The final piece of steel gets placed on the completed Gateway Arch in downtown St. Louis. The 630-ft. marvel caps a project first envisioned by architect Eero Saarinen in 1947. 

Based upon content from the book Missouri 365: This Day in Missouri History by John W. Brown, broadcaster and Missouri historian. Get your copy at Reedy Press. 

Photo credit: Highsmith, Carol M, photographer. Close-up view of the Gateway Arch, the symbolic gateway to the West although there’s a great deal of midwest to go before the west is reached and the centerpiece of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, St. Louis, Missouri. [Between 1980 and 2006] Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/2011634053/.