Disturbed Lands

With its prime location near the confluence of two major rivers, the land that now makes up Gateway Arch National Park has been important to humans for many years. During that time, it has seen great change.

 

Early settlements in St Louis depended on the Mississippi river for transportation. The Eads bridge, pictured, allowed railroads to cross over the river in St. Louis for the first time. The bridge was finished in 1874.

NPS - Jen Clark

An ancient town

When French merchants founded St Louis in 1764, dozens of mounds made by Mississippian people hundreds of years earlier were already here. By 1841, the growing town had engulfed the mounds, though many similar mounds were preserved by the state of Illinois in nearby Cahokia.

An industrial river

During the riverboat era's heyday in the mid 1800s, dozens of large steamboats would travel up and down the Mississippi River, stopping where Gateway Arch National Park now stands to unload trade goods from the south/east and furs from the west.

In 1849, St. Louis’s great fire decimated the St Louis riverfront. Hundreds of buildings were destroyed in a single night, and with them, much of early St. Louis history. The resilient St. Louisans rebuilt using fireproof building materials such as stone and brick, and soon the riverfront was once again a booming port.

The riverfront falls to decay

The busy riverboat days on the riverfront did not last long. As railroads became more popular in the late 1800s, many local businesses switched their commerce strategy and began shipping goods overland on railcars instead of along rivers. Soon, the most vibrant business district of the city was no longer the riverfront; it was Union Station, a few miles inland. By the 1930s, most formerly crucial warehouses near the river had become second-rate storage sites, and fewer than 175 people lived there.

A new monument is built

Beginning in 1935, the riverfront area had its most dramatic transformation yet. It was designated the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial by executive order and its ownership was transferred to the National Park Service. The park service had big plans to revitalize the riverfront district with a grand monument to honor St. Louis’s role in westward expansion, but first, they wanted a clean slate. The buildings along the riverfront were demolished and the ground leveled.

Construction of the gleaming stainless steel Gateway Arch structure began in 1963 and was completed in 1965. Landscaping was not completed until decades later. As part of the CityArchRiver 2015 project, the National Park Service and partners have made further modifications to the grounds in recent years.

 

Since there has been substantial human activity on the St Louis Riverfront for hundreds of years, maintaining our park's gardens and tree-lined paths can be a challenge. We also contend with urban challenges such as heat island effects, poor soil, and pollution.

NPS - Sue Ford

Today

It is unusual for a National Park to have such a high level of human modification. Since every inch of the park has been heavily altered from its original state, our grounds and maintenance crew focuses on pruning, mowing, watering, fertilizing, and insect and weed control to help give desirable plants an advantage over undesirable plants. In addition to natural growing challenges like temperature and rainfall extremes, our urban location brings "heat islands" caused by concrete construction, poor soil conditions, limited space, and air pollution (though air pollution has improved in recent years).

Keeping the grounds healthy is a challenge, but it is one we are proud to take. Because the arch grounds are protected as a National Historic Landmark, Gateway Arch National Park staff will continue to preserve the beautiful arch grounds landscape into the future.