This 384-foot-wide by 120-foot-high geodesic dome, located 20 miles north of St. Louis, was constructed as a repair and maintenance structure for railroad oil tank cars. Built in 1961 for the Union Tank Car Company by Synergetics, Inc., a company founded by architect and inventor R. Buckminster Fuller, it is a replica of an earlier tank car dome in Baton Rouge, Louisiana (1958; demolished 2008). At the time, the two domes were the world’s largest clear-span structures.
Union Tank Car Company, American company
Resin Car Works
Warwick landmark one step closer to demolition
Building the Dome
Jadwin at 50 Princeton Alumni Weekly
TC Howard- Union Tank Car Dome- 1958 Buckminster fuller, Richard buckminster fuller, Dome house
UTLX History
Splendid transitory shelters
Union Tank Line (UTLX) Tank Car 1-dome - NASG
