For my project, I chose to explore the Mill Creek Valley and African American life in early 20th-century St. Louis walking tour. This tour was created by Lara Kelland, a Historian who is a professor of Museum Studies and Community History at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. The tour focuses on the history of the Mill Creek Valley neighborhood, more specifically, the black history of the neighborhood and influential figures. With this information in mind, I think it is safe to assume that the intended audience for this walking tour is people from the St. Louis area or visitors who are looking to gain more insight into the history of St. Louis and its neighborhoods.

The project can be used as a walking or driving tour and is set up very similarly to a story map. It has a lot of different features integrated into it that aren’t always an option with a story map. This project features a text-to-speech function, photos, map coordinates, and even a street view of where a point is located. There is also a background information section that expands on the basic text of a slide and provides context to a specific location.

The project is a culmination of months of work. Although it was published in May of 2020, it appears that the earliest they began creating this project was sometime in February. The project has a lot of information, which I would say is a strength and a weakness because a lot is going on and even just looking at it can be slightly overwhelming. On the flip side because there is so much information you can learn a lot from just this one source. Another strength I find in this project is its accessibility. It is meant to be a walking tour, but the utilization of different maps, photos, street views, and the text-to-audio feature makes it so that a wide range of audiences can enjoy it and get a part of the experience, even if they cannot go out and do the walking or driving tour.

I enjoyed this project because I believe it enhanced my understanding of the St. Louis region. It provided a lot of information that I did not know and dived into the historical places and figures of the region, which can be used to make cultural connections to the area. I think it meshed well with my understanding of the region because St. Louis has a lot of prominent African American history, and it isn’t always talked about, but it plays a crucial role in the making of the city we know today.