St. Louis Missouri "Firsts" Trivia Quiz

Answer: It was the first structural alloy steel bridge across the Mississippi

The Eads Bridge, named after its architect, was the first structural steel bridge built across the mighty Mississippi River. The bridge, then the longest arch bridge in the world, was the first ever to use "true" steel. According to one source, Eads' cast chromium steel components are arguably the first time structural alloy steel was used in a major building construction.

The bridge also had other firsts in its construction. For example, it was the first to use tubular cord members and the first river bridge in the US to use pneumatic caissons in the construction of the piers.

Answer: The Wainwright Building

Louis Sullivan and a partner designed the 10-story-tall Wainwright Building, believed to be the world's first skyscraper. The Wainwright, built in 1891 and still standing in downtown St. Louis in the 21st century, is considered a major turning point in building design because of its load-bearing steel framework and overall appearance, and served as a (or the prototype for the modern office building.

Answer: Radio

Nikola Tesla, the famed scientist and inventor, made the first public demonstration of wireless communication - a.k.a. radio - in the form of a device for radio reception and transmission before the National Electric Light Association in St. Louis in 1893. (He made the same presentation in Philly later in the year.) Tesla, credited as the creator of radio, is also considered the man who "created the 20th century." He was Edison's direct competitor, particularly over electricity: Tesla promoted alternating current (AC) while Edison promoted direct current (DC).

There is an historical controversy over whether the Croatian-turned-US citizen Tesla was the real inventor of radio (as the US Supreme Court ruled him to be in a 1943 patents dispute after his death) instead of Italian inventor Gugleilmo Marconi.

Answer: The Olympics

In addition to the famed 1904 World's Fair, St. Louis hosted the first Olympics to be held in America. They weren't very good Olympics, though, as there were many problems. For example, the marathon was conducted on a hot and dusty road and, at first, was "won" by a man who didn't even finish the race and had in fact ridden in a car for much of the route.

The real winner, a Brit running for the USA, was so pumped up with alcohol and strychnine(!) that he had to be carried over the finish line by his trainers and needed life-saving medical treatment at once.

Answer: Gas station

The world's first gas station opened in St. Louis in 1905 at 412 S. Theresa Avenue. A competing claim boasts that Standard Oil built the first service station in Seattle in 1907. Another says that Gulf opened the first "real" station in Pittsburgh in 1913 - "real" because it was the first "drive-in" station as opposed to pumps located next to the street.

Answer: City voters approved a tax to support the museum

In 1907, St. Louis voters approved a tax to fund the St. Louis Art Museum, making it the first municipally-funded museum in the world. This museum has two of my favorite paintings, which I "visit" every once in a while: fellow Missourian George Caleb Bingham's "The County Election" and "Stump Speaking." The building that forms the core of the St. Louis Art Museum is one of only a handful of the gorgeous purpose-built structures for the 1904 World's Fair that was not torn down after the fair.

Answer: True

Theodore Roosevelt did indeed become the first president to fly in an airplane-but in 1910, after he left office. Roosevelt took his flight at what was then called Kinloch Field (now St. Louis' Lambert Field). The flight occurred on Oct. 10 in an early-model Wright Brothers biplane, and lasted 4 minutes.

The man who took Roosevelt into the air, Arch Hoxsey, an associate of the Wright Brothers, died in a plane crash that December.

Answer: World's first parachute jump from an airplane

Albert Berry became the world's first modern-style parachutist when he conducted a successful test jump from an airplane at 1,500 feet over St. Louis' army base at Jefferson Barracks in 1912. People had made parachute jumps before, particularly from balloons-Berry's father was a professional parachutist-but this was the first one from an aircraft (a Benoit pusher biplane, to be more precise).

There is a competing claim that a man named Grant Morton was the first jumper a year earlier in California. (Personally, I would have a hard time jumping from a perfectly good airplane, but that's just me!)

Answer: First successful lung cancer operation

Famed Dr. Evarts Graham, one of the founding members of the American Board of Surgery, performed the first successful removal of a cancer-infested lung in 1933. The medical name for the operation is "stage one pneumonectomy." (Graham and a co-author also published the first wide-scale research on smoking in a 1950s issue of the "American Medical Journal".)

Answer: False

St. Louis was the site of the SECOND-ever lunch-counter sit-in protest, at the downtown St. Louis Famous-Barr (now owned by Macy's) in 1944. The first took place in Chicago a year or so earlier. Forty black men & women and 15 white women took part in the non-violent protest against store policy to not serve blacks.

This event occurred more than 15 years before sit-ins (particularly in Greensboro, NC, and Nashville) became popular protest methods during the Civil Rights era.