Missouri is having a birthday this year, and it’s a pretty big one: The Show-Me State turns 200 on August 10. To celebrate the occasion, this weekend’s Hodiamont Greenway Street Art Festival & Ice Cream Social will feature performances, art, and ice cream.
“Let’s start with the ice cream—lots and lots of ice cream,” says Sandy Brooks, executive director of the St. Louis Arts Chamber of Commerce. “We popularized the ice cream cone in 1904—we need to do that again.”
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In fact, the event is going to include an attempt to set a new Guinness World Record for the largest ice cream social, which involves lots of paperwork and record-keeping, Brooks explains. (Social media posts will help with verification, so snap selfies for posterity.)
Alongside artisanal ice cream chain The Baked Bear, Park Hills-based Bold Spoon Creamery—a family-owned business specializing in small-batch ice cream featuring local ingredients—will be on hand. (“They have the most amazing roasted peach homemade ice cream,” Brooks says.)
It’s more than just sweet treats, of course. While you’re walking off all that ice cream, catch performances from Circus Harmony, St. Louis Shakespeare Festival, Consuming Kinetics Dance Company, and more. Saint Louis Story Stitchers and The Magic House will also be part of the mix. Get a safety checkup for your bike. And if you haven’t been vaccinated, there will be a few on-the-spot vaccination stations.
The event will span 6 miles, from Grand Center to the Delmar Loop along Hodiamont Tracks, once a streetcar and bus route. The Arts Chamber of Commerce is planning to develop vacant lots adjacent to the tracks as art spaces, and Great Rivers Greenway is working on transforming the thoroughfare into a greenway.
The Cabanne Library is located near the tracks, and the building dates back to 1907. “We’ve been in the neighborhood a long time,” says branch manager Carrie Dietz. “Being near the Hodiamont Tracks, we definitely wanted to participate.” The library will offer ice cream–themed buttons and a Cabanne Library–themed coloring bookmark for patrons to take.
Grab your walking shoes and eating pants, and wish the state a happy birthday this Saturday, August 7, from 10 a.m.–2 p.m.
