You’ve seen it in movies, on postcards, or maybe through a bug-splattered windshield while driving across the Poplar Street Bridge. It’s huge. It’s shiny. But honestly, most people get the timeline totally wrong. If you ask a random person on the street when was the St Louis Arch built, they usually guess the 1920s or maybe the "modern" 1970s.
Neither is right.
The Gateway Arch wasn't some overnight project. It was a slow, terrifying, and mathematically absurd undertaking that spanned decades of planning and two intense years of actual "steel-on-steel" construction. To really understand when this thing went up, you have to look at the gap between the dream and the dirt.
The Long Wait: Before the First Bolt
The idea didn't start in the sixties. Not even close. Back in 1933, a guy named Luther Ely Smith looked at the St. Louis riverfront and saw a mess of decaying warehouses. He wanted a monument. He wanted to revitalize the city. But then, you know, World War II happened. Everything paused.
It wasn't until 1947 that the city held a massive design competition. This is where Eero Saarinen enters the chat. He was a Finnish-American architect with a vision that looked like something out of a sci-fi flick. Interestingly, his father, Eliel Saarinen, also entered the contest. The committee accidentally sent the "you won" telegram to the father instead of the son. Awkward.
Once they figured out Eero was the winner, you’d think they would start digging immediately. Nope. More delays. Lawsuits, railroad track relocations, and funding fights pushed the actual groundbreaking back to 1959.
When was the St Louis Arch built? The Timeline of the 1960s
The actual physical construction—the part where guys were hanging off the side of stainless steel triangles—happened between 1963 and 1965.
If you want the specific date for the history books, the first stainless steel section was set in place on February 12, 1963. The final "keystone" piece was squeezed into the top on October 28, 1965.
It was a nail-biter.
On that final day in October, the sun was out. This was a problem. Heat makes metal expand. Because the sun was hitting the south leg more than the north leg, the gap at the top was too small for the final piece to fit. The construction crew had to spend hours hosing down the south leg with cold water to get the steel to shrink just a fraction of an inch. It worked.
The Arch is 630 feet tall. It’s also 630 feet wide. That’s not a coincidence; Saarinen was a stickler for that kind of symmetry. The structure is basically a weighted catenary curve. If you take a heavy chain, hold it at both ends, and let it hang, that’s the shape. Flip it upside down, and you have the Arch.
Why the construction was a death-defying miracle
Insurance companies at the time were pessimistic. They literally predicted that 13 workers would die during the project.
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Zero did.
Think about that for a second. In the mid-1960s, these guys were working without modern safety harnesses in many cases. They were riding "creeper derricks"—basically massive cranes that crawled up the outside of the legs as they were being built. There were no interior stairs at the time. If you were working at 600 feet, you were really out there.
The precision required was insane. If the legs were off by even one-sixty-fourth of an inch at the base, they wouldn't have met at the top. Imagine building two separate skyscrapers and hoping they touch perfectly at the peak. That’s what happened in St. Louis.
The "Secret" Inside: The Tram System
Even though the exterior was finished in '65, the public couldn't go up yet. Why? Because nobody knew how to get people to the top. A regular elevator can't go up a curve. It would just crash into the side.
Saarinen reached out to Dick Bowser, a guy who designed parking garage elevators. Bowser had about two weeks to come up with a plan. He eventually designed a system that’s half-elevator, half-Ferris wheel. It’s a string of eight cylindrical pods. As the train moves up the curve, the pods tilt so the passengers stay upright.
The North Tram finally opened to the public in 1967, and the South Tram followed in 1968. So, if you’re asking when the Arch was finished in terms of being a tourist destination, the late sixties is your answer.
It’s Actually a "Stainless Steel Sandwich"
Most people think the Arch is a solid piece of metal or maybe concrete with a coating. Actually, it’s a double-walled system.
The outer skin is stainless steel. The inner skin is carbon steel. In between? Concrete. At least for the first 300 feet. After that, it’s just steel and bolts holding it together. This design allows the Arch to sway. On a really windy day, the top can move up to 18 inches. You won't feel it most of the time, but it’s happening. It has to move, or it would snap.
Visiting Today: What’s Changed?
If you haven't been to St. Louis lately, the whole area looks different. For decades, the Arch was cut off from the city by Interstate 44. You had to cross a sketchy bridge or walk through a dark tunnel to get there.
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In 2018, they finished a $380 million renovation. They basically built a "lid" over the highway. Now, you can walk from the Old Courthouse straight onto the Arch grounds through a massive grassy park. It’s way better. They also moved the entrance. You used to enter through the legs; now, you enter through a high-tech underground museum that tells the story of Lewis and Clark and the forced removal of Indigenous peoples from the West.
It’s a more honest look at history.
Practical Tips for Your Trip
If you’re planning to visit the Gateway Arch National Park, don’t just show up and expect to ride to the top.
- Book early. Tickets for the tram sell out weeks in advance, especially in the summer.
- Security is tight. It’s a National Monument. Think airport-style security. Don't bring your pocketknife.
- Claustrophobia check. The pods are tiny. You’re cramped in there with five other people. If you hate small spaces, maybe just stay on the ground and look at the museum.
- The View. On a clear day, you can see 30 miles in either direction. You’ll see the Cahokia Mounds to the east and the sprawl of St. Louis to the west.
The Gateway Arch remains the tallest man-made monument in the United States. It’s an engineering marvel that shouldn't really work, built during a decade of social upheaval and technological leaps. It stands as a weird, beautiful, and slightly terrifying gate to the West.
To experience the Arch properly, start your morning at the Old Courthouse to get the historical context of the Dred Scott case, then walk across the new park canopy to the Arch entrance. Give yourself at least three hours to explore the underground museum before your tram time. If you're driving, park in one of the garages on Washington Avenue and walk down; the riverfront parking can be unpredictable depending on the Mississippi River's water levels. Regardless of when you go, look at the welding seams on the exterior—those were all done by hand, a testament to the tradespeople who built this "impossible" curve in the mid-sixties.