Route 50 in Missouri

It’s 272 miles on Route 50 between Missouri’s two major metropolitan centers, St. Louis and Kansas City. In the middle of the state, Route 50 passes through the state capitol, Jefferson City, where some fractious history took place.

In 1820 Missouri was admitted to the Union as a slave state, in tandem with Maine, a free state. This was the “Missouri Compromise,” which sought to keep a balance between slave and free states in the U.S. Congress. The compromise satisfied few, and by 1861 Missouri was claimed not only by the government of the United States, but also by the Confederate States of America, which was made up of states that had seceded from the union.

The start of the Civil War increased the urgency of both claims, and Missouri, unclear itself on what it should do, sent delegations to the congresses of both the Union and the Confederacy.

Meanwhile, there were weapons and other military supplies stored in St. Louis, at the St. Louis Arsenal. An organization of Confederate sympathizers, called the St. Louis Minute Men, coveted the weapons. A similar group of Union sympathizers, called the Wide Awakes, opposed the Minute Men. The legal and political wrangling over the arsenal included a variety of insults, such as “wicked minions” and “unconstitutional edicts of the military despotism.” Eventually, the Union sympathizers prevailed in St. Louis, but 125 miles away, Confederate supporters controlled the state capitol in Jefferson City.

The Wide Awakes were inducted into the Union army, joining troops led by Nathaniel Lyon, a fiery pro-Union officer. Lyon marched his troops on Jefferson City, forcing the Confederacy-aligned Missouri government to flee first to Boonville and then to Neosho, both towns in Missouri. In Neosho, the government passed an ordinance of secession, proclaiming that Missouri had joined the Confederacy. At the time, the legitimacy of this attempted departure from the Union was called into question (as it still is today by historians) due to a most prosaic question: Did the secessionist government in Neosho have a quorum?

Meanwhile, supported by Nathaniel Lyon’s troops, a provisional government favoring the Union took power in Jefferson City, giving Missouri two dueling governments. Ultimately, the Confederacy proved unable to control the state, and the secessionist government was driven into exile. It “governed” from Arkansas and then from Marshall, Texas, until the end of the war.

***

Was Nathanial Lyon really “fiery,” as I asserted above? Let him speak for himself, as he did to the Confederate state officials in Jefferson City:

“Rather than concede to the State of Missouri the right to demand that my government shall not enlist troops within her limits, or bring troops into the State whenever it pleases, or move troops at its own will into, out of, or through the State; rather than concede to the State of Missouri for one single instant the right to dictate to my government in any matter, however unimportant, I would [pointing at the state officials] see you, and you, and you, and you and every man, woman and child in the State, dead and buried. This means war. In an hour one of my officers will call for you and conduct you out of my lines.”

— Nathaniel Lyon to the governor of Missouri and his staff

___

The map of Missouri is from Google Maps.

St. Louis, Missouri — The Mississippi Riverfront

The Gateway Arch

The Gateway Arch rises on the bank of the Mississippi River in St. Louis. A museum in the arch’s base commemorates the 1804 Lewis and Clark expedition, which explored lands — prairies, deserts, and mountains — from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean. The arch’s name recognizes the St. Louis claim to be “the gateway to the west.”

The arch, the museum, and the surrounding grounds form the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. In 1803, during Thomas Jefferson’s presidency, a treaty effectively expanded the area of the United States by conveying the right to develop the territory explored by Lewis and Clark, and more, without interference from European countries.

France had long controlled European rights to these lands, then called the Louisiana Territory, and the treaty came to be called the Louisiana Purchase. It covered land in the Mississippi River’s watershed, west of the river. This is a huge area, as you can see from a map of the watershed, here. The rights of the Native Americans who lived in this vast expanse were not considered.

The centerpiece of the Memorial, the Gateway Arch, is the tallest arch in the world. Architect Eero Saarinen designed it in the form of an upside-down “weighted catenary arch.” In layman’s terms, this means the arch is the shape formed by a hanging link chain when the links are not all the same size.

Saarinen designed the arch in 1947, but construction didn’t begin until 1963. The two legs were built separately. To connect them and finish the arch, the tops were jacked slightly further apart so the final piece could be slipped in. This had to be done early in the day, to account for expansion of the Arch’s legs caused by the St. Louis heat. A movie shown in the museum shows the arch’s construction, including the insertion of the finishing piece. The movie also celebrates the fact that no one died during construction, despite the arch’s 630 foot height — a net was strung between the two legs to catch anyone who might fall. The movie does not mention whether anyone ever did, in fact, fall into the net.

The arch’s legs are hollow, and eight-car trams in each leg take visitors to a viewing area at the top. When you get there, you’ll be in that final piece mentioned above. The tram cars pivot as they ascend and descend, to keep the floors level and passengers upright.

The Eads Bridge

The Eads Bridge is one of several bridges that cross the Mississippi River at St. Louis, connecting Missouri and Illinois.

It was completed in 1874 and is named for its designer and builder, James B. Eads, who was an inventor and civil engineer. Early in his career, he designed and built boats and equipment used to salvage sunken river boats from the Mississippi. He came to know the river so well he was called “captain” by riverboat pilots. During the Civil War he designed and built ironclad warships used by the Union on the Mississippi and in the Gulf of Mexico.

After the Civil War, Eads turned his attention to bridging the Mississippi. The Eads Bridge was the first major bridge to use steel as a primary structural element, and when it was completed it was the longest arch bridge in the world.

The arches you see in the photos were considered a daring innovation. So daring that the citizens of St. Louis worried that the bridge might not be safe. To allay their fears, Eads arranged for an elephant from a traveling circus to be led across the bridge. At the time, it was believed elephants would not cross unsafe structures.

He organized a more convincing demonstration two weeks later, sending fourteen locomotives across the bridge at the same time.

As you can see, the Eads Bridge was safe enough to endure for over 170 years. It earned Eads a number of architectural awards, and is still in use today.

___

Photos by the author.

St. Louis, Missouri — Culinary Adventures

Toasted Ravioli.

Take meat- or cheese-filled ravioli, bread them, deep-fry them until crispy and golden brown, dust them with Parmesan cheese, and serve with marinara sauce, as above.

This may sound like more than one really needs to do to ravioli, but folks who have tried toasted ravioli tend to disagree.

Toasted Ravioli originated in an Italian neighborhood of St. Louis, called The Hill. As the story goes, someone accidentally dropped ravioli into hot oil instead of hot water. Who that someone was is in dispute, and several restaurants contest for the honor of having created the first toasted ravioli.

The toasted ravioli in the photos was served at Frank Papa’s, an Italian restaurant on Brentwood Boulevard — an excellent place to eat. But even if you can’t get there, eat Italian in St. Louis and order the toasted ravioli to start.

And then, if it’s summer, join the crowds for a St. Louis summer evening treat — a trip to Ted Drewes for frozen custard.

Ted Drewes is considered the originator of the concrete, a milkshake so thick it is handed to the customer upside down, with a spoon already in it.

These photos, taken at 9:30 at night, show what you can expect when you go there, which you certainly should, if you’re in St. Louis in the summer.

Today, Route 50 circles the city of St. Louis through suburbs to the south and west. The pictures show the Ted Drewes on Chippewa Street, which was marked as Route 50 when it was routed through the city in the past.

Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, Missouri

Laumeier is a large sculpture park in the St. Louis suburbs, with extensive outdoor exhibits. The sculptures in the park can be weird, as in the photo above. 

Or weirder:

Some are extremely large:

Some are human-sized:

There is a trail in the woods back of the park’s manicured grounds, and there are installations in there, too. Some can be climbed upon:

The park is only a half-mile from Route 50, and it’s free. Go there, and see what you can find.

Wildwood Missouri

Wildwood, Missouri

This is a lime kiln. It is in Rockwoods Reservation, a Missouri forest and wildlife conservation area in Wildwood, Missouri, just west of St. Louis and north of Route 50.

This kiln was built in the mid-1850s by a businessman who needed powdered lime to use in mortar for houses he was building in the area. It is 20 feet on a side and about 40 feet tall, roughly the height of a four-story building.

The kiln is at the base of a hill and is open at the top so limestone rocks could be dumped into it from above. Openings on the sides allowed firewood to be put inside. Burning the wood produced temperatures reaching 800 degrees Fahrenheit, which broke down the limestone rocks into powdered lime. The arch you can see at the bottom was used to shovel the powdered lime out.

The wood that was burned was harvested near the kiln. This resulted in clear cutting, and the trees you see are part of a second-growth forest.

The vertical line on the wall of the kiln is an expansion joint, allowing the walls to expand and contract as the temperature within changed. The kiln itself was built of the same limestone it rendered. To protect it from the heat, the inside walls were lined with firebrick brought from St. Louis. Firebrick is made from a type of clay, often mixed with minerals. It, too, is produced by firing in a kiln. Firebricks are still used today to help contain molten metals and in other applications.

This kiln is the lone survivor of several that were built in the area at about the same time.

Times Beach – The Story of an American Town

It is difficult to describe how uncomfortable summer can be in St. Louis. Hot and humid doesn’t really capture it. To understand, you have to be outside at 10:30 on a July night, when the temperature hasn’t yet dipped below 90.

As a result, St. Louisans have been determined in their search for relief, and this was especially true before home air-conditioning. That probably accounts for the success of a 1925 newspaper promotion: Buy a subscription, get a waterfront vacation lot.

The St. Louis Times owned land about 25 miles from St. Louis on a bend of the Meramec River. A gravel bar (think sand bar, but rougher) bordered the river, and the newspaper marketing department called it a beach. They laid out a town and named it after the paper: Times Beach.

The Times promoted the new resort hard, using headlines such as these:

The Sweltering Heat and Discomfort of the City
Are Unknown at
TIMES BEACH

Delay Means Disappointment
Opportunity is Knocking at Your Door at Beautiful
TIMES BEACH

YOU MUST ACT NOW — OR NEVER
The THIRD and LAST Section of Lots Now THROWN OPEN
at the
ST. LOUIS TIMES New Summer Resort

Promotional copy in the newspaper struck similar notes:

The Times invites you to enjoy its own summerland,
where dull care, heat and discomfort are unknown.

Never in the history of St. Louis have its residents
grasped so eagerly the chance to own a summer
place of their own in Nature’s own playground.

The lots were 20 by 100 feet, and of course they weren’t free. The terms looked pretty attractive, though — ten dollars down and $2.50 a month, total $67.50. For that, you got the land, membership in a community center, use of bathhouses, and a “mile of beach.” You could get there from St. Louis by train, bus, or car, although travel was by back roads until Highway 66 was completed.

Times Beach was hot, damp, and buggy, but people bought and built. The promotion was so popular the newspaper expanded it twice. Even so, the more savvy built their houses on stilts as a hedge against flooding.

Men who worked in St. Louis spent summer weekends at Times Beach and then returned to the city for the business week, leaving their families on the river. Almost everyone went back to St. Louis in the winter.

Eventually, the Great Depression and a post-World War II housing shortage turned the resort into a year-round residence, and by the 1960s it was a town, not a collection of vacation houses. But prosperity eluded Times Beach, and the fatal symptom of its economic condition was this: The town didn’t pave the majority of its streets. There were miles of dirt roads.

A dirt road gets dusty when it’s dry. It develops ruts when it’s wet. One way to control these problems is to spray the road with oil. In 1971, the city fathers retained a contractor who used waste oil for the job, and, unknown to town residents, that oil was laced with dioxins.

At the time, dioxins were regarded as one of the most toxic chemicals ever synthesized by man. Once absorbed into the body, they can remain in fat tissue for as many as eleven years, affecting “the immune system, the developing nervous system, the endocrine system, and reproductive functions,” according to the World Health Organization. Dioxins cause cancer.

Oblivious to the threat embedded in its streets, Times Beach joined the National Flood Insurance Program in 1977, which was a prudent move for a town on a flood plain inside the curve of a river. Unfortunately, coverage ceased in 1980.

Then came the winter of 1982, an apocalypse of water and chemicals for Times Beach. On December fifth and sixth, flood waters from the Meramec River washed over the town, reaching the tops of garage doors and even higher in some areas. Houses not on stilts filled with water. The river rose so fast that some residents left their cars behind as they fled.

The waters had barely receded, and residents were still coming to terms with the devastation and their lack of flood insurance, when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the presence of dioxins in the town. People were warned not to return to their homes, because it was unsafe to live where they had lived for years.

Strange medical conditions suddenly made terrible sense, and lawsuits proliferated. The town was declared a Superfund site, becoming part of the federal government’s “program to clean up the nation’s uncontrolled hazardous waste sites,” as the EPA put it. By April of 1992, every building in what had been Times Beach was gone.

In 1996 and 1997, the dioxin-contaminated soil was scraped from the ground and burned in a huge, factory-scale incinerator built where the town had once been. Eventually, the site was proclaimed to be clean — clean enough, in fact, for a state park to be established there.

You can visit Times Beach today, if you wish. Travel west from St. Louis on U.S. Highway 50 to Missouri’s Route 66 State Park. Cross the old bridge over the Meramec and go down the hill into the former town. When you do, you’ll see scenes like the one at the top of this page.

The lots have returned to woods and other flood plain vegetation. The streets are disappearing. There are no buildings to wash away in the next flood. As for the dirt on which you stand, the government says it’s safe.

Jefferson City, Missouri

In the middle of Missouri, Route 50 passes through Jefferson City, one of four state capitols on the highway. The others are Annapolis, Maryland, Carson City, Nevada, and Sacramento, California.

Jefferson City was named in 1821 for Thomas Jefferson, who was still alive at the time. Before honoring Jefferson, the Missouri legislature considered and rejected the name “Missouriopolis.”

Tipton, Missouri

On September 16, 1858, a stagecoach left Tipton, headed west. It was the first run of the Butterfield Overland Mail, carrying passengers as well as mail. It arrived in San Francisco on October 10.

Stagecoaches left Tipton twice a week, and the normal schedule called for arrival in San Francisco 25 days later.

(Let’s pause here for just a moment to consider the iron constitution of any who rode a stagecoach for 25 consecutive days.)

Inaugurated two years before the Pony Express, the Butterfield Mail was a big success. With relay stations, where horses and drivers could be changed, placed about twenty miles apart, the firm at its peak had 100 stagecoaches, 1,500 horses and mules, and 2,000 employees.

Tipton was chosen as Butterfield’s starting point because that’s how far west the railroad came from St. Louis. By the summer of 1869, less than a year after that first run, railroad tracks reached Syracuse, Missouri, some six miles further west. Butterfield immediately abandoned Tipton for Syracuse, taking prosperity with it.

From the looks of its downtown today (see photo), Tipton has never recovered.