Luther Ely Smith

In the 1930s, he conceived of the idea of a memorial to President Thomas Jefferson in St. Louis, the starting point of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and opening of the West through the city.

Construction of the Gateway Arch started in 1963, after Smith's death; it fulfilled his vision of a symbol of the city to represent its role with the American West.

In the 1920s his Amherst school-mate Calvin Coolidge, then President of the United States, appointed him to a federal commission to supervise design and construction of the George Rogers Clark Memorial in Vincennes, Indiana.

In the 1930s during the Great Depression, the United States was considering construction of a memorial to Thomas Jefferson, as part of recognizing inspirational leaders.

Building a memorial would provide an excuse to improve what had become a dowdy waterfront since the decline in passenger riverboats and some freight river traffic.

The proposed project required clearing 40 blocks in the heart of St. Louis, which were mostly outdated old buildings, which had not yet been designated as of historic interest.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order on December 21, 1935, authorizing the Department of Interior to acquire and develop the memorial.

In 1941 Smith chaired a state organizational committee to develop the Missouri Plan, which promoted non-partisan selection of judges.

In 1948 he wrote to contest winner Eero Saarinen, an architect from Finland: Smith died in 1951; the Arch construction began in 1963.