Back in 1898, Pierre Chouteau (representing the Missouri Historical Society) began a campaign to bring a World’s Fair Exposition to St. Louis. Committees formed and plans were made, with Fair planners ultimately choosing Forest Park as the site for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. There was a stipulation, however, that Forest Park would be returned to a park after the Fair was over. Just one building could remain, the Palace of Fine Arts, which houses the Saint Louis Art Museum today. The Fair opened on April 30, 1904, to a crowd of 200,000 people. Read more »

At 12:15 p.m., on the afternoon of April 30, 1904, David R. Francis declared, “Open ye gates. Swing wide, ye portals.” With those words, the grandest event in St. Louis history was underway. Nearly 190,000 people ascended on Forest Park for the opening day of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, remembered today as the 1904 World’s Fair. Read more »

The International Olympic Committee’s decision to eliminate wrestling from the 2020 Olympics has left many athletes and fans of that sport worried about its future. At the Missouri History Museum, it left us thinking about the past and the unique role that St. Louis has played in both Olympic and wrestling history.

The 1904 Summer Olympics marked not only the first time the Games were hosted by an American city, but also the first time that freestyle wrestling made an appearance in the Olympics. Read more »

We just found out that old-time fiddler and friend of the Missouri History Museum Vesta Johnson will be receiving a Missouri Arts Award. The Missouri Arts Council presents the award each year to people and groups who “have made profound and lasting contributions to the cultural and artistic climate of the state.”

Vesta has been playing the fiddle since the late 1920s. She has become an ambassador for the kind of music that she grew up with and is helping to ensure that the Missouri fiddle tradition lives on. Read more »

One of the most recognizable features of the St. Louis landscape is about to turn 50. The James S. McDonnell Planetarium has become a symbol of the city since it opened in 1963, and the St. Louis Science Center is celebrating with a number of events, including one that we think may be of special interest to readers of History Happens Here. Read more »

I often tell people I have the best job at the Missouri History Museum. A big part of that job is interviewing fascinating people for our growing oral history collection. I have interviewed all sorts of people—activists and architects, weavers and photographers, test pilots and zookeepers. And on more than one occasion I had the great pleasure of interviewing Rose Church. Rose was a nurse at McDonnell Aircraft in the 1950s and ’60s, and when the company landed the contracts to build and test NASA’s Mercury and Gemini spacecraft, she became McDonnell’s first aerospace nurse. Read more »

Earlier this week, St. Louisans voted to return control of the police department to the local government, thus ending 151 years of state oversight. Most people wonder why the governor ever had control of the city police.[...]

Left: Members of the Jefferson Guard, a division of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police. Photograph by Byrnes Photographic Company, 1903. Missouri History Museum. Read more »

Actress and funny girl Phyllis Diller has passed away at the age of 95. One of the first successful female comedians, she’s best known for appearances in Bob Hope films and the TV show Laugh-In. Read more »

Archaeologists in Austria have discovered four linen bras that are 600 years old. This is an important find because until now it was believed that women did not wear bras until after the age of the corset. A bra was first patented in the United States in 1914.

The medieval bra is remarkably feminine and pretty, with lace details that suggest it was used for more than support. Corsets did not usually feature aesthetic details, so it’s curious that these old bras did. Read more »

Waddell & Reed and Ivy Funds have created an ambitious and unconventional acknowledgement of the firm’s 75th anniversary: in partnership with the National World War I Museum, a custom 18-wheel “big rig” truck has been transformed into a traveling gallery that will visit 75 communities across the country, stopping at a variety of local museums and cultural institutions to raise funds and awareness. Read more »