Welcome to the beautiful Gateway Arch, also known as the Gateway to the West.
The arch is one of the main features of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, together
with the Old Courthouse and the Museum of Westward Expansion.
The memorial area was founded in 1935 in honor of the third US President Thomas Jefferson
and the Louisiana Purchase.
The Louisiana Purchase was a deal Jefferson made between the United States and France,
were France sold much of today's central US to the newly formed country, which effectively
more than doubled the size of the United States.
While the memorial area has been around since 1935, the planning of the arch didn't begin
until after the Second World War.
In 1947, a nationwide architectural competition for the design of a new monument was held
which was won by the Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen.
His winning entry was what you can see in front of you, the massive Gateway Arch.
The construction of the arch itself began later in 1963; it stood finished in 1965 and
was opened to the public two years later.
During construction, both two legs were built up simultaneously.
The base of each leg at ground level had an engineering tolerance of one sixty-fourth
of an inch, or else the two legs would not meet at the top, so there was a need of great
engineering precision to make it work.
The construction team faced another problem when the time came to connect both legs together
at the top.
The sunlight hitting the south leg caused the metals to expand slightly, which prevented
it from aligning precisely with the north leg.
In order to solve this problem, the St. Louis Fire Department was called in and sprayed
the south leg with water, in which the metal cooled off and the two legs could be united.
The arch is made of stainless steel skin covering two carbon steel walls and it stands an impressive
192 meters tall and 192 meters wide.
While the outside of the arch is certainly impressive, one shouldn't forget its inside.
The interior of the arch is hollow and contains a highly unique transport system which leads
to an observation deck at the top.
If you look carefully at the top of the arch, you can see the observation deck's small windows.
The transport system functions as a combination between an elevator and a tram, with a 40-passenger
train made up of eight five-passenger capsules in each leg.
Each capsule rotates 155 degrees during the trip to the top of the arch.
When the capsule starts out from the lower zone the tracks are overhead but as it goes
up the arch the tracks then go beneath the capsule.
There is also a conventional elevator reaching halfway up and 1076 stepped stairways for
emergency use only.
A trip to the top and back takes around 10 minutes and I can highly recommend it, unless
you are claustrophobic or very scared of heights of course.
The view from the top is great.
On a clear day, one can see up to 48 kilometers, from the City of St. Louis to the west across
the Mississippi river and southern Illinois with its Native American culture mounds to
the east.
The entrance to the arch is from the underground visitor center, located directly underneath
it.
From the visitor center you can move to either base of the arch and enter the tramway through
its narrow double doors.
Under the arch you will also find the Museum of Westward Expansion.
The museum documents man's irrepressible urge to explore and the expansion of the United
States.
Make sure you don't miss this wonderful museum.
Throughout the years, the arch has been the place of several notable stunts and events.
More than 10 light aircrafts have successfully flow under the arch and people have been trying
to scale and land with parachute on top of it, more or less successfully.
Today, the Gateway Arch has become the iconic image of St. Louis and a gateway between western
and eastern US.
It is also one of the very tallest monuments in the whole US with its mighty 192m.
Majestic in its concept, magnificent with its surroundings and unique in its execution,
the Gateway Arch is something for history books.