Musings on St. Louis

This weekend, St. Louis had a big birthday bash marking 250 years since it was founded by two French men, Pierre Laclede and Auguste Chouteau, on February 15, 1764, near the confluence of the Missouri River into the Mississippi River.  In those years, it has played an important role in the development of the United States, especially as Gateway to the West, commemorated by the Gateway Arch.  And let's not forget about its serving as the first North American site of the Olympic Games in 1904, and all those good eats that came out of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition/World's Fair held there at the same time.

I have memories of St. Louis stretching back to my earliest years.  My Dad often went there for business, and there were some times when the rest of our foursome would head down to St. Louis to join him.  We also went there on one summer vacation.

I remember being a little nervous going up in the elevator to the top of the Gateway Arch, but getting quite a view once there.  We also toured the Old Courthouse, and ambled around all the shops at the Historic Union Station.

And I remember the one time we went inside the Regal Hotel, now known at the Millennium, which apparently just closed, according to Wikipedia, which appears to the south of the Arch in pictures of the St. Louis skyline from across the Mississippi River in Southwest Illinois.  We went all the way to the top, where there was a restaurant and 360-degree views.  (It was also there that I first encountered a piano that was programmed to play by itself, which puzzled me as a young child.)

Most recently, I passed through St. Louis while riding Amtrak's Texas Eagle line from Chicago to Austin and back for the 2013 AMS Annual Meeting.  The train traveled along tracks that gave us clear views straight at the city's skyline from the opposite side of the riverbank.

Here's to the fine city of St. Louis on its 250 years.

Here are a couple of different pictures I got of the St. Louis skyline while I was riding Amtrak's Texas Eagle train out of St. Louis, bound for Chicago, back on the morning of January 11, 2013.  Notice in the picture above the shadow of the Gateway Arch on the building behind its right side according to this photo's perspective.