St. Louis Proud: Union Station's place in St. Louis' history

For the past few months the new additions of the St. Louis Wheel and aquarium at Union Station have attracted a lot of attention.

But this is far from the historic site's first renovation.

[donphillips]

Back when they were remodeling it, I think it was in the late 70s
Me and my friend went through the top part of it. The workers were downstairs and nobody noticed us.
Felt like we step back in time because the top part hadn’t been renovated yet
I mean it was like the 30, 40, 50s

[WAL_DC-B]

"If you were coming from the West to go to the East you couldn't go past St Louis and vice versa." Wait a minute! What about all the westbound trains just out of Chicago alone that crossed the Mississippi River like the Milwaukee Road's "Olympian Hiawatha" to Seattle, the Rock Island's "Golden State" to Los Angeles, the joint Union Pacific/Chicago & North Western Railroad's "City of Denver" to its namesake city and the Santa Fe's famous "Super Chief" to Los Angeles to name a few. None of these passenger trains had to pass through St Louis in either direction to their destinations.