Walk Through Unfinished Cementland That Closed Due to A Tragedy
I had no idea this even existed, but the more and more I learned about Cementland and the story behind it. The more interesting story became.
If you've ever been to the St. Louis City Museum you know that you could spend hours upon hours there climbing and sliding and climbing and exploring. It's so much fun. Well, the creator of the City Museum, Bob Cassilly, was creating a new place for families and visitors to explore until his untimely death. Now, his once vision of opening a 54-acre public art exhibit just sits and waits for someone to come and make his last vision a reality.
It was to be called Cementland (yup all made of steel and cement) a 54-acre site which was a former cement factory, that he wanted to turn into a playground almost. You can see there were steel bridges, and cement castles, and was a large area filled with possibility. However, in September of 2011 Cassilly was killed when the bulldozer he was operating flipped down a hill, so it seemed. However, 5-years later, it would be discovered from a medical expert that Cassilly was actually beaten to death and the bulldozer was placed upside down to make it look like an accident. Why it took 5 years for that information to come out I have no idea. The Cassilly wanted to finish the project, but there was a fire in 2014 which made moving forward unlikely, and now the former Cememtland site remains closed to the public.
Cassilly was a sculptor and you can see that when you visit the City Museum, There are so many interesting things to look at and explore, and he wanted to do that again with Cementland. Who knows if that will ever happen now that the park is closed, what remains is overgrown grass, and one man;'s dream to make a public art exhibit a reality.