St. Louis Union Station was once one of the busier passenger stations in the United States, with trains of numerous railroads calling on the classic structure. Tracks leading into the station entered on the south side from both the east and west, forming a maze of tracks in the form of a complex wye pattern. The tracks were controlled from a large interlocking tower.

By October of 1991, trains no longer called at Union Station. Most of the tracks were long removed and their location occupied by a parking lot, fountain and retail areas as the building was repurposed in the late eighties. The tower still stood sentinel however; unused, derelict and forlorn.