St. Louis History Tour

St. Louis Featured Attractions

Anheuser-Busch Brewery offers 2-hour tours of the Clydesdale stables, brew-house, and packaging plant. The Gateway Arch is an inverted catenary of gleaming stainless steel that soars 630 feet above the site of Pierre Laclede’s house and trading post. It commemorates what was the gateway to the West for thousands of 19th-century pioneers. Designed by Eero Saarinen, the memorial is 75-feet higher than the Washington Monument and required 886 tons of stainless steel. A tram carries visitors to an observation deck at the top of the arch.

Cahokia Mounds State Park contains the remains of the most sophisticated prehistoric native civilization north of Mexico on a 2,200-acre site. Cahokia was inhabited from A.D. 700 to 1400 and covered nearly six square miles with 10-20,000 people living here. The fate of the Cahokians and their city is unknown. Depletion of resources, climate change, war, or disease may have taken their toll.

Grant’s Farm contains a cabin built in 1856 by Ulysses S. Grant on land he once farmed. On the 281-acre tract, operated by Anheuser-Busch Co., are a Clydesdale stallion stable and paddock, miniature zoo, trophy room, carriage collection, animal feeding area, deer park and elephant and bird shows.

Laclede’s Landing on the riverfront is the site of the city’s original settlement. The 19th-century, nine square block district filled with cobblestone streets and cast-iron street lamps and buildings, is an entertainment district offering small shops and unusual restaurants.

Lewis & Clark: Imagining the Expedition from St. Louis an interactive exhibit featuring written accounts, fine art, and artifacts from the St. Louis and Camp River Dubois preparation period.

Shopping – Union Station St. Louis began as a marketplace for the continent; furs and food were exchanged for goods from the East and Europe. The embodiment of this role was the city’s Union Station, a continental crossroads of mammoth proportions catering to some 300 trains and tens of thousands of passengers daily. Passengers no longer throng the vaulted Grand Hall, and trains no longer thunder in the shed. Instead, specialty stores, festive markets and a hotel fill its cavernous space and have restored Union Station as a downtown landmark and made it a centerpiece of several marketplaces.

Six Flags St. Louis has more than 100 rides, shows and attractions. Rides include Batman The Adventure, Ninja, Screamin’ Eagle and Mine Train roller coasters; Tidal Wave, Thunder River and Log Flume water rides; and Colossus, the giant ferris wheel.

St. Louis Cathedral is an example of Byzantine and Romanesque architectural styles. Work on the marble and glass mosaics covering the church walls and ceiling was begun in 1912.

St. Louis Science Center allows over 700 hands-on explorations of such diverse topics as cosmology, space science, medical technology and development, ecology and aviation. Watch spectacular films in the 4-story Omnimax Theatre. See what its like to work on the Boeing Space Station in the Planetarium.

St. Louis Zoo creates a naturalistic setting of bluffs, glades and lakes for more than 3,600 wild animals. Visit the Penguin & Puffin Coast, River’s Edge, The Wild, Discovery Corner, Historic Hill and Red Rocks. The Fragile Forest provides a breathtaking look at chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas in their new outdoor home. The 1904 World’s Fair Flight Cage purchased after the fair ended was the impetus for the development of the zoo. With the creation of the Cypress Swamp, you are transformed into a world of mystery that is full of life both above and below the waters surface.

Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher Cruises at the base of the Gateway Arch, offer 1-hour narrated trips on the Mississippi River aboard replicas of 19th-century steamboats.

Enjoy Your St. Louis History Tour