The oldest building on the tour and the lone survivor of the forty blocks cleared to raise the memorial, this stone church is the Basilica of Saint Louis, King of France, widely known as the Old Cathedral. Completed between 1831 and 1834, it was the first cathedral west of the Mississippi, and a church has stood on this exact block since 1764, when French traders founded the settlement that grew into the city. Its plain Federal style facade and slender steeple stand in quiet contrast to the steel curve behind it. Still an active parish, its doors are usually open to visitors, and a small museum tells the founding story. A two century thread of continuity on ground where almost everything else was demolished.
This stone church is the oldest building you'll pass all day — and the only one on its block the bulldozers left standing. This is the Basilica of Saint Louis, King of France, though just about everyone here calls it the Old Cathedral. The church in front of you went up between eighteen thirty-one and eighteen thirty-four — the first cathedral west of the Mississippi. But the ground beneath it goes back further. In seventeen sixty-four, a French trader named Pierre Laclède came ashore here to plant a fur-trading post, and he sent his stepson on ahead to start clearing the land — Auguste Chouteau, all of about fourteen years old, swinging the first axes of a city that didn't have a name yet. They set this very block aside for a church, and a church has stood on it ever since. That little river village grew into St. Louis. And when the country decided to raise a monument to going west, it cleared close to forty blocks of the old riverfront to make room — homes, warehouses, whole streets, gone. Every building on this ground came down but this one. So before we walk out under that arch of steel, give this corner a second. This is where the whole thing started — a boy with an axe and a church on a block — two centuries before anyone dreamed up a gateway to anywhere. It's still a working parish, by the way; the doors are usually open. When you're ready, follow the path toward the Arch.
Photo: Panini! · CC0
