Description
Title: The Automobile in St. Louis: An Illustrated Timeline
Author: Molly Butterworth and Thomas Eyssell
Size: 8.5 x 11
Binding: Hardcover
Pages: 176
ISBN: 9781681064093
Price: $42.00
This product is listed as a preorder. Books will ship starting September 15, 2026.
Long before European immigrants settled its lands and along its rivers, the area that would become St. Louis was a hub of the movement of people and goods. By modern times, those movements happened via modes of transport ranging from horseback, horse-drawn vehicles, and river canoes to steamboats, railroad equipment, bicycles, aircraft, and even spaceships.
But no mode of transportation tied more directly to the heart of St. Louis than the automobile. From the earliest horseless carriages to innovative luxury vehicles designed and built as well or better than any in the world to America’s first sports car, the Gateway City gave birth to vehicles that made this country fall in love with traveling on the road. Though St. Louis fell just short of its goal to be the nation’s leading automotive city, St. Louisans still revered going by car to the restaurants, drive-in movie theaters, and motels that punctuated the area’s historic roads. Fasten your seat belt and enjoy life behind the wheel driving through the automotive history of St. Louis.
AUTHOR
Molly Butterworth grew up in the small town of Versailles, Ohio, with a father who loved Chevrolet muscle and a mother who adored how German cars talk to you about the road. After volunteering at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, she obtained a master’s degree in public history and loved her first job as curator then director of the National Museum of Transportation and its myriad benefits like running locomotives and driving Corvettes. She has written extensively on transportation history and plans to always have a vehicle with a stick shift in her garage.
Thomas Eyssell started as an auto mechanic in the early 1970s but took a left turn and wound up a college professor for the next 40 years. Despite his academic duties, he never lost his passion for the GTOs, Mustangs, and Chevelles of his youth. Since retiring as associate dean and professor emeritus of finance from the University of Missouri-St. Louis, he divides his time between travel and family, volunteer work as a senior advocate, and, of course, puttering with the various vintage vehicles in his garage.
