Forest Park covers 1,371 acres of urban greenspace, larger than Central Park in New York City. The park was established in 1876, when the city was growing rapidly and civic leaders worried about the health of urban residents — fresh air, open space, and nature were seen as essential public goods, not luxuries. But Forest Park's most consequential moment came in 1904, when it hosted the Louisiana Purchase Exposition — the World's Fair that celebrated the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase.
Over seven months, nearly 20 million visitors came to this park, a staggering number for an era without commercial aviation. The fair introduced the world to the ice cream cone, the hot dog on a bun, iced tea, and Dr Pepper — or at least popularized these things to a mass American audience. It also included deeply troubling features: human exhibition villages where Indigenous people and Filipinos were displayed as exotic specimens of 'primitive' cultures.
The fair's legacy is, like so much of American history, a mix of genuine achievement and moral failure. Most of the fair's 1,500 buildings were temporary and were demolished. The park remained, and today it contains the art museum, the zoo, the science center, the history museum, and miles of trails and paths.
It belongs to everyone.