union station | In a grade-school footrace, coming in fourth might earn someone a participation ribbon. But being named No. 4 in a national ranking is another thing entirely. The St. Louis Aquarium at Union Station, a winner in the USA Today 10Best Readers’ Choice Awards for 2025, faced off against the country’s biggest marine attractions. USA Today editors, along with a panel of subject matter experts, nominated the StL’s popular, wet and somewhat wild attraction in the annual awards that highlight top-notch attractions and businesses, providing readers of the national daily with trusted recommendations. The aquarium is perhaps our country’s most interactive, with hands-on, hands-wet habitats. Guests can get a real feel for stingrays and sharks, talk with divers during a daily dive show in Shark Canyon, and get immersed, so to speak, in a special tank filled with invertebrates. Kids enjoy activities and story times in the KidZone, feeding turtles and watching otters frolic through a two-story habitat. The aquarium’s ambassador animals, ranging from sloths and lizards to armadillos and parrots, greet visitors every day. Coming in first this year was another Missouri aquarium, the Wonders of Wildlife National Museum & Aquarium in Springfield, a 350,000-square-foot tribute to conservation and the natural world. Created by Bass Pro Shops founder Johnny Morris, it’s been voted America’s best aquarium multiple times. Another perennial favorite, Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, came in second. Third place for 2025 is held by the Texas State Aquarium in Corpus Christi, a marine wonderland dedicated to the wildlife and ecosystems of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. Conspicuous by its absence in the top 10 is Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium, the crown jewel of the city’s Museum Campus.
lasalle park
The devastating May 16 tornado killed five people and damaged or destroyed many homes and businesses from Clayton through the CWE but concentrated its EF3 fury mostly in north city. St. Louis has since allocated $30 million from the interest already earned on the city’s $250 million Rams settlement to support neighborhoods hit by the deadliest storm to roar through our city since 1959. This $30 million is in addition to $100 million in state and federal aid already approved, and city leaders are pushing for more help from FEMA and private donors to help repair the estimated $1.6 billion in damages. It’s an amount that few of us can get our heads around, but as our town is one of the most philanthropic on the planet, many of us have been able to do our part, if not by donating tarps and other desperately needed supplies, then through actions like ‘rounding up’ our total at the cash register when paying for a Lion’s Choice meal. All branches of our county library are accepting personal-care and nonperishable food items and cleaning supplies, at least through July 31. And 4 Hands Brewing Co. has launched a limited-edition “Rebuilding STL Brick By Brick” T-shirt designed to raise funds for tornado relief efforts. All proceeds from the shirt will be donated to support the work of Action STL, a grassroots organization committed to advocacy, direct aid and long-term recovery for communities affected. The shirt, designed in-house by 4 Hands’ creative team in collaboration with Action STL, will be printed by Loyal PrintShop, who have donated their time and labor to the project. Shirts must be picked up when they’re ready at the 4 Hands Brewery & Tasting Room, 1220 S. 8th St. Visit 4handsbrewery.com for info on the shirt. Since May 16, according to an Action St. Louis spokesperson, the agency has supported more than 5,000 families, served more than 20,000 hot meals and has mobilized nearly 10,000 volunteers. Visit actionstl.org/tornado to learn more about what they’re doing, and how you may be able to help get this job done.
city museum
It might take awhile to escape the latest permanent installation at our town’s quasi-industrial playground on Washington Avenue, City Museum. But escaping is not the object, as it is with the many ‘escape rooms’ that have gained popularity throughout the metro in recent years. Labyrinth is designed to wow and fascinate, not entrap, visitors exploring the fourth floor of the one-time shoe warehouse, now the 600,000-square-foot brainchild of the late, great artist and sculptor Bob Cassilly. The maze’s grand opening was over the July 4 holiday weekend. Labyrinth is free to explore with regular museum admission. The most extensive build-out so far on the fourth floor, Labyrinth combines art, architecture and constructive imagination with relics of St. Louis’ industrial past. This immersive maze isn’t really designed for getting lost—it’s about exploring unexpected textures, taking surprising turns and finding stories embedded in every wall. Guests can choose how they navigate: along walkways, through mouse holes or on overhead climbers—each path winding through a world made from repurposed materials with a twist of surrealism and wonder. Highlights include a two-story slide (only the third biggest at City Museum), a wall of repurposed Twinkie pans, a snail-like turbine and historic glass salvaged from downtown’s Central Library. Visit citymuseum.org to learn more about the world-class … museum? Playground? We say both, which with the striking new addition is just a little bit more of each.
notable neighbors
affton
For many Baby Boomers, Mayberry is the quintessential American small town, where the inimitable Andy Griffith was the sheriff. He still is, on certain cable stations. For movie buffs, Bedford Falls fills the bill as the hometown of George Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart in the timeless holiday classic, It’s a Wonderful Life. But what on earth does Sir Winston Churchill, the former British prime minister, have to do with Fulton, Missouti, other than he was a very famous real person who spent time in a real-life mid-Missouri small town? Caitlin Yager, who wrote the recently published, fabulous softcover volume Small Town Missouri, can tell you plenty about Fulton (pop. 12,600) and 49 other small towns—some tiny (Arrow Rock, pop. 59) and others not-so (Sedalia, pop. 21,725)—in her lively prose. The upper size limit was 25,000 people, with Sedalia coming closest. These small towns pepper the Show-Me State between Kansas City and St. Louis. “Population has no bearing on excitement,” enthuses Yager, who lives with her husband Zach, kids Eli and Flora, and several species of critters in the St. Louis ’burb of Affton, went to Nerinx Hall for high school and earned her history degree at Truman State U. Although not officially a smalltown girl, Yager spent her college years in the smallish hometown of Truman State, formerly Northeastern Missouri State, Kirksville (pop. 17,530). Some may have thought of Yager’s nearest small town, Pacific (pop. 7,434) as an exurb of the metro. “It’s not, instead protected from suburban sprawl by features such as the Meramec River and Shaw Nature Reserve,” Yager points out. Plus, the legendary U.S. Route 66 brought tourism through the town, which remains prominent for enthusiasts of ‘The Mother Road.’ But size-wise, although only 30 miles from our fair city, Pacific is kind of midway between itty-bitty Arrow Rock and the book’s specified biggest small town. There’s plenty of history and present-day culture in Arrow Rock, home to the regionally popular Lyceum Theater. Lamar (pop. 4,266) is not only President Harry S. Truman’s birthplace, but it also could have been an inspiration for the high-school football mania represented in the TV series Friday Night Lights. Little Lamar has a behemoth of a football team, as the Tigers are perennial winners of the state championship game (their 10 state Class 2 titles include 2024). So, you don’t even have to be an alum to tailgate out yonder. I used to have a Rand-McNally road atlas inside the pocket on the back of the driver’s seat of my van. It probably disappeared when the vehicle went to meet its maker after 265,000 miles. But with GPS and Yager’s fine book, what the heck else would one need to venture into outstate ‘Missou-rah’? Arrow Rock, the first small town in the alphabetically arranged book, has a four-page spread, along with Marthasville (pop. 1,245; ‘the last home of Daniel Boone’)—and 15 other towns. But from lore and legend to attractions and famous folks, there’s no padding, either, believe me. For more to sit back and enjoy, visit reedypress.com.
