The railroad commissioned the prominent St. Louis architectural firm Mauran, Russell and Crowell to design the building.

During World War II the building housed offices of the predecessor to the Defense Mapping Agency (DMA),[2] which referenced it as their US Aeronautical Chart Plant, St.

[3][4] The building would later go on to house geographic data and information firms, including geospatial intelligence offices, which complement the nearby National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) Campus West (NCW).

The construction of a SCIF (sensitive compartmented information facility), which was novel for a private facility not already under federal contract, was publicly announced in May 2022 at which time it was also claimed that a waiting list of companies seeking placement in the Globe Building exceeds fifty.

[5] With the decline of railroads in the United States, in the 1950s the building was transitioned to hosting the fledgling daily newspaper, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.