Forest Park (St. Louis) Informations

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 Saint 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.

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.

George Kessler, the fair's landscape architect, dramatically changed the park: the wetlands areas in the western part of the park were drained and converted into water features and five connected lakes. Sewer and water lines installed during the fair remained for public use in the park. After the fair, thousands of trees were planted and vistas were created. In 1909, the fair's directors gave the balance of the remaining profits from the fair toward the construction of a monument to Thomas Jefferson, on the former site of the Fair's entry gates; when completed in 1913 it became the Missouri History Museum building. Other structures left from the fair include the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Apotheosis of St. Louis (a statue of French King Louis IX), the 1904 Bird Cage, (now a part of the St. Louis Zoo), and the Grand Basin, located at the foot of Art Hill, which was the location of the Festival Hall and cascades at the Fair. Though often mistakenly counted among relics of the Fair, the World's Fair Pavilion in Forest Park is a later structure, constructed in 1909 with proceeds from the Louisiana Purchase Exposition.

The Palace of the Arts, a building now known as The Saint Louis Art Museum in Forest Park, was divided into six classifications: painting, etchings and engravings, sculpture, architecture, loan collection, and industrial art. In addition to art displays, many novelties were showcased for the first time at the Fair. Electricity, still considered young at the time, was showcased in a number of ways. Attendees at the Fair were awestruck by the electric lighting, both inside and out, of all of the important buildings and roads. The electrical plug and the wall outlet were also displayed. Two of the more notable technological achievements demonstrated were the x-ray machine and the baby incubator.

At one time the River des Peres ran openly through the park, but due to sanitary concerns, a portion was put underground in a wooden box shortly before the 1904 World's Fair. In the 1930s, the portion of the River des Peres that runs through Forest Park was diverted entirely underground in huge concrete pipes. More recently, an artificial waterscape linking park lakes has been created. The river remains underground in the park.

Since the 2000s, the park has restored numerous areas of prairie and wetlands in the park; these new habitats are serving not only to reduce flooding, but to attract a greatly increased variety of birds and wildlife. They provide a richer experience for walkers and bikers in the park, and the restored areas are full of birdsong.

In 1973, Barnes-Jewish Hospital, located across Kingshighway from the eastern edge of the park, leased an area of land in Forest Park located to its south for construction of an underground parking garage. After construction was complete, the surface was restored and a playground was installed; in 1983, the lease was extended to 2050 and the garage was expanded to more than 1,900 spaces. Starting in 2006, the hospital engaged the city to renegotiate the lease to allow for the construction of a building on the site, known as Hudlin Park (although part of Forest Park). The hospital proposal also included an extension of the lease by 46 years to 2096, providing the hospital 90 years of tenancy. Under the proposal, the annual rent would increase from $150,000 to between $1.6 and $2.2 million. The hospital sought to lease more than 12 acres (49,000 m2) for which it would pay $2.2 million, or as an alternative it would lease the current 9.3 acres (38,000 m2) for which it would pay $1.6 million a year.

Under a January 2007 revised proposal from the hospital, the city would receive $2 million for the lease of 9.3 acres (38,000 m2), while the hospital would agree to make improvements to two areas in Forest Park. In February 2007, to gain the support of city Comptroller Darlene Green (one of three members of the St. Louis Board of Apportionment and Estimate, a board that recommends lease proposals to the full Board of Aldermen), the hospital agreed to build, fund, and staff a trauma center in North St. Louis. In the February 2007 revised proposal the hospital also agreed to retain 15 percent of the land as green space.

Despite considerable protests, the proposal advanced to the St. Louis Board of Aldermen. An activist group called Citizens to Protect Forest Park gathered 28,000 signatures to place a ballot measure that would require citywide voter approval of all leases or sales of park land. But, the ballot measure was enacted in April 2007, two months after the revised lease was approved by the Board of Aldermen.

Forest Park has more than 12 million visitors per year, surpassing the number of annual visitors to both Busch Stadium and the Gateway Arch National Park combined. The park has a diverse patronage, including tourists and local visitors, visitors to park institutions, and special event patrons, with roughly one third of patrons living within ten miles (16 km) of the park, another third between 10 and 30 miles (48 km), and another third living beyond 30 miles (48 km) from the park. 88 percent of park visitors drive to the park, while the remaining 12 percent are split between public transit and walking or bicycling to the park. The park has eleven multi-modal access points, listed below by the edge of the park:

The Hampton Avenue entrance is used by about 60 percent of users entering the park; this has led to traffic congestion issues that have become more problematic in recent years. To remedy the problem, traffic has been redirected away from the Hampton park entrance and trolley-replica buses have been used to shuttle patrons.

Forest Park hosts several annual St. Louis cultural or entertainment events, including the Great Forest Park Balloon Race (a hot air balloon competition), LouFest Music Festival (August 27–28, 2011), the Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis, the St. Louis Earth Day Festival, and the St. Louis African Arts Festival. The annual St. Louis Wine Festival, Beer Heritage Festival, and St. Louis Micro-Fest (a microbrewery showcase festival) also are hosted in Forest Park. In winter months, the Jewel Box greenhouse hosts a poinsettia show with holiday decorations. Forest Park also hosts athletic events, such as the St. Louis Pace Series (an annual track event), the Midnight Ramble (a nighttime bicycling event), the Forest Park Cross Country Festival, and a variety of run-walk fundraisers. The park has also hosted the USA Cross Country Championships.

On Art Hill in early September, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra offers a free outdoor concert. The Saint Louis Art Museum sponsors free outdoor film showings in the summer on the hill.

Fair Saint Louis was held for the first time here in 2014, due to renovations at the Gateway Arch grounds, which presents new opportunities for the fair. The fair got off to a smooth start on July 3.

Forest Park is home to five of the region's major institutions: the St. Louis Art Museum, the St. Louis Zoo, the St. Louis Science Center, the Missouri History Museum, and the Muny amphitheater. It has several recreational facilities, including the Dwight Davis Tennis Center, the Steinberg Skating Rink, the Boathouse Restaurant (with boat rentals), the Forest Park Country Club, the Highlands Golf and Tennis Center, handball courts, and fields for softball, baseball, soccer, cricket, rugby, and archery. The park also features extensive walking and bicycling paths.

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