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"Tower Grove Park: Common Ground & Grateful Shade Since 1872"
Published by Reedy Press, 151 pages, $39.99
The pond in Tower Grove Park is depicted in this undated image. The "ruins" behind the fountain are from the Lindell Hotel, which burned to the ground in 1867, before the park opened. Henry Shaw had stones from the ruins arranged in three clusters.
Ginger Tamilio feeds the ducks Jan. 10, 2020, at the Tower Grove Park ruins.
Tower Grove Park looks more beautiful at 150 than it did when it was dedicated.
How do we know? For one thing, its 289 acres were essentially prairie when mules and workers started hauling soil and sculpting pathways to create elegant “pleasure grounds” for carriage riders and pedestrians.
When the Victorian park was dedicated on Sept. 28, 1872, it did have newly planted trees, but they had yet grown enough to provide a rich, shady city oasis. In addition, it was still awaiting a few of the charming pavilions, known as “summer houses,” that are now iconic symbols.
Visitors stand on "Victoria Regina" water lilies in Tower Grove Park. Photograph, ca. 1900. Missouri Historical Society Photographs and Prints Collection. [Parks 0036]. Scan (c) 2001, Missouri Historical Society.
“There were no trees there when Henry Shaw acquired the land,” Amanda E. Doyle says. “Thousands of trees have been planted, replaced, and replanted over the years.”
She spent two years working on a coffee-table book, “Tower Grove Park: Common Ground and Grateful Shade Since 1872.” Considering its age — and status as a rare park deemed a National Historic Landmark — a book-length account of its past and present may be overdue.
But the title is just in time to celebrate a 150th birthday bash on Oct. 23 and for neighborhood admirers to rediscover past stories and upcoming changes.
“It’s a unique asset in the region,” Doyle says, one that many area residents have never visited. “The park has always reflected what was going on in the city and the world.”
Wealthy hardware merchant Henry Shaw, who founded the nearby Missouri Botanical Garden, may have admired St. Louis’ Lafayette Park. But he thought the growing city needed something bigger, Doyle says.
He promised the city he’d donate 276.6 acres if it agreed to help pay for development and provide an annual sum for upkeep ($25,000 in the beginning). In 1876, the Missouri Legislature approved the park and Shaw’s system of managing it — it would be under the control of a board of commissioners, not city government.
Shaw, a British immigrant, was mentored by several people, including William Hooker, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in England and by Asa Gray, a Harvard botanist. The botanical garden’s head gardener came from Kew, an expert on water lilies named James Gurney, who also worked on the park.
Shaw wanted the park to be for the enjoyment of “all classes.” A big caveat though was that Black visitors were excluded for many years. (Shaw had owned enslaved people before the Civil War.)
In the early 1870s, the project faced drought, a harsh winter, destructive grasshoppers and worries that “fast” carriage drivers would tear up roads. But soon city dwellers were using the park as a place to escape soot and heat. They even enjoyed curbside refreshments after cruising through the park: Waiters from a beer garden, Andy Auer’s Place on Grand Boulevard, delivered beverages to carriages.
Shaw donated bronze statues to make the park a “showplace,” Doyle writes, and from 1872 on there were outdoor concerts that the founder apparently attended.
A statue of Shakespeare stands in Tower Grove Park in St. Louis on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2020. Photo by Cheyenne Boone, cboone@post-dispatch.com
When Shaw died in 1889 at age 89, James Gurney became the park’s first superintendent.
Adding attractions The pond in Tower Grove, like the botanical garden, featured large lily pads that could hold a 150-pound person (although wooden boards placed under the lily pads helped).
Gurney introduced night lighting and play facilities beyond open fields. In 1916 and 1917, the superintendent reported ice skating, storytelling events and ball games (in the 1800s, ball sports, even kite flying, were considered too “boisterous” for the park).
When Gurney died in 1920, his son James Gurney Jr. took over, and his service spanned the Great Depression and beginning of World War II. Doyle writes:
“People still flocked to enjoy the outdoors, view the lily ponds, and play corkball and baseball, but the upkeep of facilities dipped: during wartime, male labor was in short supply. Measures of park use, like picnic permits issued, dropped at the end of the 1930s.”
Gurney Jr. reported in 1941 that “only such repairs as were unquestionably necessary were made during the past year.”
Tower Grove Park in St. Louis is awash with springtime colors from the blooming plants and trees. Video by David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com
Two years later, he died at age 81, and his daughter, Bernice, became superintendent. It was a rare situation for a woman to be a park superintendent at that time, Doyle says. She recounts that the daughter of a family maid remembers accompanying Bernice Gurney to a convention in Montreal, where Gurney was the only woman with the title of superintendent.
But as the only woman to ever run Tower Grove Park, Gurney became its longest-serving superintendent, retiring in 1976. Her leadership oversaw immense changes. Although in 1943, she discouraged Black visitors, by 1950 Gurney reports groups of Black children visiting the playground (although not the wading pool).
“For the purpose of record,” she wrote in a report, “it may be stated here that the playground and all Park facilities operated on a non-segregation basis.” In 1953, two Black tennis players competed against two white players in an exhibition match. In 1961, St. Louis passed a public accommodations ordinance banning racial discrimination.
In the 1940s and on, Gurney promoted more programs, including gymnastics, folk dancing and volleyball. Annette Crawford, whose father, Gus Fogt, was landscape foreman, remembers Bernice Gurney as “ahead of her time,” Doyle writes.
Gus Fogt, who was German, worked at the park for 30 years and “he just respected her so much,” Crawford told Doyle: “She was always sweet and nice to us. But you could tell that people listened to her when she spoke — she didn’t take anything from anybody.”
“We have a small yard and few trees so we walk over here to rake our leaf piles,” said Jonathan Danieley, who wrestles with his children Teddy, 4, and Ruby,8, as his oldest daughter Lucy, 9, continues to bury him in leaves on Sunday, Nov. 8, 2020, in Tower Grove Park. “In a normal year, we would be in my sister's yard in Farmington But were are not seeing them this year with COVID so we come here for our leaves,” said Danieley. Photo by Laurie Skrivan, lskrivan@post-dispatch.com
For Tower Grove visitors who have reserved picnic sites at the park, they now know why one is named after Gus Fogt and another is Gurney.
Only three more people have served as superintendents: Robert Dennison (1976-1987); John Karel (1987-2014) and William Reininger (2015-present).
Every decade, the park has faced renovation and restoration challenges and cultural movements. For some 25 years, it has been the site of a Pagan Picnic, hosted the city’s PrideFest from 1998-2012 and Tower Grove Pride over the last few years. Festival of Nations and the park’s farmers markets have grown immensely through the years.
Upholding legacyAlthough the park has made changes, Doyle thinks Henry Shaw would still recognize it as the graceful Victorian park he sought. It maintains almost all of its original structures, including the pavilions, old greenhouse, faux ruins by the pond and the unique entrances.
When residents offer suggestions, she says, the board of commissioners consider what is appropriate for the historic site. Dog parks, probably not; but basketball courts are included in recent master plan as basketball was invented in the Victorian era.
In her book, Doyle recounts details of some historic structures (the Turkish Pavilion was once a dove cote!), and the pavilions were originally numbered and their names acquired by casual use. The original design was to make a park focused not on flower gardens but on trees (it’s a level II arboretum as classified by the Morton Arboretum in near Chicago).
A screenshot of the Tower Grove Park trees map, which identifies and shows the location of nearly 6,800 trees as well as provides historical information about its shelters and other points of interest.
In the book, Will Rein calls the park “a museum of trees, essentially.” Rein is director of operations and special projects for the park. He hopes to reach level III classification. Some of the original trees seem to remain, but Rein emphasizes the park’s strength as the “sheer number of trees,” variety and tall canopy, with the urban trees reaching 90 to 100 feet. (A downloadable digital map on the Tower Grove website can help visitors with cellphones identify some trees.)
Last year, two pavilions underwent expensive renovations and work on more are planned. Plus, work on restoring streams in the park appears close to done. Future plans also include more restrooms, a “Hammock Hill,” new paths and a bridge near the lily ponds and updates to infrastructure.
Doyle writes that future work seeks to “pair the essential work of preservation — don’t squander the most outstanding and complete Victorian park remaining in the United States — with creating and enhancing the kinds of amenities and connections any urban park needs to remain relevant to its audience in the modern era.”
And she says that during the pandemic, visitors flocked to Tower Grove as a place for solace and escape, similar to its original use: It was “rediscovered again.”
When • 7 p.m. Oct. 19
Where • Grant's View library, 9700 Musick Road
More info • slcl.org
When • 4:30-6 p.m. Oct. 23
Where • Campbell House Museum, 1508 Locust Street
How much • Free signing; books for sale
More info • campbellhousemuseum.org
What • Music, performers, arts and crafts, and food trucks
When • 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Oct. 23
Where • Tower Grove Park, 4257 Northeast Drive (near park center)
More info • towergrovepark.org
The Tower Grove Park's bandstand has hosted concerts from some of its earliest days.
A junior commando-style course was set up in Tower Grove Park during World War II, part of Bernice Gurney's push to make the park an intentional space for building morale and community spirit. The photo is dated 1944.
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When Catherine Merrick decided to expand her artwork beyond her custom ink and watercolor portraits of private homes, she had no trouble deciding to paint the very public pagodas that dot the grounds in Tower Grove Park.
"Tower Grove Park: Common Ground & Grateful Shade Since 1872"
Published by Reedy Press, 151 pages, $39.99
Visitors stand on "Victoria Regina" water lilies in Tower Grove Park. Photograph, ca. 1900. Missouri Historical Society Photographs and Prints Collection. [Parks 0036]. Scan (c) 2001, Missouri Historical Society.
The pond in Tower Grove Park is depicted in this undated image. The "ruins" behind the fountain are from the Lindell Hotel, which burned to the ground in 1867, before the park opened. Henry Shaw had stones from the ruins arranged in three clusters.
Ginger Tamilio feeds the ducks Jan. 10, 2020, at the Tower Grove Park ruins.
A screenshot of the Tower Grove Park trees map, which identifies and shows the location of nearly 6,800 trees as well as provides historical information about its shelters and other points of interest.
“We have a small yard and few trees so we walk over here to rake our leaf piles,” said Jonathan Danieley, who wrestles with his children Teddy, 4, and Ruby,8, as his oldest daughter Lucy, 9, continues to bury him in leaves on Sunday, Nov. 8, 2020, in Tower Grove Park. “In a normal year, we would be in my sister's yard in Farmington But were are not seeing them this year with COVID so we come here for our leaves,” said Danieley. Photo by Laurie Skrivan, lskrivan@post-dispatch.com
A statue of Shakespeare stands in Tower Grove Park in St. Louis on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2020. Photo by Cheyenne Boone, cboone@post-dispatch.com
The Tower Grove Park's bandstand has hosted concerts from some of its earliest days.
A junior commando-style course was set up in Tower Grove Park during World War II, part of Bernice Gurney's push to make the park an intentional space for building morale and community spirit. The photo is dated 1944.
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