St. Louis is a city with a rich history and a vibrant present. Located on the eastern edge of Missouri, where the Mississippi and Missouri rivers meet, St. Louis is renowned for its steamboats, the 1904 World's Fair, the Gateway Arch, its unique foods, and its music scene.
From breweries, baseball and shoe factories to sculpture gardens and historic landmarks, St. Louis has something for everyone. The city was established as a city in the 1760s by French merchants. There was confusion about which colonial government was in charge of it, the Spanish or the French, until 1800 when France officially took control just before selling it to the United States in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase.
Louis was the westernmost city in the new territory and became known as the “Gateway to the West”, a nickname that is perpetuated today in the famous Gateway Arch. Lewis and Clark also launched their expedition from St. Louis. The 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis was a place of firsts, including the first appearances of many technological devices, but one of the most beloved and still useful inventions that were introduced at the fair was the ice cream cone.
Although a New Yorker invented the cone in 1896, it was created independently in the St. Louis Fair, where it became popular. To make the creamy dessert more portable (and tasty) for customers, an ice cream vendor bought waffles from a pastry chef next door, wrapped them in a cone shape and voila, a practical edible container. The story of Dred Scott in St. Louis inspires much less pride than the Gateway Arch.
Scott was a slave who had been brought by his owner from Missouri, a slave state, to live in Illinois and then Wisconsin where slavery was illegal. Scott and his wife unsuccessfully sued for their freedom in Missouri at the Old Courthouse in St. Louis in 1846 on the grounds that their residence in Illinois and Wisconsin had freed them from slavery. The case reached the Supreme Court which ruled that slaves who had resided in a free state or territory were therefore not entitled to their freedom and moreover that African Americans could never be citizens of the United States. St.
Louis is home to Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc., founded in the 1860s by German immigrants Eberhard Anheuser and Adolphus Busch. Today visitors can tour the original brewery in St. Louis and visit the world famous Clydesdale draft horses in their 1885 brick and stained glass stable. Educator Susan Blow who was born in Carondelet (now part of St. Louis) was very interested in German educational ideas, particularly those of Friedrich Froebel who had established revolutionary methods for teaching young children.
Froebel had established a nursery school in Prussia originally called Child Nurture and Activity Institute which was later renamed Kindergarten or “Children's Garden”. He called it “a school for the psychological training of young children through play”.After studying with a Froebel disciple in New York for a year Blow opened the first public daycare center in the United States at Des Peres School in St. Louis in September 1873. The following year he established a training school for kindergarten teachers and within a few years St. Louis had become the focal point of kindergarten education in the United States. In its more than 200-year history St.
Louis and its people have achieved much in art architecture culture athletics music and food.
What is St. Louis Known For?
St. Louis is known for its steamboats, the 1904 World's Fair, the Gateway Arch, its unique foods, and its music scene.The Eads Bridge
Before construction of the Gateway Arch The Eads Bridge was an enduring symbol of St. Louis built in 1874 it straddles the Mississippi River connecting St.Louis Missouri with East St. Louis Illinois “was the world's first arched steel truss bridge and an important connection for commerce in eastern United States” The bridge still stands today with a railway line and road for car traffic.
