The spectacular stainless steel Gateway Arch (630 feet high), was designed by architect Eero Saarinen for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial and is symbolic of Missouri as the "gateway to the West", in commemoration of the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1804-1806. Beneath the Arch is the earliest church in St. Louis, the Roman Catholic Church known as the Old Cathedral. The property on the waterfront was set aside for religious purposes by Pierre Laclede Linguest, a french fur trader, in the spring of 1764 when he founded the village of St. Louis. This church was built between 1831 and 1834 on the same site of the first wooden church built in 1764.
The spectacular stainless steel Gateway Arch (630 feet high), was designed by architect Eero Saarinen for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial and is symbolic of Missouri as the "gateway to the West", in commemoration of the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1804-1806. Beneath the Arch is the earliest church in St. Louis, the Roman Catholic Church known as the Old Cathedral. The property on the waterfront was set aside for religious purposes by Pierre Laclede Linguest, a french fur trader, in the spring of 1764 when he founded the village of St. Louis. This church was built between 1831 and 1834 on the same site of the first wooden church built in 1764.