Selfies

(which by definition means I’m in them . . . though you might have to look for me)

Extensive travel does not necessarily require days or weeks, or even physical miles. Without traveling more than a few blocks, one can discover thousands of miles and hundreds of years of history that converge along the original Route 66 downtown corridor in St. Louis.

At left in the photo above is the south leg of the Gateway Arch, the extraordinary achievement of modern architecture and engineering completed in 1963. It is anchored deep in the bedrock along the western shore of the Mississippi River. In the foreground of the photo is the International Fur Exchange Building, a last remnant of the fur trade upon which St. Louis was founded.

Long before there was a Route 66 there was a Mississippi River, centerpiece of one of the greatest river systems in the world. And long before there was a Gold Rush, or oil fields, or commodity exchanges there was fur trading, a booming economic phenomenon with vast international reach and influence. In 1764, smack dab in the middle of the Mississippi River’s continental connectivity, St. Louis was founded by Pierre Laclede as a fur trading hub. From there the city grew, and by 1900 had become the fourth largest city in the United States. In the 1990s fur trade was nearly forgotten. In 1997 the International Fur Exchange was 60% demolished by wrecking ball when Charles Drury stepped in to halt the demolition. While converting the building into a hotel, Drury was careful to save the original character of the architecture. His rescue also saved this important link to St. Louis and North American history.

From my location in front of the Drury Hotel/International Fur Exchange, reflection of the original St. Louis courthouse across the street calls to mind another significant piece of American history. It was at this courthouse that in 1846 Dred and Harriet Scott filed their suit for freedom. The case later went to the United States Supreme Court. And though the court’s 1957 decision was not in favor of the Scotts, it was a defining moment in the Civil Rights Movement, ultimately leading to the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth constitutional amendments.

In the early 1900s, St. Louis so dominated the U.S. shoe industry in the Midwest, the South, and the West that the New York based shoe company, Endicott Johnson, built a factory in St. Louis at the corner of Tucker (Route 66) and Spruce for fear of being squeezed out of the industry. The building’s ornamental brick and large arched windows (above) remain an attractive architectural feature of the city.

MEETING THE NEWS on the roadways of America, first-hand, real time, real world news—going out and discovering the news . . .

NEWS IN FRENCH: In 1764 Pierre Laclede handed over the enormous land clearing and construction project to be called St. Louis to a fourteen year old boy named Auguste Chouteau. Chouteau proved worthy of the task. As the new self-governed French settlement (under Spanish rule) grew, Chouteau’s descendants continued to be prominent leaders. So much so that in 1820, by their influence, the Missouri State Constitution was penned in both English and French versions (see French version below). Three of its signees were Pierre Chouteau (son of Auguste Chouteau), Nathan Boone (son of Daniel Boone), and Joseph Charless, founder of the St. Louis Missouri Gazette, the first newspaper published west of the Mississippi.

NEWS OF CONNECTIONS: Stretching from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico, the “superhighway” system connected to the Mississippi River reached into Montana and the Northwest via the Missouri River, to the Great Lakes, Canada, and on to the Atlantic Ocean via the Illinois River, to the original thirteen colonies and the Atlantic seaboard via the Ohio River and its tributaries, to the deep South via the Tennessee River, and to Oklahoma and Colorado via the Arkansas River. But one of its most important connections was the Osage River, heart of the Osage Indian Empire of central North America – a key partner in the international fur trade. The Osage Indians were the protectors of the Chouteau family and “Fort” St. Louis through both fur trading and marital partnership.