Cakes highlight St. Louis’ 250th birthday
Happy birthday St. Louis!
St. Louis celebrates its 250th birthday in 2014. Think about that. The United States of America was still “The Colonies.” It existed long before pioneers headed west to establish their own homesteads.
It’s amazing to think that one city could be that old, and only a few hours from Omaha. I realize that most eastern cities existed long before, but this is in our “neck of the woods.”
The St. Louis area is celebrating its birthday with a series of events, concerts and other activities.
Volunteers created 250 fiberglass birthday cakes that have decorated for the city or special reasons. They are being displayed around the Metro area.
When Lisa learned about the birthday cakes, she made it a goal to find as many as possible. After six days in St. Louis and no luck seeing the cakes, Lisa agreed that one would be nice to see.
Well, funny thing…
We went to the City Museum on a Friday. We did see a “cake.” It wasn’t decorated. It was plain white. The City Museum staff actually started painting it during our visit.
Our next stop was at Broadway Oyster bar for lunch. We sat down at our table. While scanning the room for things to look at, we saw it! An actual decorated StL250 birthday cake. It was stage left of the music stage.
My wife was happy. Which made me happy. Her goal of seeing a decorated birthday cake was met.
So, you think that would be it, then, right? On the seventh day (hmmmmm), we finally saw one. That would be it.
Nope.
We saw another one at the Old Courthouse over the weekend.
The St. Louis Arch had its own cake.
The Old Cathedral (a few hundred feet away from the Arch) even had a cake.
So, we went from couldn’t buy a cake to cakes aplenty.
Enough of the cakes.
St. Louis had a huge celebration planned Feb. 14-16, during our visit.
Valentine’s Day was supposed to be the mother lode. Concerts. Elvis tribute artists. Large Valentine’s heart structures that lit up in flames. Elvis would sing “Burnin’ Love.” A group of 250 people becoming engaged or recommitting themselves to each other. Lisa signed us up for the event.
Well, as we were getting ready to leave the hotel for the Art Hill area of Forest Park, affectionately redubbed “Heart Hill,” she received a text saying the event was postponed to the nasty weather. It was rescheduled for the next Tuesday. The day after we left for Omaha. Oh well.
Thousands of people attended the rescheduled event, according local TV news, Fox 2. About 350 people took part in the engagement/recommitment ceremony. The evening concluded with fireworks. Man, we missed out on some fun.
The Missouri State History Museum is celebrating the 250 years, too.
It has a yearlong exhibit recognizing St. Louis’ birthday.
The St. Louis “250 in 250” recognizes 50 people, moments, images, places and objects.
Among the people noted are: Marlin Perkins of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom fame; journalism pioneer Joseph Pulitzer; Stan “The Man” Musial of the St. Louis Cardinals; William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition team; Rock ‘n’ Roll legend Chuck Berry; dancer Katherine Dunham; and pilot Charles Lindbergh.
Objects on display include: Lindbergh’s flight suit, Berry’s guitar, Perkins’ camera, a gay pride flag, a World’s Fair bench, a Build-a-Bear teddy bear, a Dunham dress, a Browns uniform, as well as an old horse drawn fire engine.
Other events are planned throughout the year. If you are going to be in St. Louis this year, please check out information at www.stl250.com or www.explorestlouis.com.
So, happy birthday St. Louis. I’m glad I don’t have to be the guy to get the birthday cake for a metro area of 2 million+.
