Wallace Stegner, the late historian known as the dean of writers on the American West, once said that our national parks are “the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic. They reflect us at our best rather than…

Rendering of the east view of the Denver Art Museum's Frederic C. Hamilton Building, designed by Daniel Libeskind. Image by Miller Hare.

Sen. John C. Danforth’s vision of developing a brilliant cultural institution housed in a world class piece of…

The elder statesman

The laugh line in Christopher S. “Kit” Bond’s announcement Thursday that he won’t seek reelection to the U.S. Senate in 2010 was this: “In 1973, I became Missouri’s youngest governor. I do not aspire to become Missouri’s oldest…

Huy R. Mach | Post-Dispatch

Michael Allen’s terrific blog Ecology of Absence reported that “Late last week, John Danforth sent a letter to Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne stating that the Danforth Foundation no longer intends to build a museum on the…

It will be recalled that what became the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial and Gateway Arch began in late 1933 when Luther Ely Smith, a prominent Republican lawyer and civic activist, peered out of a train window at the shabby St. Louis…