Guided tour offers residents a ‘different perspective’ of St. Joseph

By Ashley Luthans

St. Joseph residents had a chance to be tourists for a day thanks to the Show Me St. Jo! Experience.

Christian Mengel of the St. Joseph Convention and Visitors Bureau stressed the importance of events like this.

“You don’t always get the guided tour of some of these places, and especially if you’re a local, you always think, you know, ‘Oh, I live here, I could see it any time,’” Mengel said. “But if you have an opportunity to really have it shown to you as if you were a visitor, you see it in a completely different perspective.”

The tour welcomed several St. Joseph community members to learn about the rich history of the city on Tuesday.

The Show Me St. Jo! Experience took attendees to locations around town, including St. Joseph Museums, the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art and the Remington Nature Center.

Alex Asher, the director of education at the Albrecht-Kemper, said she likes offering historical information to local residents.

“It’s always great to have tours at the art museum,” Asher said. “Especially local people because they’re interested in all the little details, especially when it connects to them personally, which a lot of the local history does.”

For the “tourists,” there was also a small performance from the Robidoux Resident Theatre’s cast of “The Music Man,” which will run at the Missouri Theater from July 12-14.

The day included several tours around town, transportation, lunch, a T-shirt and a signed certificate from the mayor as an advocate for St. Joseph.

One attendee, Danielle Dalton, said she thinks it’s important to be educated about St. Joseph’s history.

“You grow up and you take the history for granted,” Dalton said. “So I think one main reason would probably be just restoring pride to St. Joe. We have a lot of things to be proud of here.”

There will be another tour on Sept. 11, 2024, hosted by the Convention and Visitors Bureau.