ST. LOUIS — Repurposing historic parts of St Louis is the foundation on which the City Museum was founded.
"You know it started with St. Louis, but it has grown to be more," said Rick Erwin, the general manager of the City Museum.
Bob Cassilly's vision lives on in every worker and artist in this museum.
"Pretty much the same crew since the beginning, even with Bob. It’s a tight crew," Erwin said. "We have a stone worker pretty much our people can work in Metal, plaster anything we throw at them they can come up with."
Everything here has a story.
"There are some really cool things, like upstairs with the Edward Bates school, I once saw where a grandparent walked through and realized that's where he went to school," Erwin said.
Designers and workers said they want pretty much anything they can get their hands on, and they get plenty of help tracking down materials.
"People still contact us, you know, if buildings are coming down in north St. Louis, south St. Louis," Erwin said.
Those items parts from the old printing press from the old Post Dispatch building. And while they are still in the process of moving pieces of the press, new ideas are hot off that press.
A lot of the stuff will be used on their newest project.
"Its basically a huge maze that will have secret doors a couple slides," said artist Joe Bacus.
But all this history comes at a cost.
"Even salvage material costs now, it used to be that you could get it for free, but yeah, it costs now," Erwin said.
But there is a way for you, the general public, to get your hands on St Louis past.
"We have so much material from builds that we've started a second gift shop to actually sell some of our relics. So you can actually buy pieces you can find within the City Museum."
History isn’t the only thing on their check list.
"What we really want is a helicopter," Erwin said.
The City Museum is open every day. You can find out more about the City Museum on their website or Facebook page.