Reached through a low glass entrance set into the hillside, this is one of the largest free attractions in the city, dug entirely beneath the lawn so the monument above can stand alone on open ground. Six themed galleries trace two centuries of westward expansion across tens of thousands of square feet, carrying visitors from Thomas Jefferson's vision through the era of railroads, with the experiences of Native nations and displaced peoples set squarely alongside the familiar settlers, soldiers, and traders. It first opened in 1976 and was rebuilt for a 2018 reopening that added the street-facing lobby, finally giving the park a real doorway toward downtown. The same threshold leads to tram boarding for the trip skyward. Entry costs nothing, though tram seats are timed and book out early.
See that low front of glass tucked into the hillside, where the lawn slopes down and disappears into the earth? That's the way in — the doorway to everything that lives underneath these grounds. Almost the entire Arch experience is below you right now, dug into the earth so the monument up top can stand alone on its lawn. Down inside is the Museum at the Gateway Arch, and it is one of the great free things in this whole city. It first opened back in the nineteen seventies as the Museum of Westward Expansion, and for decades it gathered the relics of the country's push west under one roof. Then it closed for a top-to-bottom rebuild and reopened in July of twenty eighteen — bigger, brighter, and with this glass storefront added on, so the park finally had a real front door facing the city instead of just a mouth in the hillside. Tens of thousands of square feet of new gallery space, all of it telling one enormous story: how a young country pushed west from this riverbank, and who it pushed through to get there. Walking in doesn't cost you a dime. Stay out here with me for one more minute, though — because this plain glass doorway is the hinge the whole tour turns on.
Photo: Antony-22 · CC BY-SA 4.0
