An Abandoned Shoe Factory in St. Louis Transformed into a "City Museum" – A Hotspot for Family Travel

By Rita

This is a museum that’s hard to define because it looks truly chaotic from the outside, so messy you might think you’ve stumbled upon an abandoned factory. That’s right—it used to be a factory, but now it’s a museum that attracts 300,000 visitors every year.

▲From ruins to a wonder—City Museum of St. Louis (Photo/Wikipedia)

City Museumis a 600,000-square-foot museum housed in a former shoe factory. The site was originally the factory and warehouse of the International Shoe Company, but it sat vacant for a long time until it was purchased by the Siskind couple in 1983. Unlike any other museum in the world, you can actually step inside and explore underground mazes, compartments, simulated caves, suspension bridges, and even a ten-story slide—all made almost entirely from repurposed materials from the original factory.

▲City Museum of St. Louis (Photo/City Museum, St Louis, MO Facebook page)

Starting in 1995, Mr. Siskind began transforming this "junk" into the foundation of the "City Museum." Thousands of discarded soda bottles and safes were bonded together to form a wall; two airplanes are suspended 50 feet in the air, and a Ferris wheel and school bus hang from the ceiling. Nearly everything you see is connected via ladders and tunnels—and everything is climbable.

"A surreal playground for children, built with architectural elements made from everyday materials, all one of a kind," is how the City Museum describes itself on its official website. Since its first public opening in 1997, it has attracted 300,000 visitors each year and remains an important landmark in St. Louis, USA.

City Museum
Address: 750 North 16th St, St. Louis, Missouri
Opening Hours: Monday to Thursday 9:00–17:00, Friday and Saturday 9:00–late, Sunday 11:00–17:00
Admission: Free for children under 2; $12 per person aged 3 and above (after 17:00 on Fridays and Saturdays, $10)
Website: http://www.citymuseum.org/visit/