Update: I went back and revisited this stretch of Gasconade Street in August of 2017 and April of 2021. I also went back by the incinerator in September of 2014. The City’s Work House was once located very near here, as I wrote in St. Louis Magazine in January of 2021.

I decided to go left instead of right at the bottom of the exit ramp for Gasconade Street from southbound I-55. I was pleasantly surprised to find what looked like one of the City of St. Louis’s trash incinerators. I continued on and found this spectacular wall of rock towering up above me. It is such an isolated area, but intriguing nonetheless.