St. Louis Gateway Arch Description

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St. Louis was founded by traders moving north and south on the river, and by explorers and frontier families from the eastern states pushing restlessly west. It is a place that is neither northern nor southern, neither eastern nor western, but the one place that combines traits of all. It has been both a destination and a gateway to other lands. The Arch is the place where a nation reached the great river and halted, staring across the water into wide, wild lands. In St. Louis, the United States ended and the wild began. So it was here that the citizens of the young United States traveled across and into the western territories, first with Lewis and Clark and then with countless others. It all began from a wide bend on the continent’s mightiest…show more content…
An interesting fact about the windows is the reason they are so small. Over 500 tons of pressure was used to jack the north and south legs of the Arch apart for the last four-foot piece to be placed at the top. A larger window would not withstand that pressure. On a clear day the view at the top can extend up to thirty miles in either direction, however, St. Louis can be a very hazy city which reduces visibility at the top. On cool, damp mornings a dense fog can create zero visibility at the top. The St. Louis Gateway Arch featured many things that had never been done before. One of which was the way in which they placed the massive pieces on top of each other. To master this, the crew invented a new machine called the derrick which was a rotating crane that climbed the curved structure placing piece by piece. Another innovation was the underground museum known as the Museum of Westward Expansion. This was not the first museum but rather the first underground museum. Overall, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis is a massive, unique, and meaningful structure for the United States and took many special people and objects to complete. This “building” is one of the best in the
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