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The Gateway Arch: A Biography The Story Of The Arch

940 Words4 Pages

Hannah Filatov

Both People and Objects Have Stories
People know St. Louis, Missouri for its monumental arch standing triumphantly next to the Mississippi River. Monuments impact people in a tremendous way, so they remember the monuments for their entire lives. Tracy Campbell wrote in The Gateway Arch: A Biography the story of the arch in St. Louis. Biographies usually describe a person’s life, but Campbell demonstrates that even inanimate objects can have a story too. To emphasize the arch’s value,
Campbell specifically writes about why people desired the arch, the arch’s creation, and the arch’s legacy.
Since St. Louis’ beginning, the riverfront has been a major factor in the city’s success.
Trading posts situated in the city and “building …show more content…

Also, the builders encountered a challenge regarding the two legs of the arch needing to be built at the same time and completed at the top in the middle for them to line up perfectly (132). To do that, the builders used revolutionary and dangerous “‘creeper derricks’, portable cranes that moved on rails up the two [curved] legs of the arch” (130). Despite numerous struggles across many years, the arch was officially completed in
1965 (151-53).
Continuing his complete story behind the Gateway Arch, Campbell describes how it was built. Details are important when learning about a story, and Campbell effectively gives many details regarding the arch. From the setting of the riverfront to the struggles and setbacks the builders experienced when actually building the arch, people can fully understand how the arch came into existence. Understanding people’s thoughts, worries, and triumphs gives a story a and thought during that time. they thought a monument would “save” h helps people recognize what was happening during the arc’s beginning and w o the foundation for the idea of an arch. The people of St. Louis wanted to improve them. Starting with a background histry o hat people wanted
their …show more content…

Despite these unfortunate results,
Campbell returns to how the arch is a monumental achievement that “can be identified by schoolchildren around the world” (171).
Campbell effectively yet somewhat depressingly concludes his narrative of the Gateway
Arch by explaining how it has impacted history. The arch is impressive, but Campbell points out the truth that the arch has not been as beneficial as people hoped for in the beginning. It has an ineffective park and blemishes. People wanted a monument that would help St. Louis become famous again. However, the monument itself has become famous while the city continues to just be another city in the Midwest of the United States.
Tracy Campbell desired to give extensive information about this wonderful monument that stands in St. Louis. Because Campbell gave many details and events that occurred in the arch’s lifetime, he further convinced me that studying this monument was important. He successfully gave the complete story behind the Gateway Arch by first describing the important riverfront that the city of St. Louis depended on, then to people wanting a monument to

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