Lafayette Square Historic District!

What Is the Lafayette Square Historic District?

This district spans the first public park west of the Mississippi and the surrounding neighborhood!

What Makes It Historical?

Set aside as a common area as early as 1767, this patch of greenery was formally made a public park in 1835 and named Lafayette Park in 1854! Though the city shaped it, the city didn’t pay for its development, leaving it in the hands of local residents, who fenced it in and installed paths and shade trees! Here was born one of America’s first organized baseball leagues, the Cyclone Base Ball Club, but it only lasted a few years before Civil War tensions tore the teams apart!

But the years immediately following the Civil War were the finest for this park! In 1864, St. Louis hired landscape architect, Maximillian Kern, to give Lafayette Park a makeover. It got new pathways, fountains, and monument, including (in 1868) the first public monument west of the Mississippi, a bronze statue of Thomas Hart Benton by Harriet Hosmer! The park became one of the most popular in all of St. Louis, with magnificent homes springing up all around it in a variety of styles from Victorian to Second Empire to Italianate! Huge crowds flocked to Lafayette Square to watch performances on the bandstand or take a swan boat around the lake. The police station that was built onsite for crowd control is still in place today!

Then disaster struck! On May 27, 1896, a tornado wiped out the home of the Cyclones and much of the neighborhood at large! Though a lot of effort was put into restoring Lafayette Square in time for the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, a lot of residents moved elsewhere. World War II also took its toll on Lafayette Park, kicking off a period of decline that led to the bandstand’s demolition in 1951! But that wasn’t the end of this historic park! Far from it! Thanks to planning efforts in the 1970s and early 2000s, Lafayette Park is now fully restored to its original purpose as a Victorian strolling park, featuring native plants, recreation fields, and events! (It’s also home to a batch of Brood XIX periodical cicadas!)

How Can I #HelpTheHelpers?

Volunteer with the Lafayette Park Conservancy!
Donate to the Lafayette Park Conservancy!
Be a responsible visitor! Please respect the signs and pathways, and treat all structures and artifacts with respect. They’ve endured a lot to survive into the present. They’ll need our help to make it into the future!