. Most of the residential area of the city is planted with large native shade trees. The largest native forest area is found in Forest Park. In Autumn, the changing color of the trees is notable. Most species here are typical of the Eastern Woodland, although numerous decorative non-native species are found; the most notable invasive species is Japanese honeysuckle, which is actively removed from some parks.

Female bald eagle on an egg in nest near Chain of Rocks Bridge

Large mammals found in the city include urbanized coyotes and occasionally a stray whitetail deer. Eastern Gray Squirrel, Cottontail rabbit, and other rodents are abundant, as well as the nocturnal and rarely seen Opossum. Large bird species are abundant in parks and include Canada goose, Mallard duck, as well as shorebirds, including the Great Egret and Great Blue Heron. Gulls are common along the Mississippi River; these species typically follow barge traffic. Winter populations of Bald Eagles are found by the Mississippi River around the Chain of Rocks Bridge. The city is on the Mississippi Flyway, used by migrating birds, and has a large variety of small bird species, common to the eastern U.S. The Eurasian Tree Sparrow, an introduced species, is limited in North America to the counties surrounding St. Louis. Tower Grove Park is a well-known birdwatching area in the city.

Frogs are commonly found in the springtime, especially after extensive wet periods. Common species include the American toad and species of chorus frogs, commonly called "spring peepers" that are found in nearly every pond. Some years have outbreaks of cicadas or ladybugs. Mosquitos and houseflies are common insect nuisances; because of this, windows are nearly universally fitted with screens, and "screened-in" porches are common in homes of the area. Invasive populations of honeybees have sharply declined in recent years, and numerous native species of pollinator insects have recovered to fill their ecological niche.

[edit] Metropolitan statistical area

The St. Louis Metropolitan Statistical Area.

The St. Louis Metropolitan Statistical Area is the largest Metropolitan Area in Missouri, and the 18th largest in the United States, and has an estimated total population of 2,866,517 as of July 1, 2007. This area includes the independent City of St. Louis (353,837) and the Missouri counties of St. Louis (1,000,510), St. Charles (338,719), Jefferson (216,469), Franklin (100,067), Lincoln (50,123), Warren (29,685), and Washington (24,182), plus the Illinois counties of Madison (265,303), St. Clair (260,919), Macoupin (48,841), Clinton (36,633), Monroe (31,876), Jersey (22,628), Bond (18,055), and Calhoun (5,177).^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Cityscape

A panoramic view of St. Louis Skyline. The large building on the right side of the arch is One Metropolitan Square. The tallest building to its left is One AT&T Center. The tallest building on the right is One US Bank Plaza. The domed building to the left of the arch is the Thomas F. Eagleton Courthouse. The domed building beneath the arch is the Old Courthouse.

Benton Park West Streetscape

See also: List of tallest buildings in St. Louis and Neighborhoods of St. Louis

The city is divided into 79 government-designated neighborhoods. The divisions have no legal standing, although some neighborhood associations administer grants or hold veto power over historic-district development. Nevertheless, the social and political influence of neighborhood identity is profound. Some hold avenues of massive stone edifices built as palaces for heads of state visiting the 1904 World's Fair. Others offer tidy working-class bungalows or loft districts. Many of them have endured as strong and cohesive communities.

Soulard Homes

Among the best-known, architecturally significant, or well-visited neighborhoods are Downtown, Midtown, Benton Park, Carondelet, the Central West End, Clayton/Tamm (Dogtown), Dutchtown South, Forest Park Southeast, Grand Center, The Hill, Lafayette Square, LaSalle Park, Old North St. Louis, Compton Heights, Princeton Heights, Shaw (home to the Missouri Botanical Garden and named after the Garden's founder, Henry Shaw), Southampton, Southwest Garden, Soulard (home of the second-largest Mardi Gras festival in the nation), Tower Grove East, Tower Grove South, Hortense Place (home to many grand mansions), Holly Hills, St. Louis Hills, and Wydown/Skinker.

St. Louis Received the World Leadership Award for urban renewal in 2006 and 2007. The improvement in the quality of life in the City of St. Louis received international recognition after the award was presented.

[edit] Culture

Main article: People and culture of St. Louis, Missouri

[edit] Tourism

City Museum

St. Louis Union Station is a National Historic Landmark which includes a hotel and shops.

There are many museums and attractions in the city. The St. Louis Art Museum, located in the City's premier park, Forest Park , and dating from the 1904 World's Fair, houses an impressive array of modern art and ancient artifacts, with an extensive collection of master works of several centuries, including paintings by Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Pissarro, Picasso, and many others. Forest Park is bigger than New York's Central Park. The privately-owned City Museum offers a variety of interesting exhibits, including several large faux-caves and a huge outdoor playground. It also serves as a meeting point for St. Louis's young arts scene. The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, located in Grand Center, is an arts institution in a world-renowned building designed by the Pritzker Prize-winning architect, Tadao Ando. The Eugene Field House, located in downtown St. Louis, is a museum dedicated to the distinguished children's author. The Missouri History Museum presents exhibits and programs on a variety of topics including the 1904 World's Fair, and a comprehensive exhibit on Lewis and Clark's voyage exploring the Louisiana Purchase. The Fox Theatre, originally one of many movie theatres along Grand Boulevard, is now a newly restored theater featuring a Byzantine facade and Oriental decor. The Fox Theatre presents a Broadway Series in addition to concerts. The St. Louis Union Station is a popular tourist attraction with retail shops and a luxury hotel.

Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis.

Laclede's Landing is a downtown entertainment district with restaurants and nightclubs.

There are several notable churches in the city, including the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis (more commonly known as "the New Cathedral"), a large Roman Catholic cathedral designed in the Byzantine and Romanesque styles. It is the motherchurch and seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Saint Louis, the principal diocese of Missouri; the current Archbishop is Raymond Leo Burke. The interior is decorated with lovely mosaics, the largest mosaic collection in the world. The Basilica of St. Louis, King of France (1834) (more commonly known as the "Old Cathedral") is the oldest Roman Catholic cathedral west of the Mississippi River. The Old Cathedral is located adjacent to the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. Also notable is the abbey church of Saint Louis Abbey, whose distinctive architectural style garnered multiple awards at the time of its completion. The Gateway Arch, part of the Memorial, is arguably the city's best known landmark, as well as a popular tourist site. This Memorial commemorates the acquisition and settlement, by the citizens of the United States of America, of all of the lands west of the Mississippi River that are part of the nation today. The Arch, and the entire 91 acres of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial park, occupy the exact location of the original French village of St. Louis (1764-1804). Unfortunately, no buildings from that era exist today.

View of the Arch from the Old Cathedral.

The Hill is an historically Italian neighborhood where many of the area's best Italian restaurants can be found. The Hill was the home of Yogi Berra, Joe Garagiola, and many other noted athletes.

The Saint Louis Zoological Park, one of the oldest and largest free-admission zoos in the country, is home to an Insectarium and the Prairie Village. The St. Louis Zoo is the most visited zoo in the United States, having surpassed the San Diego Zoo in popularity. It boasts many exhibits with animal-friendly habitats. The zoo is located in Forest Park, adjacent to the St. Louis Art Museum.

Bald Eagle at the St. Louis Zoo.

The International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame and St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum are located near Busch Stadium in downtown St. Louis.

Laclede's Landing, located on the Mississippi Riverfront directly north of the historic Eads Bridge, is popular for its restaurants and nightclubs. St. Louis also possesses several distinct examples of 18th and 19th century architecture, such as the Soulard Market district (1779-1842), the Chatillon-de-Menil House (1848), the Bellefontaine Cemetery (1850), the Robert G. Campbell House (1852), the Old Courthouse (1845-62), the original Anheuser-Busch Brewery (1860), and two of Louis Sullivan's early skyscrapers, the Wainwright Building (1890-91) and the Union Trust Building.

Lewis and Clark sculpture on the riverfront

On the Riverfront two sculptural groups has been designated a National Lewis and Clark site by the National Park Service. This includes a twice life sized grouping of Lewis and Clark on the St. Louis Riverfront which commemorated the final celebration of the bicentennial of the expedition. These sculptures were done by Harry Weber

The Lemp Mansion, home of the ill-fated Lemp family, brewers of Falstaff Beer and others, is considered one of the most haunted places in the nation. It is open to the public as a restaurant, murder-mystery dinner theater, and bed & breakfast.

[edit] Tourism outside the city proper

The Butterfly House is located in western St. Louis County.

The Museum of Transportation is just outside Kirkwood, a suburb in southwestern St. Louis County. Many large steam locomotives, classic cars, a rare Chrysler Turbine car, and even a boat are some of the spectacles.

The Magic House, a children's hands-on exploration museum, and Worldways Children's Museum, an international children's cultural museum, are also in Kirkwood.

The Delmar Loop, in University City, just west of the St. Louis city line, is a popular entertainment, cultural, and restaurant district. This was named one of the top ten most famous streets in the country in 2007. Recently the Delmar loop is developing east into the city proper. Such things as Pin-up Bowl, The Pageant, and many restaurants have decided to locate in the City of St. Louis.

Grant's Farm is a historic farm located in South St. Louis County, and was once owned by Ulysses S. Grant. The Farm is now owned by the Busch family, who also own Anheuser-Busch brewing company. The Farm is free and open to the general public every summer.

The St. Louis International Film Festival runs for 11 days in November every year and is one of the top regional film festivals in the United States.

Six Flags St. Louis, known as "Six Flags over Mid-America" when it opened in June 1971, is an amusement park in Eureka, Missouri, in far west St. Louis County. It is one of the original Six Flags.

Saint Charles is the seat of St. Charles County and first capital of the state of Missouri.

Cahokia Mounds, located eight miles (13 km) east of St. Louis near Collinsville, Illinois, holds the ruins of a city of the ancient Mississippian aboriginal culture. Similar mounds within St. Louis, used as construction fill in the 1800s, gave the city one of its nicknames, "Mound City".

Alton, Illinois is a northern suburb with wineries, antique shops, golf courses, and bed and breakfasts.

[edit] Entertainment and performing arts

See also: :Category:St. Louis music

The Pageant, a St. Louis nightclub

The Opera Theatre of Saint Louis is an annual summer festival of opera performed in English, originally co-founded by Richard Gaddes in 1976. Union Avenue Opera, formed in the early 1990s, is a smaller company that performs opera in their original languages. Other classical music groups of note include the Arianna String Quartet^[18], the quartet-in-residence at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, the Saint Louis Chamber Chorus^[19], and the Young Catholic Musicians, a group for young choir and band members made up of kids from over 60 parishes all over Saint Louis.

St. Louis has long been associated with great ragtime, jazz and blues music. Early rock and roll singer/guitarist Chuck Berry is a native St. Louisan and continues to perform there several times a year. Soul music artists Ike Turner and Tina Turner and jazz innovator Miles Davis began their careers in nearby East St. Louis, Illinois. St. Louis has also been a popular stop along the infamous Chitlin Circuit.

Popular music and entertainment in St. Louis peaked in the 1950s and 60s due to the popularity of Gaslight Square, a thriving local nightclub district that attracted nationally known musicians and performers. This area was all but extinct by the early 1970s and today is the site of a new housing development^[20].

St. Louis is also the home to successful modern musical artists, including Living Things, Sheryl Crow, Gravity Kills, Story of the Year, Modern Day Zero, Stir, Strawfoot, Greenwheel, Ludo, 7 Shot Screamers, MU330 Lye and The Urge. In the 1990s, the metro area produced several prominent alt-country artists, including Uncle Tupelo — a Belleville, Illinois trio often considered the originators of the style, whose members went on to found Wilco and Son Volt in 1994 — and The Bottle Rockets. As of 2007 the alt-country scene has celebrated a resurgence, producing a burgeoning St. Louis Twang Scene, consisting of bands, burlesque dancers and roller derby queens. It is also home to local record label Big Muddy Records. Rap and hip-hop artists include Nelly, The Saint Lunatics, Ali, Murphy Lee, Chingy, Huey, Ebony Eyez, J-Kwon, Jibbs, and others. Around 2005 the indie rock scene in St. Louis really began to develop with bands So Many Dynamos, Jumbling Towers, Gentleman Auction House, and Victoria emerging and garnering national recognition.

The theater district of St. Louis is in midtown, which is undergoing a major redevelopment and building boom. This district of the city is known as Grand Center, St. Louis. The phrase can refer to the district itself (which is located within Midtown), or to the not-for-profit agency, Grand Center, Inc. (GCI), which possesses certain quasi-governmental powers and administers arts and urban-renewal programs in the area. The district includes the Fox Theatre, one of the largest live Broadway theaters in the United States, the Powell Symphony Hall, home of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, the Saint Louis University Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art, The Sun Theater (under redevelopment), The St Louis Black Repertory Theater Company^[21], the Contemporary Art Museum Saint Louis, the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts^[22], the Sheldon Concert Hall, the Grandel Theatre and many others.

The Muny (short for "The Municipal Opera Association of St. Louis") is located in Forest Park. Seating capacity for every performance is over 13,000 people with 1500 free seats. The Muny has completed its eighty-ninth annual season for the summer of 2007 with the production of Les Misérables. The theater is influential with Actors' Equity Association.

Fox Theatre

St. Louis is home to over 81 theatre and dance companies and one of the largest theatrical production companies in the U.S.A. known as The Fox Associates^[23]. Fox Associates, L.L.C., was formed in 1981 to purchase, renovate and operate the 4,500-seat Fox Theatre in St. Louis, Missouri. The Fox, which had once been at the center of the St. Louis "movie" theater district^[24], had been closed since 1978 and was in need of both a major restoration and new entertainment programming to elevate it once again to its rightful position as the major venue for entertainment in St. Louis. The restoration was completed and in 1982 the Fox reopened as a major entertainment venue for Broadway productions, country stars and rock, pop and jazz artists. It has since become one of the highest grossing theatres in the country. Today, The Fox Associates group has helped produce some of Broadway's biggest hit musicals and has been influential in St. Louis' theater productions.

[edit] Parks and outdoor attractions

Old footbridge in Forest Park.

Missouri Botanical Garden

Forest Park, located on the western edge of the central corridor of the City of St. Louis, is one of the largest urban parks in the world, out sizing Central Park in New York City by 500 acres (2 km²). It offers many of St. Louis's most popular attractions: the Saint Louis Zoological Park, the Municipal Theater (also known as The Muny, the largest and oldest outdoor musical theater in the United States), the St. Louis Science Center (with its architecturally distinctive McDonnell Planetarium), the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Missouri History Museum, several lakes, and scenic, open areas. Forest Park completed a multi-million dollar renovation in 2004 for the centennial of the St. Louis World's Fair. The Zoo, Art Museum, and Science Center are all world-class institutions. The Zoo-Museum Tax District provides them operating funds, so general admission to them, as well as to the History Museum, is free.

The Missouri Botanical Garden, also known as Shaw's Garden, is one of the world's leading botanical research centers. It possesses a beautiful collection of flowering plants, shrubs, and trees, and includes the Japanese Garden, which features a lake filled with koi and gravel designs; the woodsy English Garden; the Kemper Home Gardening Center; a rose garden; the Climatron; a children's garden and playground; and many other scenic gardens. Immediately south of the Missouri Botanical Garden is Tower Grove Park, a gift to the City by Henry Shaw. Tower Grove Park is one of the oldest "walking" parks in the United States, and hosts annual outdoor concerts free to the public.

The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial is a 90.96 acre national park located on the downtown riverfront where the city was first founded in 1764, and commemorates the westward growth of the United States between 1803 and 1890. The centerpiece of the park is the stainless steel Gateway Arch, which is the most recognizable structure in the city. It was designed by noted architect Eero Saarinen and completed on October 28, 1965. At 630 feet (192 m), it is the tallest man-made monument in the United States. Located below the Arch is the Museum of Westward Expansion, which contains an extensive collection of artifacts and details the story of the thousands of people who lived in and settled the American West during the nineteenth century. Nearby and also part of the memorial is the historic Old Courthouse, one of the oldest standing buildings in St. Louis. Begun in 1839, it was here that the first two trials of the Dred Scott case were held in 1847 and 1850. This park is also the location of the annual July 4 festival, Fair Saint Louis.

[edit] Sports