Weldon Spring Site Interpretive Center — Local services in Weldon Spring Heights

Very Unpleasant Experience with Front Desk Staff. I normally don’t leave bad reviews, but my recent visit to the Weldon Spring Site Interpretive Center was so unnecessarily stressful that I felt it should be shared. When I was there with my kids, the woman at the front desk repeatedly yelled at them to stop running even after I had already told her politely that I was trying to get them out the door, and had already asked my children to stop running myself and she continued to interject herself into me parenting my kids. My other three children were literally standing between the doors ready to go while I was waiting for my last one near the exit, and she then yelled at me not to “leave my child unattended.” I explained that he wasn’t unattended I was right there trying to get him out. When we were finally about to leave, she shouted again, telling me to “keep my kids under control.” My children weren’t being loud, rowdy, or disruptive and we were the only visitors in the building at the time. It felt like she was picking on us for no reason and made what should have been a simple exit from a quiet museum very unpleasant. This kind of behavior from staff is unacceptable, especially in a family-friendly public space. I hope management addresses this issue so other families don’t have a...

I stopped by to see the wildflower garden and was pleasantly surprised to discover that the new Interpretive Center is now open... Since April!! I thought I'd poke my head in to see what it was like with an intention to revisit another day but I ended up staying for nearly an hour!! The staff is friendly and the facility is so well done. The story of the Weldon Spring Ordnance Works, TNT production and environmental cleanup is told through interactive displays. One really cool thing is an aerial map with plexiglass overlays that show where the old towns of Hamburg, Howell and Toonerville were located, as well as property owners, roads, old cemeteries and other points of interest. If you're curious about what that mound behind the center is, you can find out here. Speaking of the mound, it is still closed but should reopen sometime in the fall after the stairs...

DOE has built a much larger Intrrpretative center since I last visited. It has a larger display area and more, larger conference rooms. It is all about the history, details of construction and the process of cleanup of the many sites that are fouled by nuclear waste. This site was a uranium ore processing site during the WWII production of the first atomic bomb and more. That building and all radioactive materials were buried in a 75 foot tall pyramid that you can walk up using a long low-rise stair. There are commemorative plaques on top and the view somber when you remember the ignorance and stalling that endangered and sickened so many Americans before these remediation sites bandaided some of...