I never thought about it before reading the article you posted, but WTF?

Holding the first modern games in Athens is obvious.

Going to Paris next makes sense; it's one of the most prominent cities in the world (and was possibly even more so in 1900).

But St. Louis, Missouri?!

I'm reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1904_Summer_Olympics to figure out how the fuck it happened, and yep, the story is pretty stupid.