Cementland by Richard Newton Via Flickr: Some of these pictures have been in my photostream for quite a while. What hasn't been here is the story of where they were taken. Cementland was under construction on the 54-acre site of a former cement factory just north of St. Louis, Missouri. The brainchild of sculptor Bob Cassilly, who also created St. Louis' City Museum, it contained giant concrete sculptures and obsolete machinery, and had navigable(?) waterways, among many other features. Much of the landscaping was built on dirt dumped by local construction companies, who used the land as a dump before Cassilly purchased it and paid him for the privilege. Cassily was funding the construction of Cementland himself; the free material and income from the dumping helped underwrite what he said would "otherwise be an unaffordable project." The site, outside the city boundaries in the village of Riverview, provides a view of the Gateway Arch. “In the afternoon, when the sun shines on the city, you get this nice reflection. You don’t see all the trash and stuff. It’s the best view of the city,” Cassilly said. On September 26, 2011, Cassilly was killed at the Cementland site after the bulldozer he was driving flipped down a hill. The site is currently closed to the public. These are the pictures that I took on the day I got to explore Cementland.
