Lewis & Clark Trip Day 8: St Louis III (5/15/2021)

Saturday, May 15, 2021

Like Meriwether Lewis, we are still in St Louis gathering intel.

Gates of the neighborhood in St Louis where a couple
(who claimed to be "fearful for their lives") came running
out of their house to brandish guns at Black Lives Matter
demonstrators walking down their street; I think certain media
outlets reported this incident as "Blacks taking over suburbs"

Nearby is Forest Park, one of the top five parks in the country, that was created from the space used by the 1904 World's Fair in St Louis, also known as the Louisiana Purchase International Exposition.

St Louis Art Museum (1902-1903, by Cass Gilbert, for the
1904 World's Fair) with a statue, Apotheosis of St Louis
(1903, by Charles Henry Niehaus) (KSS) 

St Louis was King Louis IX of France

This lamp post has feet

Giant Three-Way Plug, Scale A (1970-1971, by Claes Oldenberg)

Venus Victorious (1914-1915, by
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, but produced by his assistant,
Richard Guino, since Renoir suffered from arthritis )

Two-piece Reclining Figure No. 1
(1959-1960, by Henry Moore)

Two-piece Reclining Figure No. 2
(1959-1960, by Henry Moore)

The Mountain (1937, by Aristide Maillol)

Hercules and the Hydra (1921-1930,
by Mathias Gasteiger)

Confluence (1964-1965, by Masayuki Nagare)

Remnants of the 1904 World's Fair in St Louis

Jefferson Memorial Building (1911-1913, by Isaac Taylor)
now houses the Missouri History Museum, for which
we had advance timed tickets; admission is free

Statue (1913, by Karl Bitter)
of President Thomas Jefferson

Gavel used to open the 1904 World's Fair in St Louis

Display gallery in the Missouri History Museum

Plastic debris illustrating pollution
of the Mighty Mississippi River

Twelve-barrel copper brew kettle (c 1850) used by
the Lemp Brewing Company that may have
produced the first lager in the United States

Representation of the "council office" of
William Clark when he was the Superintendent
of Indian Affairs from 1808-1838, responsible
for settling land claims of the First Peoples

The World's Fair Pavilion was built in 1909 with
proceeds from the 1904 World's Fair

The foot-long hot dogs at the St Louis Zoo's
Café Kudu was more likely 15 inches long!

Our purpose in visiting the St Louis Zoo (also requiring advance timed tickets) was to see some of the animals that Lewis & Clark "discovered," that is, they were the first non-natives to see them. We had a list of these creatures, but could check-off only a few. One animal was the grizzly bear:

Energetic Ursus arctos horribilis/Grizzly or Brown Bear cubs

Pongo abelli/Sumatran Orangutan;
he was munching on a whole onion

The Herpetarium was one of the
original buildings at the St Louis Zoo

Head of a Pituophis catenifer sayi/Bullsnake,
another Lewis & Clark "discovery"

1904 Flight Cage was constructed for the 1904 World's Fair
by the Smithsonian Institute as a walk-through aviary

Lewis & Clark would have seen Ardea alba/Great Egrets

But they "discovered" Aix sponsa/Wood Ducks (KSS)

A young girl is enthralled with the Cynomys ludovicianus/
Black-tailed Prairie Dog, another Lewis & Clark find

Black-tailed Prairie Dogs on sentry duty

Next a stop at Bellefontaine Cemetery in St Louis:

Mourning figure (by George Julian Zolnay) graces the
memorial for David R Francis, who was the primary
organizer of the 1904 World's Fair

Wainwright Mausoleum (1892, by Louis Sullivan)

Here we are at the William Clark Monument
(1904) at the site of his grave

William Clark's burial, with military and Masonic honors, occurred on the farm of his nephew Colonel John O'Fallon. Bellefontaine Cemetery later absorbed the gravesite.

Adolphus Busch Mausoleum (1921, by
Thomas P Barnett in Gothic Revival style)

Garden of Angels is a dedicated space for the
burial of children who died before age 2

Iris gardens line the area of the Garden of Angels

Finally, Calvary Cemetery, next door in St Louis:

General William Tecumseh Sherman

Memorial for Dred Scott, who sued for his freedom in 1847;
the initial trial was in the courthouse facing the Gateway Arch,
and the case ended up in the Supreme Court where the decision
was that Scott was not a citizen under the US Constitution
and could not claim the rights of a US citizen

Dred Scott's wife, Harriet, was also a plaintiff in the case

A grave marker in German

Founding Fathers Monument (2009) lists the
30 people who first settled in St Louis, and
are interred here having been moved
from various other cemeteries 

Nimíipuu/Nez Perce Monument (2003,
by Crystal White) honors Black Eagle
and Speaking Eagle who were part of
a Nez Perce delegation traveling from
Idaho to St Louis to see William Clark,
but became ill and died here

This Nez Perce story is etched in the base of the monument,
but tells only part of the tragic tale of the Nez Perce,
of which we will learn when we reach Idaho

Next: Lewis & Clark Trip Day 9.