The American road trip had its golden age in the 1960s, when the new interstates made distance manageable and roadside America competed furiously for your attention with neon signs, giant statues, and promises of the world’s biggest, strangest, or most refreshing thing just ahead. Some of those stops are gone now. Many of them survived, looking more or less exactly as they did when your parents first pulled over and told everyone to get out of the car.
#1: The Gateway Arch (St. Louis, Missouri)
Eero Saarinen designed this 630-foot stainless steel curve as a monument to westward expansion, and it was completed in 1965 after years of construction delays. Nothing like it existed anywhere in the world, and families driving through St. Louis found it impossible to pass without stopping. The tram ride to the top offered a view that genuinely matched the drama of the structure below. It still does.
