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Tower Grove Park's History. In the years after the Civil War, Henry Shaw decided to donate nearly 300 acres of his land to the City for a public park. It required exceptional vision for him to foresee the development of the treeless and waterless prairie into the magnificent park that it was to become.
Acceptance by the City included the provision that public funds would be used for the Park's upkeep. Since the site was beyond the City limits of that time, the Park was created by an act of the State legislature on March 9, 1867. It was to be administered by a board of commissioners with Shaw a life-time member. Shaw was also the chief designer for park improvements, with civil engineer Francis Tunica in charge of construction. The Park tract was three-tenths and one and one quarter miles in length from Grand Boulevard to Kingshighway. It was the intention of the donor that a 200 foot wide strip around the Park's perimeter was to be reserved for the er****on of handsome residences, with their revenue to go toward the support of the Botanical Garden. This plan did not work out and the only "villa" remaining is the one designed by George I. Barnett and occupied by the park superintendent at Tower Grove and Magnolia Avenues. Until recently, the superintendent has been Miss Bernice Gurney, grandaughter of James Gurney who was brought by Shaw in 1868 from Regent's Park in London to act as the Garden's chief gardener and landscape architect. She was succeeded by her son as park superintendent in 1920.
Tower Grove Park was laid out as an English walking park, in a semi-formal arrangement, with fanciful gazebos and pagodas in gay colors scattered around the grounds. More than 20,000 trees were planted and curving driveways were laid out in a "gardensque" style. A straight center drive runs westward from the Grand entrance, interrupted at several points by circles containing statuary, terminating at the transverse drive from the Tower Grove entrance. The "villa strip" was purchased by the City and added to the Park in 1926, making it the City's second largest park, covering 285 acres.
All of the Park's entrances are reached through ornamental gateways with wrought iron work and stone pylons. The East Gate at Grand was designed by Shaw in 1870. It is marked by large limestone piers topped by zinc weeping lions. Tall thirty foot columns, with limestone bulls at their tops, located at the Tower Grove entrance, once supported galleries under the dome of the old Courthouse. They were acquired by Shaw when the rotunda was remodeled. Marking the 200 foot strip, at this point, are limestone markers topped with stags. This gateway was erected between 1868 and 1870. At the Arsenal Street entrance or South Gate, also dating from 1870, is a stone gate house designed by George I. Barnett. This was the last Park building built by Shaw before his death. Nearby is a "well-house", one of twelve built in the early 1870's, as the only source of water for the Park. When a water pipe was laid in Arsenal Street in 1872, a tap was made providing the Park with City water.
As a result, a lily pond and fountain were built near the north entrance. On its north side are the "ruins" a picturesque arrangement of stone blocks from the 1867 fire ruins of the first Lindell Hotel. East of this is the Music Stand, completed in 1872 and surrounded by polished granite pedestals bearing busts of famous composers. All of this was made possible by the generosity of Henry Shaw. Also donated by Shaw are major pieces of statuary in the Park, representing von Humboldt and Shakespeare. All are the work of sculpture Ferdinand von Miller of Munich. The Shakespeare and Humboldt statues were unveiled by Shaw in 1878. Humboldt's figure is located in a drive circle east of the pond and Shakespeare's is in the circle of the transverse drive near the center of the Park. The two statues are mounted on red granite pedestals designed by architect Barnett.
As a memorial to the Park's donor, a battery of tennis courts with a stone entrance house was erected by the City in 1952. A bronze portrait medallion of Shaw, formerly on the base of the Humboldt statue, was remounted on the west wall of the gate house at that time.
In 1968, a statue of Baron von Steuben was presented to the City and erected in the Park north of the "ruins". It had formerly decorated the Liederkranz Club on South Grand.
At the Park's Kingshighway entrance, is a stone castellated gateway with forty foot towers, designed by Barnett.
Supplementing the traffic entrances to the Park are four pedestrian gateways interspersed at convenient locations on the Park's perimeter. Another evidence of Shaw's concern for walkers was the thoughtful provision for shelter given by the many summer houses in the Park. Tower Grove Park today is a highly prized and intensively used recreation space for South St. Louisans.
Thanks to stlouis-mo.gov for this info.