Secret St. Louis

Where in St. Louis can you…

…picnic at a radioactive waste dump?

…learn what West County Center’s famous dove really represents?

…visit the grave of the man who burned Atlanta?

…join a nudist resort?

…view a cube comprised of a million dollar bills?

…see a piece from New York’s Twin Towers?

…find out exactly what a Billiken is?

Whether you are piloting a simulated barge on the Mississippi River, exploring the hidden history of Abraham Lincoln’s bizarre swordfight in St. Charles County or eating a ten-pound apple-pie in Kimmswick inspired by the Great Flood of 1993, it is hard to get bored with a copy of Secret St. Louis: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure. By turns wistful and whimsical, this is a book which answers the questions you never knew you had about St. Louis while taking readers on a whirlwind tour through 97 unique but often little-known spaces and places that can’t be found anywhere else. A tourist handbook for people who thought they never needed one, “Secret St. Louis” provides a scavenger hunt of hidden gems traversing the somber, strange, surprising and silly locales which define the culture and history that make St. Louis such a diverse and amazing place to call home. From Weldon Spring to Wildwood, from Overland to O’Fallon, from Bellefontaine to Bridgeton, this is an exploration of St. Louis’s odds and ends like no other.



David Baugher is a freelance writer and researcher whose work has appeared in a variety of St. Louis publications from the Webster-Kirkwood Times to the St. Louis Beacon. His first book, “Once Upon a Time in St. Louis” co-authored with local artist Marilynne Bradley was published in 2014. A longtime journalist and enthusiast for odd information, he is also the former author of weirdfactblog.com.