Forest Park (St. Louis)

 Forest Park is a public park in western St. Louis, Missouri. It is a prominent civic center and covers 1,326 acres (5.37 km2). Opened in 1876, more than a decade after its proposal, the park has hosted several significant events, including the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904 and the 1904 Summer Olympics. Bounded by Washington University in St. Louis, Skinker Boulevard, Lindell Boulevard, Kingshighway Boulevard, and Oakland Avenue, it is known as the "Heart of St. Louis" and features a variety of attractions, including the St. Louis Zoo, the St. Louis Art Museum, the Missouri History Museum, and the St. Louis Science Center.

Since the early 2000s, it has carried out a $100 million restoration through a public-private partnership aided by its Master Plan. Changes have extended to improving landscaping and habitat as well. The park's acreage includes meadows and trees and a variety of ponds, manmade lakes, and freshwater streams. For several years, the park has been restoring prairie and wetlands areas of the park. It has reduced flooding and attracted a much greater variety of birds and wildlife, which have settled in the new natural habitats.

An 1864 plan for a large park in the city limits was rejected by St. Louis voters. In 1872, St. Louis developer Hiram Leffingwell proposed a 1,000-acre (4.0 km2) park about three miles (5 km) outside the city limits near land which he owned. After a period of intense lobbying by Leffingwell, the Missouri General Assembly authorized the city to purchase the land; however, city taxpayers challenged the purchase in court, and in 1873, the Missouri Supreme Court overturned the authorization. The next year another developer, Andrew McKinley, prepared another proposal that met legal challenges. The tract selected that became Forest Park included a heavily forested 1,326-acre (5.37 km2) area west of Kingshighway along Olive Street (now Lindell Boulevard).

Using McKinley's proposal as a guide, in 1874 the General Assembly passed the Forest Park Act, which established the park and created a county-wide property tax to fund it. In November 1874, the Missouri Supreme Court upheld the new law and referred all questions of land ownership and value to the circuit court. The largest parcels of land needed for the park belonged to Thomas Skinker, Charles P. Chouteau, Julia Maffitt, and William Forsyth, who in 1874 and 1875 sold their land to the city. The city purchased the land for $849,058, with another million dollars dedicated to maintenance and improvement.

The state of the parkland in 1876 was rural: on the eastern and western edges of the park were unpaved roads (Kingshighway and Skinker Road, respectively). Flowing through the northern lowlands and turning southeast in the park was the River des Peres, which at times was very low while in some seasons could flood large areas. The southwestern part of the park was heavily forested land, and the east-west Clayton Road ran through the southern part of the park. A railroad right-of-way cut through the northeast corner of the park.

Maximillian G. Kern and Julius Pitzman, the Prussian-born St. Louis surveyor, designed the park's original plan. The park was dedicated June 24, 1876, with a crowd of about 50,000 in attendance. Officials and a band occupied a music stand and podium, and dedicated a statue of Edward Bates, the attorney general under President Abraham Lincoln. By the early 1890s, streetcar lines reached the park, carrying nearly 3 million visitors a year. A zoological gardens had been established around 1876 in Fairgrounds Park, on the north side of the city; its animals were eventually transferred to the new Forest Park facility.

From the beginning officials sought public transportation to the park. Several routes were evaluated. It was not electric streetcars, but rather cable cars that first gave access to Forest Park. Erastus Wells’ Missouri Railway was a cable car line (then known as a “cable road”) that ran down Olive Street. It was extended in stages. Access to Lindell Blvd was denied, but a route down Boyle to Maryland and then to Kingshighway was approved. Service began June 1, 1889.

In 1901, Forest Park was selected as the location of the 1904 World's Fair, known as the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. The fair opened April 30, 1904, and closed December 1, 1904, and it left the park vastly different. In addition to the fair, the park hosted the diving, swimming, and water polo events for the 1904 Summer Olympics. Fifteen sports offered Olympic competition events, but women could compete only in archery. The 1904 Games were the first time that African Americans were allowed to compete.

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7453 Amherst Ave, University City, MO 63130

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