Cementland was to be Bob Cassilly’s next great masterpiece. It was to be located in the City of Saint Louis, on North Riverview Drive, near the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge. Cassilly was in the process of turning this abandoned cement factory into his next great art creation when he suddenly died in 2011. Cassilly is best known for the creation of the City Museum, one of Saint Louis’ top tourist attractions and one of my favorites places to go, but he had also made dozens of other sculptures in and around Saint Louis during his rather creative lifetime.

As a young art student, Dan was once offered a job by Cassilly, but Dan had just previously accepted a different job and did not feel that it would be right to take his offer then. The job offer was likely to work on Cementland. Too bad, it would have been a great opportunity for Dan.

Anne has recently seen a PBS special on Cassilly, where she learned that he was in Rome when Michelangelo’s Pieta was attacked by a deranged vandal. Cassilly was several rooms away when he heard the distinctive sound of a metal chisel striking marble. He quickly ran to the statue and subdued the perpetrator. The Pope reached out to him and asked him to stop by, but the next day the press ran a story that the Pieta had been saved by an Italian sailor, so no Pope for Bob.

Cassilly died at Cementland. A police investigation found that he died of injuries after the bulldozer he was driving flipped down a hill. Some members of Cassilly’s family contested the results of the investigation and hired an independent doctor to review the evidence. He concluded that Cassilly was beaten to death, but the Saint Louis medical examiner dismissed his evidence and stood by the ruling of accidental death. Later, Dan and Britt visited the site and took the following pictures. It has since been sold and is set for demolition.