The Gateway Arch in St Louis

Every day hundreds of visitors to St Louis Missouri head for the Gateway Arch with one goal in mind: Go to the top!

On a recent trip to St Louis, I was just such a visitor.

To go up, first you must go down. The entry to the Arch is underground below the structure, in the Gateway Arch visitor's center. The center is home to two movie theaters showing a documentary on the construction of the Arch, and National Geographic's 'Lewis and Clark: Great Journey West', a gift shop, the Museum of Westward Expansion, and the museum store.

The Museum of Westward Expansion is as large as a football field. The museum is home to a large collection of artifacts and mounted animal specimenes. Exhibits also include several animatronic characters offering a wealth of information about the American west, and westward expansion.

Tickets to the top of the Arch are reasonably priced at $10.00 for adults, $7.00 for kids 13-15, $3.00 for kids 3-13, and free for children under 3. Trams leave every 10 minutes, and guests are allowed to stay at the top as long as they like. The trams are futuristic bright white egg-shaped 5-seater vessels with backlit seats. The vessels are boarded through 4-foot doors located on both the North and South legs of the Arch. The transportation system to the top was designed especially for the Arch and is one part elevator, one part train, and one part amusement park ride. The trip to the top takes about 4-minutes.

Once at the top, guests must climb a few stairs to the low, narrow room at apex of the Arch. Windows line the either side of the room, but are at such an angle that you must lean against the slanted, carpeted sides to see out, but offer spectacular views of both St Louis and the Mississippi River. The windows are double paned, so guests should remember not to use a flash if taking pictures! Guests are free to board a return tram at any time, guests may leave through either the North or South leg. The trip back down takes about 3-minutes.

Construction of the Gateway Arch was completed in 1965, after an arduous building process beginning with the ground breaking in 1959. The Arch was constructed in triangular sections growing consecutively smaller to the apex. At a towering 630 feet above the ground, the Gateway Arch is the tallest monument in the United States. Taller than both the Washington Monument in DC and the Statue of Liberty in New York. The design was the winner in a 1947-48 nation wide contest to which 162 entries were submitted by the top architects of the time including the winning design by Eero Saarinen. The Arch is designed to sway up to 18-inches in strong winds.