In 1944, St. Louis physician Dr. John Payne Roberts acted after learning that a local transit company was sending a streetcar to a war-effort scrap drive. Fearing a piece of history would be lost, Roberts joined other like-minded citizens to rescue the streetcar and the mule-drawn Bellefontaine #33 and founded the St. Louis Railway Historical Society. After incorporation, the organization began collecting similar vehicles important to transportation history. By 1948, it had changed its name to the Transport Museum Association when it became a nonprofit organization. It chose this campus, now 42 acres though originally much larger, because of the land's significance in Missouri railroad history. The original Barrett Station depot stood here on land developed by the Pacific Railway, and the West Barretts Tunnel on the campus was the first railroad tunnel built west of the Mississippi River. After securing the land, the organization collected hundreds of significant artifacts, including rail and road vehicles, aircraft, and watercraft. In 1979, the Transport Museum Association became a St. Louis County park while the nonprofit entity continued to operate in support. In 2017, the museum returned to independent nonprofit management and changed its name again to the National Museum of Transportation to better reflect the importance and significance of its collection.
