St. Louis is home to World Chess Hall of Fame

The best minds in chess have a spot in St. Louis.

The World Chess Hall of Fame calls the Gateway City home. What started out as an American Hall of Fame has blossomed into THE Hall of Fame for chess greats.

The Hall of Fame inducted several of the greatest men and women ever to play in the world. There are 19 people inducted in the World Hall of Fame. The US Hall of Fame has 52 members.

Bobby Fischer, Boris Spasky, Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov are enshrined here.

The United States Chess Hall of Fame opened in 1988 in New York. It later moved to Washington, DC, and Miami before its current location in St. Louis.

The World Chess Hall of Fame opened in 2011. It is located in the Central West End, a few blocks from the famous Forest Park district.

The museum has a giant chess board and large pieces that normally sit out front for visitors to view. However, on the day we visited, the pieces were inside because snow covered the world’s largest chess board.

We toured the third floor exhibit area. This area is free to the public. It has classic and unique chess pieces on display. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to photograph anything on the third floor.

The Hall of Fame recipients have portraits hanging on the third floor wall.

The first two floors offer special exhibits, such as clothing designs based on chess. This was an extra charge. Neither Lisa nor I were that interested in the clothing exhibit.

The museum was a nice quick visit. If you like chess or know someone interested in the game, it would be worth checking out.

I was interested in visiting because of the giant pawn statue and the chess board.

The Hall of Fame is in a nice area. We were impressed with the surrounding attractions, as well.

Next door, a statue of two Chinese communist government officials stands in front of a Starbucks. The piece, appropriately enough, is called “China China.”

A block away offers a court jester statue in front on a restaurant. I thought it was a cool thing to check out on a snowy day.

So, if you have an hour to kill and are in the Central West End, you may want to check of the Hall of Fame and the surrounding area.

For more information on the Hall of Fame, please visit www.worldchesshof.org.