Forest Park and Tower Grove Park are keeping with tradition and changing with the times

By Rosalind Early

In the Victorian-era people knew how to make a park. St. Louis was lucky to have its two largest parks founded during that time: Tower Grove Park in 1868 and Forest Park in 1876. Both have grand sweeping thoroughfares and easy to navigate footpaths. Tower Grove Park is punctuated with beautiful pavilions including the memorable Turkish Pavilion with its red-and-white circus tent stripes. Forest Park has beautiful footbridges, and of course, the Grand Basin, the fountain at the foot of Art Hill that is as quintessential a view in St. Louis as the Arch.

Between them, the two parks have more than 300 years of history, but don’t feel stuffy. Instead, they keep evolving to serve St. Louis.

“Forest Park has always been important to St. Louis, but our nonprofit’s partnership with the City has enabled the Park to reach a new level of quality and capacity to serve our community, combining public and private dollars to restore, maintain and continually improve its amenities and natural features,” says Lesley Hoffarth, the president and executive director of Forest Park Forever.

At more than 1,300 acres, Forest Park is the largest park in the United States, and while now it is universally beloved, its founders had to fight to create it through lobbying and court cases. Finally, the park opened in 1876 but didn’t become the crown jewel of St. Louis until 1904, when it hosted the World’s Fair and several Olympic competitions.

Covering more than 1,300 acres, Forest Park is the largest park in the U.S. Photo by Steve Jett, courtesy Forest Park Forever.

The fair shaped the park into what it is today, because it required the addition of sewer and water lines and the draining of the park’s wetlands. Several buildings from the World’s Fair stayed in the park including the St. Louis Art Museum and the Zoo’s bird cage. Proceeds from the fair went to building the Missouri History Museum.

Taking flight in Forest Park. Photo by Jennifer Korman, courtesy Forest Park Forever.

While the park comes from grand roots, today its focus is on the future. Not only is it home to icons like the Muny and the Jewel Box, it is also a major recreation hub with tennis, handball, racquetball, pickleball, soccer fields and baseball diamonds.

Last year, the park finished a comprehensive visitor study with help from Washington University.

“A primary purpose of the study was to help us understand who uses the park, who doesn’t use the park, and why,” says Hoffarth. “It gave us a better picture of how park use has grown – over 15.5 million visits annually now – which helps us plan maintenance needs and improvements, and it will help us ensure the park is a place where all members of our community can feel welcome.”

According to Hoffarth, the park also hopes the study will inform its revamping of Steinberg Ice Rink into an all-season sports facility.

Lesley Hoffarth, president and executive director of Forest Park Forever. Photo by Jennifer Korman, courtesy Forest Park Forever.

Last year, Forest Park Forever in collaboration with the city’s Parks Department held community meetings and town halls to find out what people would want out of Steinberg Ice Rink. People suggested better food and indoor activities. This winter, they were still accepting feedback and you could weigh in on proposed designs online or in person at the rink. The hope is to start construction at the end of next year’s skating season.

A more visible change this year will be on the waterways. “Forest Park used to have a lot of separated ponds and low lying water spots, sometimes stagnant water,” says Dominik Jansky, director of communications and marketing for Forest Park Forever. “So there was a project from about 20 years ago called the River Returns that basically recreated a riverlike system and helped water circulate and improved water quality.”

Peddling across the Forest Park Boat Basin. Photo by Jennifer Korman, courtesy Forest Park Forever'.

The project’s final leg will be connecting the park’s waterways to Jefferson Lake, the large lake that people fish in not far from Steinberg Ice Rink. Plus the park is adding a cascade to the lake.

For programming, the park recently partnered with the Girl Scouts, Spire and the Magic House to host a day focused on getting outside. Children and families were invited to the park on the second Saturday in June for games, activities, a bubble bus and more. The park plans on doing that again this year on June 1, and also added Evolution Festival to its list of events, though Jansky clarifies that Forest Park Forever isn’t involved in that event.

The dawning of Spring in Forest Park. Photo by Steve Jett, courtesy Forest Park Forever.

Daffodils in bloom Photo by Jennifer Korman, courtesy Forest Park Forever.

Last year, the park also broke ground on its basketball courts, which should open this summer.

The plan for the courts dates back to 2020, when the park commenced a multi-step process that included gathering community feedback.

“The result was informed a lot by our community engagement process,” says Jansky. The courts will be close to the Variety Wonderland playground because families with teens and younger kids said they wanted to be near each other. Plus there will be half courts for people who aren’t looking to play a serious game.

Tower Grove Park held a ribbon cutting for its basketball courts last fall. They’re the result of similar long-term planning. “We did a community-based master plan for the park in 2017,” says Bill Reininger, executive director of Tower Grove Park, “and that amenity was one of the top ones that was requested.”

At the ribbon cutting for the new basketball court. Photo courtesy Tower Grove Park.

Reininger expects the courts will bring in an uptick in use. “There’s folks over there playing everyday,” he says. “It’s great to see the community getting together.”

No park hosts more seminal St. Louis events than Tower Grove: the Pagan Picnic in June, Festival of Nations in August, Frizz Fest and Tower Grove Pride in September, and of course the popular Tower Grove Farmers Market on Saturdays from April to November.

“We’re thrilled that those events are coming back for 2024,” says Reininger.

Bill Reininger, executive director, Tower Grove Park. Photo courtesy Tower Grove Park.

Tower Grove Park hosts so many events because one of its values is being an affordable community gathering place. That dovetails with the park’s roots. It was a gift to the city from Henry Shaw, who also founded the Missouri Botanical Garden. He thought a park contributed to the health and happiness of a city’s inhabitants. Shaw also wanted to create an arboretum and planted hundreds of different types of trees in the park.

The ever-popular Farmer’s Market at Tower Grove Park.

Though considerably smaller than Forest Park at just 289 acres, Tower Grove Park is today a National Historic Landmark and a Level-II arboretum. The park has more than 6,800 trees representing 225 species.

The park is also full of statues, including a ring of busts of famous composers and has ruins from the city’s Lindell Hotel, which burned down shortly before Shaw deeded the park to St. Louis.

The Tower Grove Stables. Photo by Trivers, courtesy Tower Grove Park.

In 2020, the park quietly took down its statue of Christopher Columbus, but a board member of the park’s nonprofit conservancy, mentioned that without Columbus there was no talk of the indigenous people who once occupied the land. That changed when the park unearthed a historic stream on its east end. It was named the Nee Kee Nee stream which means revived water in Osage and includes a play area for kids.

The stream is getting even more visibility this year with added signage and interactive pieces on the website that explain the connection to Osage Nation.

The East Stream in Tower Grove Park. Photo by John Frey, courtesy Tower Grove Park.

The park is also planning on rolling out a sensory-friendly tent, says Beth Casagrand, director of community programs. The tent will be available at some of the park’s larger events.

“We’re very cognizant of the fact that our festivals are very hectic, oftentimes it’s super hot outside, it’s loud,” she says. So with help from a grant from the U.S. Forest Service, the park will offer a space that has calming items including noise-canceling headphones, a fan, soft seating and more to de-stress during a busy day.

One of the classic pavilions in Tower Grove Park. Photo by Trivers, courtesy Tower Grove Park.

The interior of the pavilion. Photo by Trivers, courtesy Tower Grove Park.

The park also recently restored its West Gatehouse making it into an educational hub so kids could attend the park’s education sessions. The roof was retiled in its original purple color and now spells out TGP. The change was necessary due to the expanding and evolving education program, says Casagrand.

“We’ve been working on making our various education programs more accessible,” she adds, before pointing out that the park is across the street from the Missouri School for the Blind. “We do some children's programs where they have a dictation of what’s going on so that the students who are blind can participate as well. There are all of these components of what accessibility means.”

One meaning of accessibility that’s important to Tower Grove is affordability. “We want people to be able to afford to have their baby showers or birthday parties here at a pavilion,” Casagrand says. Both Forest Park and Tower Grove Park want to offer affordable amenities, which means that what you’re paying (which is usually nothing) to play in the park is not covering the cost of upkeep. While the city works with each park and gives them a certain amount for maintenance, both parks have nonprofit conservancies to help fill in the gaps.

“The park serves a lot of different needs for the community,” says Reininger. “From a place to exercise, a place to relax, a place of community and a place of creating memories. It’s just a great park that serves as both a neighborhood park and a regional park, and we want to see it continue.”

The Power of Giving

Forest Park and Tower Grove Park rely on the generous contributions of the community to keep running. Between the two parks they have more than 6,500 members who give annually.

According to its 2022 impact report, some of Forest Park’s largest donors include

Mr. Jim Kavanaugh and Ms. Angela Schoenherr

Ms. Carolyn Kindle

Susan B. McCollum

Rick A and Carol L Short

Barbara and Andy Taylor

Susan Lynch Brown

Steven and Linda Finerty

Stifel

Edward Jones

Bank of America

According to the Tower Grove impact report, some of its largest donors are:

Kyle and Courtney Howerton

Ms. Polly H. Jones

Mrs. Anne C. Stupp

Ameren

The Bellwether Foundation

The Crawford Taylor Foundation

Dowd Bennett LLP

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