About the Gateway Arch Museum
The Museum at the Gateway Arch sits underground between the legs of the tallest monument in the United States, on the riverfront where St. Louis was founded. The site's history as a park began on December 21, 1935, when it was designated the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial to commemorate the Louisiana Purchase, the westward movement of explorers and settlers, the first civil government west of the Mississippi, and the slavery debate raised by the Dred Scott case, which was tried in the Old Courthouse a few blocks away. The idea came from civic booster Luther Ely Smith, who in 1933 looked at the run-down original riverfront and proposed clearing it for a memorial with "a central feature, a shaft, a building, an arch, or something."
Eero Saarinen's stainless steel arch, 630 feet tall and 630 feet wide, won a 1947 design competition and was completed on October 28, 1965. The visitor center beneath it, entered through a circular entry facing Fourth Street and the Old Courthouse, originally housed the Museum of Westward Expansion. A complete rebuilding finished in July 2018 produced the current 140,000-square-foot museum, and on February 22 of that year Congress renamed the memorial Gateway Arch National Park. At 192.83 acres (91 acres of landscaped grounds), it is the smallest national park in the system; it recorded 1,163,016 visitors in 2024. The whole district has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1966.
The museum is free. Six galleries, built with universal design and interactive elements, follow the story of St. Louis and the West from the colonial riverfront through the construction of the Arch. The 285-seat Tucker Theater, opened in 1968 and since renovated, shows the documentary "Monument to the Dream" on the Arch's construction every hour, and a Virtual Reality Theater (ticketed) places visitors on the 1850s levee.
Collections and Research Services
This is an interpretive museum rather than an archive, so researchers should treat it as context for the St. Louis story and look elsewhere for records. The Old Courthouse, reopened on May 3, 2025 after restoration, now has four new exhibit galleries on the Dred and Harriet Scott trials, the American judicial process, and African American life in St. Louis, plus two remodeled courtrooms and the restored rotunda; entry is free and no ticket is needed. The National Park Service's pages at nps.gov/jeff carry the park's historical background. For records of St. Louis families and buildings, start with our guides to free family history research and old city directories, and with the State Historical Society of Missouri, which maintains a research center in St. Louis.
Planning Your Visit
Visitor Center hours are Sunday through Thursday 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and Friday and Saturday 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., with the last tram to the top leaving an hour before closing; the park grounds are open 5:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. year-round, and the Old Courthouse is open daily 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Everything closes on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day. All visitors pass through security, so allow at least 30 minutes. Tram Ride to the Top tickets sell out early and often and should be bought in advance; the Arch legs are exits only. Riverboat cruises run March through November from the levee docks.
The preferred parking is the Stadium East Garage at 200 S. Broadway, two blocks from the park entrance off 4th Street, listed at $10 for the first five hours with a discount for buying online the day before. The museum and the Old Courthouse are wheelchair accessible, and the park map marks accessible routes. Current hours, combo tickets, and alerts are at gatewayarch.com. Two hours northwest on the river, Hannibal's Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum makes a natural companion trip.
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