Jefferson National Expansion Memorial or the great ‘Gateway Arch’ at St. Louis, Missouri is aptly called America’s gateway to the west.

I had visited St. Louis for presenting a paper in a conference in October 2006. And not to miss out on the city’s great icon, the Arch, I headed there on a bright sunny morning after the conference. I took an underground metro train and disembarked at Laclede’s Landing station. A good 10-minute walk through the park brought me to the northern base of the Arch. Underneath the Arch, a visitor descends to an expansive Visitor Center comprising a 45,000 sq. ft. Museum of Westward Expansion with two auditoria (Tucker and Odyssey Theaters).

The Tucker Theater shows a half-hour long documentary, ‘Monument to the dream’ filmed during various stages of the Arch’s construction. The Visitor Center also houses the Museum Store selling Arch memorabilia. And there is Levee Mercantile General Store, which takes one back to St. Louis of 1870s with its vends of hearth-baked bread, muffins, cheese, sausages, kettle corn, pretzels et al giving the flavour of regio-ethnic specialities of the period. The combined ticket for the documentary at Tucker Theater and tram ride to the viewing gallery at the top of the Arch cost $11.00. Any description of the ‘Gateway Arch’ would be incomplete without touching upon the great American visionary Thomas Jefferson, who became the 3rd President of USA and remained in the office during 1801 to 1809.

President Thomas Jefferson belonged to the club of astute politicians and nation builders, who contributed immensely to the shaping of modern America. He was truly a personality with multifarious talents – he was an agriculturalist, horticulturist, architect & archaeologist, author, inventor and also the founder of the University of Virginia. As the greatest tribute to President Jefferson, President John F. Kennedy, while welcoming forty-nine Nobel laureates for a dinner at the White House in 1962, remarked, “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone!”

An important milestone for Jefferson’s Presidency has been the famous Louisiana Purchase, the acquisition of 530 million acres of land (over 22% of today’s US territory) from France in 1803. This was catalytic to the expansion of American frontiers to the west all the way to Pacific coast. When the US Federal Government decided to erect a befitting national monument in the memory of President Jefferson in 1935, the riverfront of St. Louis was selected as the ideal spot. A nationwide design competition held in 1947, selected the concept of an inverted steel catenary’s arch by architect, Eero Saarinen.

As the competition results were announced, the official notification went to Eero’s father, architect Eliel Saarinen, who had also taken part in the design competition. As Saarinen Sr. was busy celebrating the feat, an embarrassed official informed that the award had actually gone to the younger Saarinen. The rejoicing father immediately opened another bottle of champagne to celebrate the son’s achievement! The Arch was constructed during February 1963 to October 1965 with less than $15 million. An engineering marvel by all means, the stainless steel faced Arch towers 630 ft. above the banks of Mississippi river and spans 630 ft. between the outer faces of its triangular legs. As the Arch neared its completion, engineers planned placing of the keystone at night to avoid the thermal expansion of the steel structure during the day. But the civic authorities thought otherwise; they wanted to have a gala public ceremony on the occasion.

Several fire engines were pressed into the service to spray water onto the south leg of the Arch to cool it to enable the keystone to be placed in full public view. After a claustrophobic journey in a tram capsule of five ft. diameter, I reached the viewing gallery: a narrow space measuring 65 ft. long, 7 ft. wide and less than 7 ft. in height with several windows on eastern & western sides of the Arch. And it was worth all the troubles – the view from the top was breathtaking! On the east lay the great river Mississippi with three majestic bridges crossing over. On the west, one can have a grand view of the Old Courthouse and the gorgeous downtown of St. Louis dotted with many high-rises, all dwarfed by the towering Arch. Gateway Arch is truly a statement of progress of human civilization, of modern technology and knowledge!

Standing atop the Arch, I remembered the famous film, ‘How the West was won’ watched many years ago.