Scavenger Hunt in St. Louis: Gateway City, Gateway to Discovery
St. Louis is the city that the Gateway Arch frames but doesn't fully represent. The Arch, the 630-foot stainless steel catenary curve on the Mississippi River, completed in 1965, is an extraordinary work of public sculpture and engineering, and it announces the city's ambition. But St. Louis is also the Tower Grove South neighborhood of Victorian houses and the finest park designed by Frederick Law Olmsted's firm west of the Mississippi, the Cherokee Street antique corridor, the Soulard neighborhood that has been a working-class French-American neighborhood since the 1780s, and the Forest Park cultural campus that hosted the 1904 World's Fair.
A city scavenger hunt in St. Louis reveals the layered city beneath the Arch postcard.
Best Neighborhoods for a St. Louis Scavenger Hunt
Soulard, the oldest neighborhood in St. Louis, established by French settlers in the late 18th century (the city was founded by the French in 1764) and named after Antoine Soulard, the Spanish colonial surveyor general of Upper Louisiana, has the brick rowhouses, the Soulard Market (the oldest public market west of the Mississippi, operating since 1779), the blues bars, and the general lived-in character of a working neighborhood that has maintained its identity through multiple generations of residents. The Anheuser-Busch Brewery (the original Budweiser brewery, the largest brewery in the world in the early 20th century, with tours available) is in Soulard.
The Grove / Forest Park Southeast, the LGBTQ-friendly neighborhood along Manchester Avenue, has the combination of Victorian commercial buildings, independent restaurants and bars, and neighborhood-scale street art that makes it one of the most energetic areas for a contemporary St. Louis scavenger hunt.
Grand Center Arts District, the performing arts corridor north of midtown, centered on Powell Symphony Hall (home of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, one of the oldest orchestras in the US), the Fox Theatre (one of the most extravagant movie palace interiors in the country), and the surrounding converted industrial spaces, is the formal cultural pole of St. Louis.
What a St. Louis Scavenger Hunt Reveals
The Questo city quest in St. Louis covers the city's role as the launch point for Lewis and Clark's 1804 expedition to the Pacific, the 1904 World's Fair (which introduced the hot dog and the ice cream cone to mass American culture, among many other things), the brewing history that made St. Louis the beer capital of America in the late 19th century, and the African American musical heritage that produced the St. Louis Blues style (which named the hockey team).
The Missouri Botanical Garden (founded 1859, one of the oldest botanical gardens in the US and a research institution of genuine international importance) is in the Tower Grove South neighborhood and is worth building into any south St. Louis exploration.
St. Louis Scavenger Hunt Tips
The St. Louis food scene is less celebrated than it deserves: the toasted ravioli (breaded and fried ravioli, invented in St. Louis in the 1940s), the St. Louis-style thin-crust pizza (served in square pieces, with Provel processed cheese), and the gooey butter cake (a St. Louis bakery staple since the 1930s) are all genuinely interesting regional food traditions. The Gateway Arch grounds and the Old Courthouse (where the Dred Scott case was tried) are free to visit and sit at the eastern edge of the downtown scavenger hunt area. Ted Drewes Frozen Custard on Chippewa Street is the canonical St. Louis summer destination.