Stretching from Market to Pine Streets between 13th and 14th Streets in downtown St. Louis is the Court of Honor. Opened on Memorial Day in 1948, the Court of Honor was first created to honor the dead from World War Two, but has since been expanded to honor veterans from all conflicts that America has been involved in. Opposite the court is the Soldier’s Memorial Military Museum, which serves the same function as the Court of Honor, but on a larger scale. Being an outdoor memorial, there are no set hours for visiting the Court of Honor. The Sheraton St. Louis City Center Hotel & Suites and the Drury Inn Union Station are the closest hotels to the Court of Honor.
The Court of Honor was designed by architect Eugene Mackey, Jr. and sculptor Hillis Arnold in the Italian Monumental Architecture style and was first created to honor those who were killed during World War II. The center piece of the court is the forty-foot limestone pillar decorated with bas-relief images of soldiers in battle. The pillar itself is designed to resemble a bayonet that has been broken, symbolizing the end of hostilities. Facing the Court of Honor, are the beautiful sculptures by Walker Hancock at the Soldier’s Memorial Military Museum and depict the four virtues of a World War I soldier: Courage, Vision, Loyalty and Sacrifice. Upon completion, the Court of Honor was dedicated and opened to the public on Memorial Day of 1948 with the commemoration of “To our sons and daughters who gave their lives for God and Country.” In the following years, memorials to those St. Louisans who were killed in the Korean and Vietnam Wars were added as bookends the far end of the court.
It is worth pointing out that to many, the Court of Honor feels like a precursor to the Vietnam Memorial in downtown Washington, D.C. with its sunken level of quiet. In the end, the Court of Honor is an important landmark to all of the area’s military veterans; whether they survived the war they fought in or paid the ultimate price. The Court of Honor is a place where both veterans and civilians alike can come to pay their respects to the fallen from all of the wars that America was involved in. It should be stated that one should not visit this landmark on Veteran’s Day or Memorial Day, but whenever he or she has a chance to and to take time to pay their respects to those who gave their lives in order to make sure that we are free.
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