St. Louis, Missouri: World's Largest Chess Piece

Nice little museum. Fun extra-large outdoor chess set along with the giant chest piece, Walk the town streets afterwards. Watch the parking meter -- the meter maids are out to get you (she got me).

The exhibits were fabulous! I will stop in again on my next visit to St. Louis to see what is new. There are three floors with each hosting something different. Free and worth a stop, if you know anything about chess, even if only how to barely play the game, like me.

Besides the concrete chess tables along the sidewalk for playing, there's also a storefront across the street museum where seasoned players can play against one another.

Standing nearly 15 feet tall and weighing over a ton, the World's Largest Chess Piece is the latest shock to the sleepy chess world by the upstart Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis. Backed by local billionaire Rex Sinquefield, the Chess Club wants to make St. Louis the Chess Capital of America. It used its clout in 2009 to lure the World Chess Hall of Fame from its former home in Miami. The chess piece, a king, stands in front of the Hall of Fame, which enshrines luminaries from Bobby Fischer to Ben Franklin, and displays rarities such as a chess set designed by Yoko Ono.

With pride, the Chess Club boasts that its colossal chess piece -- which eclipsed the previous record-holder by over a foot -- is too tall to fit under most St. Louis overpasses, and would require a chess board so immense that it could hold nine school buses or 392 bath tubs.