Explore St. Louis

Want to feel like the leader of the free world? Cast your vote for a trip to St. Louis where you’ll be humming “Hail to the Chief” during a Presidential getaway.

An acclaimed Smithsonian Institution exhibition, The American Presidency, fills the special exhibit gallery at the Missouri History Museum in St. Louis from now through January 8, 2006. Other “presidential” St. Louis sites include two homes of 18th President U.S. Grant and the national monument to Thomas Jefferson’s dream of a continental United States – the Gateway Arch.

The American Presidency exhibition explores the office, the men who occupied it and their dynamic relationships with the public. Highlights of the exhibit include a dispatch case used by George Washington during the Revolutionary War, a microphone used by Franklin D. Roosevelt in his "fireside chats," and a formal gown worn by First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. Video stations examine life in the White House, the various roles of the president, the assassination and mourning of fallen chief executives, the presidency in the popular imagination, and life after the presidency. Photographs and graphics trace the history of the presidency from the creation of the office to the present day. The American Presidency offers captivating new perspectives on the job that is arguably the most powerful in the world.

Throughout St. Louis’ history, the office of the president of the United States has impacted St. Louis and St. Louis has influenced that office. Visitors to St. Louis can discover the city’s presidential connections by touring several free, historic attractions. The following highlights these great places to visit and offers some historical and fun facts about St. Louis’ relationship with those who have held the nation’s top job:

President Thomas Jefferson’s dream of a continental United States became closer to reality when he purchased the Louisiana Territory, which included St. Louis, from France for $15 million in 1803. Today, Jefferson’s vision is commemorated on St. Louis’ Mississippi River bank with a gleaming, 630-foot stainless steel sculpture known as the Gateway Arch. The Arch, now the internationally recognized symbol of St. Louis, is part of the 97-acre Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, a national park dedicated to America’s westward expansion and the movement that made St. Louis the Gateway to the West. More than 4 million annual visitors explore the Arch grounds which also include the Museum of Westward Expansion located beneath the sculpture, St. Louis’ Old Courthouse and Luther Ely Smith Square.

In 1843, young Second Lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant, fresh from West Point, was assigned to
St. Louis’ Jefferson Barracks. Grant was a frequent visitor to the home of his academy roommate Frederick Dent who lived on his family’s St. Louis County farm, White Haven.

There he met and fell in love with Dent’s sister Julia. Five years later, upon “Sam” Grant’s return from the Mexican-American War, the couple married on August 22 at the Dent’s St. Louis city home at Fourth and Cerre Streets. The young couple lived at White Haven until Grant’s military assignments separated him from his wife and young family. Grant dreaded the separation from Julia and the children so much that he resigned his commission and returned to them in St. Louis. Grant built a log cabin home on a 100-acre tract on the White Haven farm given to him and his wife by his father-in-law. He and his family lived there for three months until his mother-in-law Ellen Dent’s death after which the Grant’s moved back to the main family house.

Located 15-minutes from downtown St. Louis and open free-of-charge, White Haven is operated as the Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site. Visitors can tour the Victorian-style house and grounds and learn more about the Dent and Grant families’ lives at the interpretive center operated by the National Parks Service.

Hardscrabble, the log cabin home hand-built by U.S. Grant, can be seen from April through October at Grant’s Farm, a 281-acre animal preserve operated by St. Louis’ Anheuser-Busch, Inc. The free attraction also features a Clydesdale horse breeding farm, a petting zoo and animal conservation and skill shows. Incidentally, Grant’s cabin was moved from its original setting near what is now St. Paul’s Churchyard Cemetery to be placed on view as a major attraction at St. Louis’ fabled 1904 World’s Fair.

U.S. Grant sold cordwood harvested from his Hardscrabble farm at St. Louis’ Soulard Farmer’s Market. Produce, fresh meats, spices and flowers are available to modern day shoppers Wednesday through Saturday. In operation since 1779, Soulard is the nation’s oldest farmers’ market and a cornerstone of Soulard, St. Louis’ oldest neighborhood. Only minutes south of downtown St. Louis, Soulard is known for its brick row houses, blues music clubs, corner taverns and as home to the world headquarters of Anheuser-Busch, Inc., the world’s largest brewer. Soulard celebrates its French heritage each year by hosting one of the nation’s biggest Mardi Gras celebrations and spirited events to commemorate Bastille Day.

In 1861, U.S. Grant legally freed his only slave at St. Louis’ Old Courthouse, the building that was the scene of Dred and Harriet Scott’s historic freedom trial. The famous case, which started in 1847 at the Old Courthouse, focused national attention on the slavery issue. Scott won his case in St. Louis only to have the Supreme Court overturn the lower court’s ruling, denying Scott and his wife Harriet their freedom on the grounds that they were not U.S. citizens and, therefore, not entitled to sue. Visitors can tour the historic courtroom and St. Louis history galleries and participate in National Park Service ranger-led reenactments of the famed Dred Scott trial.

Thanks to President Theodore Roosevelt, the “lights were shining” in St. Louis on April 30, 1904. That day, through the magic of turn-of-the-century public relations, from the East Room of the White House, T.R. “turned the key” which officially opened the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. Roosevelt visited the St. Louis fair on November 26, 1904 to be greeted by more than 200,000 cheering fairgoers. An on-going, free exhibit about the 1904 World’s Fair is on view at the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park. An avid outdoorsman, Roosevelt was most pleased that the first Olympic Games ever staged in the United States were taking place in St. Louis in conjunction with the fair. The games were held at Washington University stadium which is now known as Francis Field in honor of David R. Francis, the St. Louis civic leader who was the president and director of the famous fair. You can see the historic field, which is still in use, at Skinker Avenue and Big Bend Boulevard, just west of Forest Park.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the recipient of a true St. Louis-style gift in 1934. The first case of post-prohibition Budweiser was delivered to FDR at the White House via the Budweiser eight-horse hitch. The now famous draft horses and signature red wagon were presented to the St. Louis-based brewery’s owner by his son August A. Busch Jr. Since that day, the Clydesdales have become synonymous with Anheuser-Busch and St. Louis, appearing in commercials and at major events and parades throughout the country. Visitors can tour the famous brewery’s headquarters in St. Louis throughout the year. The complimentary Anheuser-Busch Brewery Tour includes a stop at the Clydesdale stables.

“This is one for the books.” So said Missouri’s-own President Harry S Truman when presented with the infamous newspaper bearing the headline, “Dewey Defeats Truman.” The celebrated
photograph of a victorious Truman raising the erroneous Chicago Daily Tribune was taken on the back of a train car at St. Louis Union Station on November 3, 1948. Once the world’s busiest passenger train station, St. Louis Union Station has found new life as a festival marketplace of shops, restaurants, nightclubs, a man-made lake complete with paddleboats and the luxurious Hyatt Regency St. Louis hotel. The image of Harry Truman casts a glow from a neon sculpture along a building front in downtown St. Louis on Olive Street between 9th and 10th streets.