At The Crown
October 28, 1965
Crews used hydraulic pressure and even cooled sun-warmed steel to control the final fit before ironworkers eased the joining section into place6.
St. Louis, Missouri · Completed 1965
Gateway Arch
Rising 630 feet above the Mississippi riverfront, Eero Saarinen’s stainless-steel monument was assembled section by section. Now, for the first time, those 142 sections become 142 individual places in history, each available to be registered only once.
PUT YOUR NAME ON HISTORY.
- Choose one of the Gateway Arch’s 142 structural sections
- Register it in your name or dedicate it to someone special
- One section, one registration
- Only 142 sections available
The Gateway To The West
Why the Arch was built.
Conceived in 1935 for the historic St. Louis riverfront, the memorial was created to commemorate Thomas Jefferson’s vision of a continental nation and the city’s pivotal role as a gateway for westward expansion3,10.
The riverfront had long been a meeting point for trade, migration, and exploration. The Park Service presents that legacy in full: as a story of national growth and movement, but also of conquest, displacement, and profound consequences for Indigenous peoples3.
Saarinen’s Design
A modern form for a complicated national story.
A nationwide competition drew 172 entries. Eero Saarinen’s great stainless-steel curve was selected in 1948: neither an obelisk nor a classical dome, but a distinctly modern symbolic gateway at the Mississippi’s edge4,10.
1935
The riverfront memorial site was established.
1948
Eero Saarinen’s design won the national competition.
1963
Construction of the stainless-steel Arch began.
1965
The final section joined the legs on October 28.
54 ft
each side at base
17 ft
each side at crown
300 ft
concrete-filled
An Engineering Feat Unlike Anything Before It
Two legs rising alone. One exact meeting point.
The Arch follows a weighted catenary, not a simple parabola. Its equilateral-triangle cross section tapers from 54 feet per side at ground level to 17 feet at the crown1,9.
Each double-walled section uses a quarter-inch stainless-steel exterior and a three-eighths-inch carbon-steel inner skin. Reinforced concrete fills the space between them to 300 feet; above that height, the structure is hollow1,2.
The steel skin is not decoration. It is the structure.
The legs climbed independently, section by section. Engineers continually measured, ground, shimmed, and welded each new piece to keep the curves true. On October 28, 1965, the final section closed the 630-foot span2,5,6.
60 ft
foundation depth
252
steel tendons per leg
18 in
designed crown movement in 150 mph wind
Inside The Curve
A tram invented for the Arch
Dick Bowser devised rotating five-seat capsules because a conventional elevator could not follow the curved, narrowing legs7.
A Structural Record
Steel, concrete, and welds
Historic engineering records identify Saarinen’s design team, structural engineers, contractors, and the load-bearing shell that made the form possible2,8.
142 Sections. One Arch.
It rose section by section.
The Gateway Arch was not built as one continuous piece. Its two legs were assembled from 142 triangular structural sections, 71 on each side, progressively narrowing as they rose toward their final joining point1,5.
The Carve History Registry represents those 142 documented structural sections individually. It does not invent panel boundaries or subdivide the steel skin to create more inventory.
71
North leg
142
Total
71
South leg
PUT YOUR NAME ON HISTORY.
142 sections. One Gateway Arch. One place in its history that can be yours.
Choose an individual structural section and register it in your name, or dedicate it to someone special. Each section can be claimed only once.
Claim Your Section
Digital Registry $39.95 · Framed options available
In View
Gateway Arch
A temporary preview collection
Sources & Accuracy
References
History, dimensions, materials, section count, and engineering details are drawn from National Park Service, Library of Congress, and peer-reviewed sources cited inline.
Carve History’s ground-to-crown section numbers and approximate elevations are reconstructed registry conventions, not official National Park Service designations.
- 1.National Park Service. Gateway Arch Fact Sheet. Dimensions, materials, structure, and section count.
- 2.National Park Service. Gateway Arch Architecture: How Was It Made?. Foundations, engineering, and construction.
- 3.National Park Service. Gateway Arch National Park Purpose and Significance.
- 4.National Park Service. Report of the Jury of Award from the Architectural Competition. First round, 1948.
- 5.National Park Service. Materials and Techniques. Construction history by J.E.N. Jensen.
- 6.National Park Service. The Gateway Arch Celebrates 50th Year of Completion.
- 7.National Park Service. The Gateway Arch Tram System.
- 8.Historic American Engineering Record. Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Arch, HAER MO-40. Library of Congress.
- 9.Robert Osserman. How the Gateway Arch Got its Shape. Nexus Network Journal 12, 2010.
- 10.National Park Service. Gateway Arch Monument. Eero Saarinen and the memorial design.