The first parachutist who tried fell to his death in the process. He was Kenneth W. Swyers, 33, of Overland, who parachuted from an airplane on the morning of Nov. 22, 1980, and touched the top of ...

But somehow, no one died during construction. The only death associated with the Gateway Arch was that of Kenneth Swyers, who ...

In 1980, 33-year-old Kenneth Swyers—deemed a highly skilled parachutist—jumped from a plane onto the top of the Arch, according to an archived St. Louis Post-Dispatch article. The wind carried ...