How is a Pot or Pan Like the Gateway Arch?

Posted byJim MerkelPosted inUncategorized

233826a67be66a810b23a263230da62e[1] I added some trivia to my talk about The Making of an Icon Thursday at the Buder Branch Library of the St. Louis Public Library. That trivia, specifically, was about the 886 tons of quarter-inch stainless steel plate that graces the exterior of the Gateway Arch.

It’s called Type 304 Stainless Steel, and it’s used in such everyday items as pots and pans, silverware, and sinks, and more unusual things such as milking machines and breweries. To keep the shine and prevent rust, 65 to 74 percent of stainless steel is iron, about 18 percent is chromium and eight percent is nickel. Other ingredients are manganese, phosphorus, sulfur, silicon, carbon and nitrogen. It’s a guaranteed formula to make it glisten in the sun.

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Published by Jim Merkel

Reedy Press published four of my books, Hoosiers and Scrubby Dutch: St. Louis's South Side, 2010; Beer, Brats, and Baseball: St. Louis Germans, 2012; The Making of an Icon: The Dreamers, The Schemers, and the Hard Hats Who Built the Gateway Arch; and the Second Edition of Hoosiers and Scrubby Dutch: St. Louis's South Side, 2014. They're available in bookstores and online. For an autographed copy, send a check for $21.50 made out to Jim Merkel, to Jim Merkel, 4216 Osceola St., St. Louis, MO 63116.

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