Forest Park (St. Louis)
| Forest Park (St. Louis) | |||
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 The 1904 World's Fair Pavilion in Forest Park, St. Louis |
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| Location in Missouri | |||
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| Basic data | |||
| Foundation : | June 24, 1876 | ||
| State : | United States | ||
| State : | Missouri | ||
| Coordinates : | 38 ° 38 ′ N , 90 ° 17 ′ W | ||
The Forest Park is a public park in the west of the metropolis St. Louis , Missouri in the United States of America . It has an area of about 555 hectares. The park includes the St. Louis Zoo, the Saint Louis Art Museum , the Missouri History Museum and the St. Louis Science Center. Two smaller golf courses, as well as several interconnected lakes and a skate park are also located in the Forest Park. A special feature is the boathouse, which serves as an event location, restaurant, bar and boat rental.
With approximately 13 million visitors annually, it is one of the most visited attractions in Missouri. With its enormous size, it is also one of the largest inner-city parks in the world, although there is no precise definition of the requirements for an 'inner-city park'. The people of St. Louis also refer to it as The heart of our city because of its importance to the city .
history
As early as 1864 there were first attempts to set up a large public park within the city limits of St. Louis. However, these plans were rejected by the city's voters due to high costs. The landscape architect and building contractor Hiram Wheeler Leffingwell took up the same idea in 1872 and acquired an area of around four square kilometers outside the city limits at that time. Leffingwell was initially able to obtain authorization for his project at the General Assembly of the State of Missouri, but was later stopped by a lawsuit from taxpayers and ultimately by the Missouri Supreme Court.
It was not until Andrew McKinley, also a landscape architect, obtained a new building permit in 1874 in compliance with all previously agreed provisions. The area in which today's Forest Park is located was then heavily forested and was located west of Kingshighway Boulevard along what is now Lindell Boulevard. The size of the park was then given as 554 ha and today as 555 ha, although the earlier measurement was probably due to inaccuracy.
The acquisition of the land, which was previously owned by other wealthy Americans, was made possible by the so-called Forest Park Act and the associated additional taxes that were levied across the county. The Missouri Supreme Court gave the Federal Court of Appeals jurisdiction over the new, initially rather rural-looking park . Land surveyors Maximilian Kern and Julius Pitzman from Prussia then used the original plan for the park as a basis. When it opened on June 24, 1876, around 50,000 visitors came. 15 years later, around 3 million visitors came annually, which was also thanks to the expansion of the road network. Around this time, the original zoo in St. Louis was also closed, whereupon the remaining animals were initially temporarily housed in Forest Park. This development culminated in the opening of today's zoo in Forest Park, St. Louis in 1904.
Attractions
There are four institutions of regional importance in Forest Park: the St. Louis Art Museum, the St. Louis Zoo, the Science Center and Planetarium, and the Missouri History Museum. Other attractions are:
- The Muny (theater)
- World's Fair Pavilion
- The Jewel Box ( Art Deco style greenhouse )
- Turtle Park
There are also various recreational facilities in the park, including a 27-hole golf course, tennis center, boat rental, country club and fields for handball, softball, baseball, soccer, cricket, rugby and archery. There are also many walking and cycling routes.
literature
- Loughlin, Caroline and Catherine Anderson: Forest Park . University of Missouri Press, Missouri 1986. ISBN 978-0-8262-0605-3 .
Web links
Single references
- ^ Boathouse , Boathouse Forest Park.
- ↑ a b Forest Park .
- ^ History of St. Louis Neighborhoods - Shaw ( May 13, 2008 memento on the Internet Archive ).
- ↑ Loughlin, Caroline and Catherine Anderson; Forest Park , pages 5-10. The Junior League of St. Louis, 1986.