Approximately two-and-a-half million people visited Gateway Arch National Park in 2023, an almost 35% jump in attendance from the previous year.
Newly released figures from the National Park Service (NPS) reveal there were 2,422,836 visitors to the downtown St. Louis monument last year. The new methodology used to obtain the numbers allows for a more accurate count by utilizing location-based phone data to track visitors’ movement throughout the park, even those who do not enter the Gateway Arch Visitor Center.
“The Gateway Arch is a globally recognized icon of architecture and engineering, and we tell some of the most complex and important stories about our nation’s history,” said Jeremy Sweat, superintendent of Gateway Arch National Park. “Some visitors are drawn by the fact that it is a national park, some by their love of history, and some because of personal connections to the stories we tell.”
Sweat says NPS, in collaboration with its park partners, continues to create high-quality visitor experiences, which have been key to the upswing in attendance at Gateway Arch National Park. Among them is the anticipated reopening of the Old Courthouse in 2025. The 200-year-old building is undergoing a $24.5-million renovation that will add new galleries and facilities and improve its infrastructure. But even with the Old Courthouse closed to the public for the time being, there are plenty more to keep visitors engaged and entertained.
“In addition to the Arch tram, museum, movie and virtual reality experience, the park offers a wide range of engaging programming throughout the year, including living history presentations, guest speakers, guided ranger talks, Gateway to the Stars, Read with a Ranger, B.A.R.K. Ranger and ranger-narrated riverboat cruises,” he said. “There are also a number of special events, many of them free to the public and hosted by our park partners, including Blues at the Arch Festival, Arch Bark and more.”
The latest attendance numbers show that St. Louis’ most iconic destination continues to rebound from the pandemic, even surpassing pre-pandemic figures. In 2019, approximately 2 million people visited the arch. The following year, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, attendance dropped to 486,021. Attendance more than doubled in 2021 from the previous year, and gained approximately 500,000 more to net 1,618,774 visitors in 2022.
Sweat says most visitors take a tram ride to the top of the monument and visit the Museum at the Gateway Arch, the free, interactive world-class museum located beneath the arch.
“A recent visitor comment sums it up well,” Sweat said. “[The comment said], ‘What a wonderful museum. It is experiential, tactile, accessible and informative. We were not able to go up, and still had the best time! This was accurate and informative and real.’”
