It’s never a bad time to revisit a beloved St. Louis institution, but #Arch630Day on June 30 (a.k.a 6/30 to represent the fact that the Gateway Arch is 630 feet tall and wide) makes a perfect excuse to take the kids for a trip up, around, and through the city’s iconic national park.
“With the Arch approaching its 60th anniversary, St. Louis families continue to make a visit to the park a tradition,” says Pam Sanfilippo, program manager of Museum Services & Interpretation at Gateway Arch National Park. “Grandparents may remember seeing the Arch being built, parents remember their first ride to the top, and children today experience the park in new ways. For decades, parents have brought their children to the park to participate in educational programs and complete Junior Ranger activities to earn their Junior Ranger badge.”
Discover fun things to do with the family
Subscribe to the St. Louis Family newsletter for family-friendly things to do and news for local parents, sent every Monday.
Although the classic reasons to visit the Arch persist, recent updates around the grounds are additional motivation. “While the excitement of riding to the top of the Arch in the tram never gets old, the museum, grounds and the Old Courthouse have been revitalized, offering new opportunities for families to learn and explore together,” Sanfilippo adds.
Sanfilippo recommends these must-do activities for any St. Louis kid at Gateway Arch National Park:
- Take a tram ride to the top of the Arch to see views of the St. Louis area from 630 feet in the air.
- Experience more than 200 years of St. Louis and American history at the interactive museum under the Arch.
- Travel back in time to experience the 1850s St. Louis Riverfront in the Virtual Reality Theater.
- Commemorate your adventures at Gateway Arch National Park with a keepsake from The Arch Store.
- Grab a gavel or take a seat at the bench to experience recreated 1850s courtrooms inside the newly renovated Old Courthouse.
- Become a National Park Service Junior Ranger by participating in challenges at the Gateway Arch and Old Courthouse.
30 fun facts to teach kids about the Gateway Arch, courtesy of the staff:
- Standing at 630 feet, the Gateway Arch is the tallest man-made monument in the Western Hemisphere.
- It’s 630 feet wide at its base, which is the same as its height.
- The Arch is designed to sway up to 18 inches in high winds of up to 150 miles per hour.
- Construction of the Arch began February 12, 1963, and was completed on October 28, 1965. The north tram was opened to the public on July 24, 1967.
- The south tram was completed in 1968 and opened to the public on March 19, 1968.
- The Gateway Arch celebrates its 60th anniversary this year on October 28, 2025.
- The total building cost of the Arch was $13 million.
- Despite the complex and dangerous nature of the work, no workers died during its construction.
- The Arch is designed to withstand lightning strikes. It has a series of lightning rods on the top that are grounded directly into bedrock, and its interior is insulated. Thus, it is able to withstand the hundreds of lightning bolts that hit it each year.
- The Arch was designed by Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen in 1947. Saarinen died in 1961, four years before it was completed and never saw his design come to fruition.
- The shape of the Arch is a weighted catenary curve, which is the shape a free-hanging chain takes.
- The National Park Service changed the Gateway Arch’s designation to “national park” in 2018.
- Each leg of the Arch contains 1,076 steps for emergency use, but they are not accessible to the public.Each leg is an equilateral triangle, with sides that are 54-feet-long at ground level and taper to 17 feet at the top. The legs have double-steel walls 3 feet apart at ground level and 7-3/4 inches apart above the 400-foot level.
- Up to the 300-foot mark, the space between the walls is filled with reinforced concrete.
- Its stainless steel surface reflects the changing colors of the sky, making it a popular subject for sunset photography.
- The only former president of the United States to take the tram ride to the top was Dwight D. Eisenhower, on the North tram on November 13, 1967 (against the wishes of his security detail).
- The first steel section of the Arch was placed on February 12, 1963.
- The competition jury selected Eero Saarinen’s design of the Arch unanimously on February 17, 1948.
- The official dedication of the Arch was May 25, 1968.
- The Arch was listed as a National Historic Landmark on May 28, 1987.
- The design contest for the memorial opened on May 29, 1947.
- On June 17, 1965, the 60-ton bridging strut lifted 530 feet to connect legs of the Arch that are too high to stand alone during construction.
- Mayor Raymond Tucker turned the first shovelful of dirt for the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of the Arch on June 23, 1959.
- On July 14, 1964, Percy Green and Richard Daley protested at the Arch by climbing a 125-foot ladder on the north leg of the Arch.
- His Royal Highness, Charles, Prince of Wales (now King) visited the park and went to the top of the Arch, October 21, 1977.
- The last section (#142) of the Arch was installed on October 28, 1965. Water was used to hose down the south leg, allowing 45 minutes to jack apart the space 4 feet to fit the last section. Steamboat whistles sounded as the last piece was put in place.
- President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the executive order establishing the park as Jefferson National Expansion Memorial on December 21, 1935. At that time, no one knew what the memorial would look like.
- Dick Bowser designed the unique tram system for the Arch. After Eero Saarinen approached him, he had two weeks to develop a design.
- There is reportedly a time capsule hidden in the walls of the Arch that contains the signatures of more than 500,000 schoolchildren.
- Silas Grifton Garrett, Jr., a Black WWII veteran and U.S. Army engineer, is responsible for the light at the top of the Arch, which warns aircraft flying nearby. It was replaced with a more efficient LED in 2013, but the original remains on top of the Keystone exhibit in the tram lobby.
