Gateway Arch National Park United States

Legendary

A 630-foot tall arch stands above this park that commemorates the Louisiana Purchase and the Dred Scott case.

Photo by Steve Harbula

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This is the smallest national park in the United States. It's also home to the tallest monument in the country.

You can walk across the entire park in about ten minutes. Most national parks would take days.

It sits right in downtown St. Louis, Missouri, on the west bank of the Mississippi River. Skyscrapers stand on one side and a wide brown river runs along the other.

The park exists because of what happened here in the early 1800s. In 1803, the United States bought a huge stretch of land from France called the Louisiana Purchase, which roughly doubled the size of the country overnight.

President Thomas Jefferson wanted to know what was out there. He sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to find out.

They spent the winter of 1803 preparing at a camp just across the river. In May 1804, they set off up the Missouri River, and they didn't return until 1806.

St. Louis became the last stop before the unknown. People heading west stocked up here, which is how the city earned its nickname, the Gateway to the West.

The stainless steel arch was built to mark that history. Construction finished on October 28, 1965, and it rises 630 feet above the riverfront.

Two blocks west stands the Old Courthouse, and its story is very different. Over 300 enslaved people filed lawsuits there seeking their freedom.

The most famous was brought by Dred Scott and his wife Harriet in 1847. They argued they should be free because they had lived in places where slavery was illegal.

Their case was tried here twice, in 1847 and 1850, before eventually reaching the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court ruled against them, and the decision pushed the country closer to civil war.

In 1872, a woman named Virginia Minor also went to court in this building, arguing that women should have the right to vote.

Ride the tram to the top of the arch for a view stretching 30 miles on a clear day. Explore the underground museum, where six galleries cover Native nations, the fur trade, Lewis and Clark, and life in early St. Louis. Walk over to the Old Courthouse and stand in the restored courtrooms where the Scotts made their case.