Gateway Arch

At 630 feet, the Gateway Arch is both the tallest man-made monument in the Western Hemisphere and the tallest structure in Missouri, a stainless-steel catenary curve designed by Eero Saarinen in 1947 but not completed until 1965. It was built to commemorate St. Louis's role as the historic doorway to westward expansion, a doorway that, depending on your perspective, opened opportunity for settlers and closed it violently for the Indigenous nations already living across that land.

The park is the smallest by area in the entire National Park System, just 193 acres including the grounds, the arch itself, and the Old Courthouse a few blocks away, where the Dred Scott case was first tried before reaching the U.S. Supreme Court. A tram ride through the arch's curved legs to the observation deck at the top remains the single most popular thing to do here, offering a view over the Mississippi River and downtown St. Louis unlike any other in the city.

Come for the arch itself. Stay for the museum underneath it, which tells a more complete and complicated story of westward expansion than the monument alone suggests. Read the story, book your tram tickets ahead, and when you leave, mark it visited.