Forest Park
Sunny recommends this site: "I spent the weekend in St. Louis, and my husband and I went to the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park one afternoon. That is one MORBID museum! I mean, I love the macabre as much as the next girl and there were some things that even made me sit back and go, "eww". Like the death mask of the child who died during the cholera epidemic in 1849, complete with a tiny coffin. (With a picture of the child from when she was alive with her mom!) Or the collection of pictures of dead people taken by their grieving families as momentos. Or the slavers' chains you can actually PUT ON around your ankles. Or (and this was my favorite) the collection of coroner's notes from autopsies done on the bodies of people killed during the Camp Jackson Affair of 1861. WAAAY less sanitized than the Smithsonian, lemme tell ya. An engaging way to spend an icy afternoon in St. Louis."
Kingston
 Explore the site of a Mormon massacre.
St. Joseph
Glore Psychiatric Museum
A Comtesse Travelogue!
Explore twisted and frightening artifacts from the State Lunatic Asylum #2.
Jesse James Home
A Comtesse Travelogue!
 See the bullet hole in the house where Jesse James kicked the bucket (or fell off the chair).
The Patee House served as the headquarters of the Pony Express from 1860-1861, but the really interesting stuff in this museum is related to the horrid crimes committed by the people of the area. Like a hammer and an electric drill used by a preacher's son to beat a janitor to death, then drill holes in his body. The hair and blood is still visible on it. Or an axe that a housewife used to kill her husband, and a lynching rope that was used to hang a black man accused of raping a white girl. Or old horse-drawn hearses and an exhibit on Robert Ladlow, the world's tallest man. In other words, there's a cornucopia of morbid minutiae on display here. You can read all the best details at Roadside America. (Thanks to Bruce T. for the suggestion.)
St. Louis
Lemp Mansion & Brewery
A Comtesse Travelogue!
 Learn about the tragic, cursed Lemp family and visit one of America's most haunted houses.




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