Spectators all across the contiguous United States witnessed a total solar eclipse on Monday, August 21, 2017. For the first time since June 8, 1918, the path of totality moved all the way from Oregon on the west coast to Florida on the east coast in a swath approximately 70 miles wide. Although the full eclipse of the sun lasted only minutes, many viewers participated for several hours by attending events at public viewing sites around the area.

Hotels from Saint Louis to Carbondale had been booked for weeks prior to the eclipse date, but some viewers chose to exit the cities and travel to smaller towns along the arc of the path to get better views. One local site numbered people from Wisconsin, San Diego, and Europe among its attendees.

A couple from San Diego brought their pre-teen son along to witness the incredible solar phenomenon. They had heard that the beaches in Oregon (at which the moon’s shadow would first hit land in the US) were expecting 300,000 people, and they wanted to experience the eclipse in a place that was not as crowded. When asked why they chose southeast Missouri, they expressed a wish to take in a visit to the Mississippi River and St. Louis’s Gateway Arch as well. “We have never been to the middle of the country, and we figured this was as good a time as any,” they said.

The next solar eclipse is expected to come through the area, this time entering at Texas in the southwest and moving northeast toward Maine, in 2024.