Forest Park Highlands

Forest Park Highlands, c. 1909
Forest Park Highlands, 1910

Forest Park Highlands was an American amusement park in St. Louis, Missouri. It operated from 1896 to 1963.

Forest Park Highlands opened in 1896 as a beer garden.[1]

Sophie Tucker, John Philip Sousa, and Jack Dempsey appeared there.[1]

It featured a pagoda from the 1904 World's Fair[1] held across the street in Forest Park.[2] It also had a ferris wheel, railway, dodgem cars, tiltawhirls, shooting galleries, doll throws, and wheels of chance.[1]

By 1963, the park was struggling and there was interest in building a community college on the site.[1] A fire on July 19, 1963, destroyed all but the swimming pool and the frame of the wooden roller coaster.[3] Two years later, it was announced that St. Louis Community College–Forest Park would be built on the land.[4][5]

The park's 1920 Dentzel carousel survived the fire and operates today at Faust Park in Chesterfield, Missouri.

  1. ^ a b c d e "Forest Park Highlands Closing Would Be Removal of Landmark". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 1963-01-13. p. 3 – via Proquest.
  2. ^ Garner, Doug (2007). Forest Park Highlands. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7385-5162-3.
  3. ^ "Amusement Park Razed in St. Louis Fire". Chicago Tribune. 1963-07-20. p. 2 – via Proquest.
  4. ^ "Out of Ruins, a Campus". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 1965-08-01. pp. 32–33 – via Proquest.
  5. ^ "21 Vintage Photos of Forest Park Highlands Amusement Park". Riverfront Times Slideshows. 2016-07-11. Retrieved 2020-04-05.