Exploring the Historical and Cultural Tapestry of St. Louis Parks

Arnold00:00:00

We love parks here at St. Louis and Thune, and I'm sure that you love parks, too, because they're a great place for recreation, for a picnic or just bicycling or walking. But did you know the park that was saved by the Real Housewives of Jefferson County? Do you know the park that was a hospital for Union soldiers?Do you know it? Also, that same park hosted the 1946 U.S. olympic water polo team tryouts and also a 2005 movie.We're going to talk to the author of St. Louis Parks, whose great, great grandfather's first job in St. Louis in 1864 was planting trees in the St. Louis park. All this on St. Louis in Tune.Welcome to St. Louis in Tune, and thank you for joining us for fresh perspectives on issues and events with experts, community leaders and and everyday people who make a difference in shaping our society and world. I'm Arnold Stricker, along with Marcus Langstonis, AKA Mark Langston.

Mark00:01:07

Mark, Howdy.

Arnold00:01:08

Greetings to you, sir.

Mark00:01:10

Greetings to you. You're looking good. You're looking chipper.

Arnold00:01:13

I appreciate that.

Mark00:01:15

Yeah. Got a little spring in your step today.

Arnold00:01:16

Yes. I haven't been put through the chipper, but I do look that way.

Mark00:01:19

It's terrible. Terrible. Okay. Yeah.

Arnold00:01:25

Anyway, Friday the 13th.

Mark00:01:27

Really? Oh, man. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Oh, my God, there's another one. Oh, that was a bad one. So that when I was a kid, it did damage me.

Arnold00:01:38

That explains it.

Mark00:01:41

That's right.

Arnold00:01:41

Oh, folks, we're glad that you've joined us today. We want to thank our sponsor, Better Rate Mortgage, for their support of the show. You can listen to previous shows@stl and tune.com.please help us continue to grow by leaving a review on our website, Apple Podcast, or your preferred podcast platform. Our thought to ponder today, opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don't recognize them.Such truth opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don't recognize them. Ann Lander said that.

Mark00:02:16

Is that right? No problems, just challenges and opportunities.

Arnold00:02:21

Yeah.If you think about it, when somebody starts something and they're really working hard and maybe they're on a job, an entry job, and they're working hard, the foreman or the boss many times recognizes people that actually work rather than skate.

Mark00:02:36

What a concept. Working. Okay. Yeah.

Arnold00:02:41

And if you want to go far and you're a youngster listening to the program, work hard and what you do, the very best, you can, show up ahead of time.

Mark00:02:49

Oh, isn't that the truth?

Arnold00:02:52

Remember, we had that saying, what Is it?

Mark00:02:54

Go ahead.

Arnold00:02:55

Early's on time on times. Late's unforgivable.

Mark00:02:58

There you go. Yes. So true, so true, so true.

Arnold00:03:02

Something to do.

Mark00:03:03

Come across it too many times in the last couple weeks too. Oh, yeah.

Arnold00:03:06

Something to talk about after the show.

Mark00:03:08

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's, let's slander people. I'm kidding, just kidding.

Arnold00:03:16

Oh, we don't want to slander our guest because she is like the St. Louis historian at extraordinaire. Nene Harris has been on the show many times and she's an author of these new second edition St. Louis Parks.She and Eslee Hamilton co authored this book. Nene, welcome back to St. Louis in Tune.

NiNi00:03:35

It is my pleasure to be here, but I love your statements about being early who worked like that with Stan Musial and what a success he was. And he grew up very poor. They really were in desperate straits.Both his parents were working, but it was just times were hard and he just worked so hard at everything he did and was so successful. And he said my life's a fairy tale. That's how he looked at it. Instead of the hardship of how hard he worked, he said it was a fairy tale.

Arnold00:04:19

But I think that's a perspective that you get maybe from your upbringing or maybe school or someone, a mentor who is an influence could be a neighbor. And I sense that from you too, because you have just jumped into the waters of historical St. Louis and are just, you're not floundering around.You are swimming variety of strok. You do tours downtown. You go to the Central Library and Missouri Historical Society and do research. And you, what Is this your ninth, tenth book?

NiNi00:04:55

20Th. Wow.

Mark00:05:01

You're.

Arnold00:05:01

Well, let's go back. This is your 20th book?

NiNi00:05:06

Yeah. I've done institutional histories and all that are parts of St. Louis history.It's all this city is just a phenomenal place that has such a layered, rich story. I visit so many places where you visit the historic site and you get a sense that they were important at one time in their history.And here we just keep layering on more stories of immigration, of the Civil War, of the expansion west, to what happened in the 20th century with the waves of immigrants becoming Americans and using their industrial might. And they had a powerful might in just their hard work in building this great city and then in defeating the fascist in World War II. Who did that?It was people on Washington Avenue who were making uniforms and boots or they were making Red Cross tents in the mart building next to City Hall. And this is just a great place to study history. And we have great people, we always have great leaders.

Arnold00:06:43

And you're someone who finds out or knows that information and you just don't keep it to yourself. You put it in the form of some books. And this is the second edition by Reedy Press.And I think what's great about that is unless that information is communicated and it gets lost.

NiNi00:07:03

First we have to document. And that is something that people are not doing today. They don't dig for answers. Dig for primary sources. We are still a relatively young city.We can find primary sources.

Arnold00:07:25

And when you say primary sources, define that for some people who may not be keeping history on their own.

Mark00:07:30

Yeah. Do it for me, will you?

NiNi00:07:33

It's like finding. Say you're studying the Civil War. There's so much myth about St. Louis and the Civil War era.

Arnold00:07:44

Yeah.

NiNi00:07:45

You go to letters that were written to family members. Then you go to the newspapers and see where. What the people were reading that day.I went to the census records and just read entry after entry of who was living where and figuring out what languages you would hear on the streets. Is that first person that account from the day from the action. And for instance, I did a book on the Civil War in St. Louis.What it was like to live in St. Louis during the Civil War. And I did it because I was so frustrated with hearing people with all these ideas about it didn't who had never looked at a primary source give.

Arnold00:08:42

Us an example of something you heard that you knew was not correct and then you may be corrected because of the primary sources that you had investigated.

NiNi00:08:52

With the Civil War, it was that we really were a union city. There was leadership and longtime St. Louisans who were associated with the south, particularly economically. But we had a population of 160,000. This.Now this really applies today. We had a population of 160,000 people. 60,000 were born in Germany.

Mark00:09:30

Wow.

NiNi00:09:31

40,000 were born. Are not quite 40,000. 39,000 and something were born in Ireland. We were a foreign city. Aliens built this city. Wow. That. And that doesn't include.I found lots of people born in Bohemia. Well over 2000. That's why I was reading entries. That's how it started. Because Bohemians weren't counted as Bohemians.They were tossed in with the Austrian Empire. And I wanted to find how many were born in Bohemia. So I. I'd read all the entries looking for born in Prague.And it would say Prague and then be listed as Austria. But it was what became Czechoslovakia. Now the Czech Republic. There were 300 people born in Poland.There were 300 people from Switzerland who lived on Gravoj, very close to here, very close to the studio. There were 300 Swiss born St. Louis, who were dairy farmers over where St. Francis de Sales is now. Okay, that's primary source.Reading the documents of the day. Now, sometimes primary sources do not become available till later on because some primary sources are top secret.Like growing up where I always lived in south St. Louis, you knew the Battle of the Bulge was terrible because you'd hear conversations of people saying about our parents generation, talking of a brother or an uncle who had frozen and. And they thawed him out and sent him back to the front.I met people who were in boot camp, and boot camp was cut short so they could ship them out to Europe. You knew it was horrible.But it wasn't till years, decades after the war that the casualties of the Battle of the Bulge were released because it was so horrendous that they felt it was too much for people to cope with.

Arnold00:12:06

Interesting.

NiNi00:12:07

So when I was in high school going to St. Elizabeth's here, I used to read the Post Dispatch back pages to read about World War II, because there they would have little items about things that were just declassified from the war.

Arnold00:12:25

Interesting.

NiNi00:12:26

Yeah. Sometimes the primary source comes available later, but it's a primary source.

Arnold00:12:34

Yeah. Now, I know we're supposed to talk about St. Louis parks, but you got me on the Union city Confederate state. Okay.So since we were mostly immigrants with leadership which had Southern kind of influence, you're saying that we were more of a Southern city.

NiNi00:12:54

We were seen as a Southern city, but there were all these Germans who were dedicated to the Union and dedicated to abolition, who were living mostly south, but a lot north of downtown. They were building communities along the river. And they. They came here because they believed in democracy, and they were appalled at slavery.And I didn't understand how this image of St. Louis persisted. And years ago, I was talking to a very fine historian who was from the east, and he said, there were no abolitionists here.And I said, they were all alone for St. Louis. And he. And it came up.This is how I found the definition they were using of an abolitionist was someone who was a member of an abolitionist society or subscribed to an abolitionist newspaper. They would have been in English, the German 60,000 German immigrants who were organized and ready to defend this Union.They weren't members of those organizations.

Mark00:14:27

No.

Arnold00:14:27

They had their own language and papers.

NiNi00:14:30

That's right. And so this just kind of went under the radar. But I went to St. Louis Public Grade School in St. Louis Public Grade School in eighth grade.We were singing while we were marching through Georgia. That is one of the little evidences of that German community that they fought in the western armies.They fought with Grant and then with Sherman going south and then cutting across east to the Carolinas. After the war, they got involved with education, public education. And Even in the 1960s, 100 years later, we're singing the songs they were proud of.I didn't know that everyone across the country did not sing while we were marching through Georgia. I found that out the tough way. You didn't sing that.When I went to college and met a number of singers, Southerners, I had no idea that we sang it as part of history. We knew in St. Louis public grade school about that march through Georgia.

Mark00:15:51

Wow.

NiNi00:15:52

Isn't that. To me, that's how tied and that's how union this city was.

Arnold00:15:59

Now folks, you understand why we love to have Nene on and just have a conversation with her. And we haven't even gotten to the parks yet, but it's. That's information, Mark. And listeners that.

Mark00:16:12

Who knew it brings up the Mason Dixon line to me. And then the arsenal, I guess the whole arsenal thing, which I don't know.

NiNi00:16:21

If this is all tied in with our parks, though. That's one of the things that is so strange when you're do.When I was doing park history, how much Civil War history is tied in with our early city parks.

Mark00:16:35

Right? Whoa.

NiNi00:16:35

And even Lafayette park, our very first park west in the Mississippi, very tied in with the Civil War used. It was used as a union camp for union volunteers from Missouri.

Mark00:16:51

Wow.

NiNi00:16:52

Not just the lion park next to the arsenal. It's so closely knit together. But I'm sorry, I've got to tell you about my publisher, Reedy Press.They published my book A Most Unsettled State, which what I did in that book was I used all first person accounts of what it was like to live in St. Louis during the Civil War because I got so tired of this interpretation and reinterpretation based on other interpretations and current attitudes. And so I did this book. They published it and they're in fact they keep having to republish it because there's ongoing demand for it or reprint it.

Arnold00:17:41

Yeah. ReadyPress.com r e e d y press.com and that's the thing. It's. Don't just type into chat.Don't just see what X says or you know, Instagram or whatever social media platform you're getting Your information from. Because it's generally misinformation and wrong information and deliberately set up information for you to steer you away.So go to primary sources, do some digging.

Mark00:18:12

I like primary sources.

NiNi00:18:13

The other thing about it is I read primary sources. I kept reading the newspapers of the day.And prior to the Civil War, the newspapers were very much like cable television, cable news and social media. They were all pushing agendas. And you look at that and you think how that tore us apart as a nation.And you see this agenda pushing in social media for sure. And people get their news from social media.

Arnold00:18:55

Something you have to consider that this has gone on for a long time. It's nothing new. But that's why we have a brain between the two ears.

Mark00:19:02

What?

Arnold00:19:03

And that's why school is important and not just let you know it be poured in. But you think about those things that you inquire about those things that you investigate those things. It's very important that you.You learn those things when you say that.

NiNi00:19:18

When I was in St. Louis public grade school, we had to read the newspaper every day. And we were required to report in eighth grade on the newspaper because that was part of being a good citizen, was being able to read the newspaper.And we also grew up in. Maybe we grew up in a short era when there was an attempt at fair reporting. We had Walter Cronkite.

Mark00:19:51

As I remember though, the St. Louis Globe Democrat was more Republican, conservative, conservative. And then the Post Dispatch was more liberal.

Arnold00:20:00

Right?

NiNi00:20:01

They were. And yet when you looked at them, the basic facts do not seem to have varied. Their editorial page was different.And then the other thing is what people choose to feature in the news. You can distort the news by just what subjects you choose to cover.

Mark00:20:25

I see.

Arnold00:20:26

Or. Or how you report the headlines. Mark and I have talked about the inflections that are used when people report the news.I can make this totally insane and numb information sound like it's very important and valuable by how I inflect things. And it's.

Mark00:20:44

Oh.

Arnold00:20:45

Like I would explore the unique character and history of parks in the St. Louis region in the second edition of the St. Louis Parks. Yeah. You understand what I'm saying?

NiNi00:20:55

I love it. No, you're absolutely right. You're just right.

Mark00:20:59

Oh, don't tell them that.

NiNi00:21:01

Okay.

Arnold00:21:01

I'm sorry. Where's that cash register? Sent.

Mark00:21:05

Stay away from that. Yeah.

Arnold00:21:06

This is Arnold Stricker with Mark Langston of St. Louis in Tune. We're talking to Nene Harris about the second edition St. Louis Parks. And we Just really are getting into the book now.We actually were just cracking the book right now because we've been talking about a lot of different things. Nene, why the second edition?

NiNi00:21:22

Because we needed it.

Arnold00:21:24

Why did we need it?

NiNi00:21:26

We saw sold out the first long ago and people have been saying to me personally we need to do this. And I've expanded it and our situation has changed. Now we have the only national park in a city, in a core of a city in the United States.

Arnold00:21:53

Wow.

NiNi00:21:53

The Gateway Arch national park is it folks. And it's so extraordinary. And we as a community have invested so much in it since the first edition.We have all this development that started with the great River Greenwood and all in 2000. That was only 2000.

Mark00:22:20

Wow.

NiNi00:22:20

That we passed that tax. And now we are hooking together parks in the city, the county and to outlying areas. We are in lush area in parks.It drives me crazy that I bring people from out of town or I get contacted people out of town. One is C. St. Louis and in a couple hours I show them the first park west of the Mississippi which has been beautifully restored.Lafayette Square, Lafayette Park. I take them to the finest Victorian park in the nation, Taro Grove Park.And we go to Forest park, which is an urban jewel and it's the stellar urban park in the entire nation. Now, with all the work done, we can do that in two hours. They are utterly dumbfounded.And you can barely get people from St. Louis county to come across the city limits and see any of this. That's why we have to do this. We have to get out there that we have all these shared treasures and we are a rich city. Yes, we're broke, okay?Financially, we're broke. We are rich in our heritage and we heritage of landscapes, of neighborhoods, of cultural institutions.And in the last 50 years we've developed thanks to many wonderful St. Louisans and then foundations like the Open Space Council and all. We've turned places that were forgotten and being polluted and used in as dumps into beautiful state parks that ring our metro area. Now you can't.We're so rich and people just don't realize it.

Arnold00:24:29

And folks, it's important to note that these parks she's talking about are in St. Louis City, St. Louis county and in the state. And that's what the book covers. It covers city parks, county parks and state parks that are located fairly close to the St. Louis metropolitan area.And I know that one park you mentioned that was a dump. Matter of fact, I used to take my bike to various parks and ride around them and find a spot that I thought was really cool.And all these, I shouldn't say all these parks I've done that with, but Crondelet park and Forest park and the one park out in Pacific north where Russell Bliss did his Route 66. Yeah, Route 66 part. Yeah. You can ride around there. See the Deer Time speech, Times Beach. That's what it was. And just marvelous kinds of things.So we're going to delve back into this and because we need to answer the questions about the Real Housewives of Jefferson county and also the road that was designed, I should say the street that was designed to connect these parks together, which I was like, holy smokes. I didn't know about that. But yeah. More on St. Louis and tune after this. This is Arnold Strucker with Mark Langston of St. Louis and Tune.Don't go away. As strange as it may sound, at Better Rate Mortgage we love talking to people about mortgages. Everyone in St. Louis promises a better mortgage rate.But what you really need to turn that perfect house into your dream home is a better mortgage. At Better Rate Mortgage, we open the door to so much more. So where are you in the home buying process?Researching, maybe wondering how much you can afford? House hunting? Get a pre approval from Better Rate Mortgage Ready to buy.Our team is ready to make your mortgage process fast and easy, whether you're purchasing your first home or taking cash out to make your dream home even dreamier. Our door is open. Come on in and get started. Today. We'll show you how.Call Sean directly at 314-375-3293 or online@betterratemortgage.com Remember, at Better Rate Mortgage, a better rate is just the beginning.Betterratemortgage.com and MLS ID 401335 and equal housing lender this is Arnold Stricker of St. Louis in tune on behalf of the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation. In 1857, the Dred Scott decision was a major legal event and catalyst that contributed to the Civil War.The decision declared that Dred Scott could not be free because he was not a citizen.The 14th Amendment, also called the Dred Scott Amendment, granted citizenship to all born or or naturalized here in our country and was intended to overturn the US Supreme Court decision on July 9, 1868.The Dred Scott Heritage foundation is requesting a commemorative stamp to be issued from the US Postal Service to recognize and remember the heritage of this amendment by issuing a stamp with the likeness of the man Dred Scott, but we need your support and the support of thousands of people who would like to see this happen. To achieve this goal, we ask you to download, sign and and share the one page petition with others.To find the petition, please go to dredscottlives.org and click on the Dred Scott petition drive on the right side of the page. On behalf of the Dred Scott Heritage foundation, this has been Arnold Stricker of St. Louis in tune.

NiNi00:27:33

Aren't they wonderful?

Mark00:27:35

We're back.

Arnold00:27:39

We've been talking.

Mark00:27:40

I know. Yakking.

Arnold00:27:42

We've been yakking away. This is Arnold Stricker with Mark Langston of St. Louis and Tune, the yackers extraordinaire. And we have Nene Harris.She's an author and historian and she's in studio to talk about the updated book, second edition St. Louis Parks that she did with Eslie Hamilton. Yeah, he would have joined us, but he's gallivanting around Europe right now.

Mark00:28:00

That's what I wanted to ask about. Eslie Hamilton. Did. Did he help you with you?

NiNi00:28:05

I'm jealous. Like, Matt. Gallivanting is the perfect. That's what Eslie is doing.

Mark00:28:12

Did he help you on the first edition of this?

NiNi00:28:14

He did the county parks, I did the city parks. He worked for St. Louis County Parks for decades.

Mark00:28:22

Yes, he did.

NiNi00:28:22

And he did the county parks. I did the city, and then I did the state parks around it. And of course, I got to do our wonderful Gateway Arch national park.

Mark00:28:30

Wow. Okay. All right. He owes us money.

Arnold00:28:33

Yeah.

Mark00:28:33

I'm just saying.

NiNi00:28:33

I'm sure he's spending it in Germany.

Arnold00:28:36

So while we're talking about county parks, Jefferson Barracks park, that's another great one.I would ride around Mark, and there's a wonderful lookout point that they really need to cut the trees, but the gates for the old have been moved there.

NiNi00:28:51

Yeah.

Mark00:28:51

Oh, is that right?

NiNi00:28:53

Oh, decades ago. And what is such a beautiful place, but what has been forgotten right now is its remarkable history. And we've lost the World War II generation.And as long as they were alive, the stories of what happened there were kept alive.And now people go and enjoy that beautiful place, and they don't realize it was started in 1826 as the furthest west army barracks to secure the frontier, whatever the frontier was, because the frontier was in constant movement for the west. And first, the first fort or barracks was Fort Bellefontaine, which is now a gorgeous park in north County.And they decided that park was too prone to creating an environment for disease. They had a Lot of mosquitoes and there were lots of malarias. But it's just a beautiful landscape. And this is a twist.Coldwater Creek ran into the river that had a view of the Missouri river. So in 1826 they closed Fort Bellefontaine on the north side to the north of St. Louis and.And opened up Jefferson Barracks as the military post south of St. Louis. So it's there that the Dragoons are the first cavalry was established permanent cavalry in the U.S. army.It was there that the first at least successful parachute jump happened from a plane. It was at Jefferson Barracks. And a number of the buildings are still there.A lot of them we will not see because there is a Missouri National Guard post there. And so that's all secure. But around it is wonderful parkland.And several of the buildings from the barracks are open to the public as museums and their treasures. And the landscape is unbelievable. But if you know the tens of thousands of. Of soldiers of all these different eras were there.It was open until 1946 that their military careers began or ended there with a streetcar ride to Jefferson Barracks.

Arnold00:31:48

Now correct me if I'm wrong, Ulysses Grant was stationed there. Robert E. Lee.

NiNi00:31:53

That's right. And Bragg, Jefferson Davis, George McClellan.

Arnold00:31:58

Was he there? Not McClellan.

NiNi00:32:00

You know what? Longstreet was. Okay, Long street was. And many of these fellows knew one another. There are met their beloveds there.Even Eisenhower got tied there because Eisenhower had gone to work for a few years after high school, decided he wanted to go to the military academy. And he came to St. Louis to Jefferson Barracks to take the examination. In the 1930s the commander was a Lieutenant Colonel Walter Kruger.And this is wild. He was an immigrant and he came from Germany with his mother when he was about 8.And he enters the US army at age 17, is the first private to become a general.

Arnold00:32:58

Wow.

NiNi00:32:59

Enters as a private, becomes a general eventually. 4 stars. He is the mastermind and the leader behind the Philippines campaign. He was on the front page or cover of time magazine in 1945.And in 1932-34 he was commander Jefferson Barracks.

Mark00:33:23

And.

NiNi00:33:23

And he's one of the people who's been basically forgotten. People remember MacArthur. This fella, he was a remarkable leader in so many ways.

Arnold00:33:37

What was his name again?

NiNi00:33:38

Walter Kruger.

Arnold00:33:39

K R U E G E R. Yeah. Okay.

NiNi00:33:43

Isn't that amazing? And people don't never heard of it. I didn't know. I didn't know about him until I'm reading about this Walter Kruger.

Arnold00:33:52

And do you know him, Mark?

Mark00:33:54

No, but I think A lot of people when they talk about Jefferson Barracks, they think of the cemetery. They don't.

NiNi00:33:59

That's right. They don't even know there's hundreds of acres of park.

Mark00:34:02

I was just trying to look up and see how many, how big that Jefferson Barracks is.

NiNi00:34:06

I can't tell. Oh, it's over 400 acres of parkland. Then you've got the grounds that. Okay, 1700 acres were set aside for the park.

Mark00:34:18

Okay.

NiNi00:34:19

Or not the park and for the barracks.

Mark00:34:21

Okay.

NiNi00:34:22

Some of that land is the cemetery, some is where the VA hospital is and some is the parkland.

Mark00:34:33

And so many people just think it's the cemetery.

NiNi00:34:37

Yeah, yeah.

Arnold00:34:38

They hear it over people down there. They are familiar with it because there's concerts down there. They have an amphitheater down there and have concerts regularly down there.

NiNi00:34:47

They know it as a of part park. They do not understand, comprehend its history. And I would, I could study forever and not comprehend its history. It's just so rich.It's in St. Louis County. It is the most important historic site in St. Louis County.

Mark00:35:06

Wow.

NiNi00:35:07

Now in the city is the arch grounds for the whole region. That piece of ground that is now a national park was the soul mart for such a vast territory.There is nothing like it in the history of the world that such a small piece of ground was the place where all the expeditions, the explorations, the groups going out to settle and all the goods all went through that national park site. And there is no other place where so much went through for such a large area.So we've got the national park downtown and then we've got these incredible ribbon of parkway leading west. And if you, if, when you go to a baseball game or anything, take a walk, go early and spend time in City Garden.

Arnold00:36:19

It's a gorgeous park.

NiNi00:36:20

Oh, we have world class sculptures in there, things that are in museum in Europe. We have in this park space and we have these fabulous plantings that are native, that are plantings that will thrive in our environment.And it's just an incredible place. And it's part of this ribbon of parkway that is coming along that only takes 100 years to do, but that's how it is.But that's how cities do not happen overnight. Great things do not happen like that.This plan was first back in 1907 to have a ribbon of parkway from the river west all the way to what's now St. Louis University. And now we have this plaza with the fountains in front of Union Station. That part of it ends with this wonderful stadium. Our soccer Stadium.And then we're going to have the greenway continuing on to St. Louis very shortly, if the foundry in that area. So we're really carrying out our Civic Plan of 1907.

Arnold00:37:46

So talk about the North South Connector that connected parks, which I didn't know about this one. This is cool.

NiNi00:37:52

So our city grew, like, out of a hub of a wheel, which was downtown, which is now downtown. For 100 years, downtown was almost all of St. Louis.But then it grew out along spokes, and those spokes were like Broadway and olive and South Broadway and gravois. So it's growing out spokes, and you have different things developing along those spokes.You also have that old creek bed that then becomes the rail beds, and the rails divide north and south. So even like with German communities, you'll find there is a German community north, there's a German community south. They had complementary.Are the same cultural organizations. You'd have one north, one south because you couldn't get there from here.So in 1907, the idea of the King's highway boulevard system is developed to tie together mostly uses of parks and by creating more parks and ribbons of parkways that would hook together the area. We attribute the division between north and south to ethnic backgrounds and race and all this stuff.It was physical barriers that existed from our very terrain and the railroads following the terrain.So what they did is we had beautiful Carondelet park on the south, beautiful o' Fallon park on the north, and mid or west, we had Forest park, magnificent park, and Taro Grove Park. Taro Grove park, its western border was Kings Highway, Forest park, its eastern border was Kings Highway. And then they put through.They straightened out and put viaducts on Kings highway and parkland like Penrose park on the north side, Christie park on the south. Interesting along these roads and ribbons and North Kings highway extended it with a parkway.South City went a parkway, Holly Hills Parkway along Carondelet park, come all together and then establish new Belle Reeve park overlooking the river.So you could start at Belle Reeve park and follow these boulevards and parks through Kings highway and end up in o' Fallon park with an overlook of the river, because before the highway, you had great views there. It's a beautiful plan. Who screwed it up was the highway department in the state of Missouri, which called themselves a highway department.Yeah, they didn't want to have anything to do but build highways. And they cut off Bell Reed park from Belle Reed Boulevard, but most of the systems intact.They took part of Crondalette park right they took part of o' Fallon Park. They took part of Forest Park. They took part of Compton Hill Park. Yeah. But it's an incredible system.And, yeah, we do have those interruptions, but we've got all the pieces that. That are just so lovely. We have. It's an incredible park system.If you live here, it's different than it looks from the outside because what people from other parts of the metro area do is they get on a highway and they come through the city.

Mark00:42:06

Right.

NiNi00:42:07

They come through and they go to a destination.They're so shocked when you get them off the highway and they figure out that the hill is right next to Tara Grove park and then there's Shore to one side and the other side is Compton Heights. You go down a beautiful boulevard and you find you're at Lafayette Park. They just don't. They. We view things. And this isn't just people here.All over the nation, we view things from the perspective of highways.

Mark00:42:40

And we do see.

NiNi00:42:43

Yeah. How we're knitted together.

Arnold00:42:45

I always thought when you look down on a map, you know, you've got Forest park in the middle. On the south, you've got Crondalette. In the north, you've got Fairground. They're like matching parks.

NiNi00:42:53

They were.

Mark00:42:54

Yeah.

NiNi00:42:55

They were thought of that way because.

Arnold00:42:57

The places that kind of overlook the lakes look identical.

NiNi00:43:01

They do. And the lakes were new. When I say new, those parks were all established in 1876. The lakes are established in the 1890s. They're dug out.And they're dug out in response to the economic panic of 1893, which was horrendous. And a lot of people were going hungry. And they provided work. The Post Dispatch did it. That's why Forest park has the Post Dispatch Lake.They ran a fun drive.

Arnold00:43:33

Okay, that makes sense.

Mark00:43:35

Yeah.

Arnold00:43:35

And okay, you find out these things on St. Louis in tune, and especially from our guest, Nini Harris, who's here to talk about St. Louis parks. And that's what we've been talking about. Now, I did mention a couple times. Go ahead. The Real Housewives of Jefferson county saved a park.And I'm not talking recently.

Mark00:43:55

Yeah.

Arnold00:43:55

And I'm just kidding with the Real Housewives of Jefferson county, but. Housewives of Jefferson County. Yeah. And they were the real ones.

Mark00:44:01

I know.

Arnold00:44:02

They saved. What did they save, Nene?

NiNi00:44:04

What Saved Mastodon. And it's now technically a historic site, but they saved it as a park. And we knew.

Mark00:44:15

Did they find dinosaurs there?

NiNi00:44:17

Yes.

Arnold00:44:17

Mastodon.

NiNi00:44:18

Mastodons.

Arnold00:44:19

Yeah.

Mark00:44:19

Is that right? They really Did.

Arnold00:44:20

Yes.

NiNi00:44:22

Back in the early 19th century.And everyone knew about this site, and there were even excursions out to it from the World's Fair to go spend a day at Mastodon and see the remains of the mastodon.

Mark00:44:40

I've never been there. Isn't that terrible? I've never. I just heard the stories.

NiNi00:44:44

That just says how rich our metro area is, that if we didn't have so much wonderful stuff, you would be there. But you've got to spend a lifetime getting everywhere.

Mark00:44:55

Yeah, that's true. That's true. That's true.

Arnold00:44:58

The kids from school would go down there. Plus it was close by, see the mastodons and learn about them.

Mark00:45:05

Never did it. I heard stories. Never did.

NiNi00:45:08

Well, and we almost lost it all, except for the Real Housewives, because the highway department.

Arnold00:45:15

There we go. The highway department again.

NiNi00:45:17

Yeah, the evil highway department.

Mark00:45:19

Evil.

NiNi00:45:20

Evil.

Mark00:45:21

Yes.

NiNi00:45:22

They bought up all this land, and the land had been badly damaged and there were kilns there and stuff. Stuff that they were burning up bones for lime. Oh, it was terrible. Oh, horrible things happened.And the highway department bought it because they weren't quite sure where 55 was going to go. And then when they finished 55, they had a developer who wanted to buy that land for a subdivision. And four housewives got together and they got.They were given an ultimatum. They had an offer for $568,000 from a developer and the. Isn't this horrible?

Mark00:46:14

Yeah, so far it sounds terrible.

NiNi00:46:16

It is. The highway department says if you can come up with 568,000, you can have it.

Mark00:46:23

Oh, killing me.

NiNi00:46:25

They did it. They were knocking on doors. They were so determined. Eventually, a number of people with wealth in St. Louis started to support them.We have great rich people in St. Louis. They are constantly reinvesting in our community. And in essence, they're saying we've had good fortune and they share it.And they started supporting these women. They raised their $568,000, and it's now a wonderful state historic site with wonderful trails and an aviary.And it's so close to the highway, but you can. The bird life in it is phenomenal. And you can remove yourself to this little spot. It's wonderful.

Arnold00:47:21

So I stand corrected. It should be the real four House, Four Housewives of Jefferson County.

Mark00:47:27

Okay, I'm going to visit it now.

Arnold00:47:29

It's a great place.

Mark00:47:30

I'm going to visit it.

NiNi00:47:31

You want to? You'll love it.

Mark00:47:32

I will. I'm sure. It sounds like it. Really?

Arnold00:47:35

So how many parks really does the city of St. Louis have.

NiNi00:47:39

It's over 100. And the reason it's debated is like that ribbon of parkway downtown, every couple blocks was renamed in honor of somebody else.So you could have 108 parks. You can have 103 parks is how you count them. But here's the thing. Over 100 parks and the city is only 61 square miles.That shows that dedication to it is little.

Arnold00:48:20

It is.

NiNi00:48:20

It's 61.

Arnold00:48:21

The school district I used to live in, I worked in was 120 square miles.

NiNi00:48:26

Wow. And see, that's why we're challenged now. You think of it, we 61 square miles, and almost everywhere in it is historic.And we so thank God for families like the Taylor family and so many other wonderful families who give so much and support our cultural institutions.

Arnold00:48:55

And the county kind of did some similar things. U city has a bunch of parks by their schools. Webster, Maplewood. They adopted some of the similar kinds.

NiNi00:49:05

Of thoughts they did. The municipalities. The county as a whole, though, did not have a park system for way long. This is. So it was explained to me by an architect that who.We were just discussing parks, and I couldn't understand how we in the city in 1836 are debating parks when we have 12,000 people who are living basically on what's now the arch grounds, and they establish Lafayette park way out there. And why would you think on the edge of wilderness we need to establish a public park? But that's what our leaders did in 1836. It's phenomenal.The county park system doesn't start until the new charter and 1950. And then in 51, they actually get the park system set up for the county as a whole.That this architect said to me, everybody thought they wouldn't need parks. They're going to move out there and have big yards and everyone will have their own big yard with. They won't need a park.

Mark00:50:30

No.

NiNi00:50:31

And they get out there and they have these big yards, and then they say, where's our parks? Where's our park? And it was part of our psyche. We want parks. They're special places.

Arnold00:50:46

And one of the things you mention in your book, which I think is a very valuable statement, which explains some things to me, is that the parks in the summertime were used for activities for youth, to keep them busy, to keep them active, to keep them engaged in their community and to educate. And in university city, where Mark and I grew up, same kind of thing. In the summertime, there was a parks program.In the summertime, you would go to the park. In the summertime they would take you down to the Heman pool. You would do some arts and crafts, you would do some games.There were activities, there were things for you to do.And that's one of the benefits I see of the city parks in a historical aspect is there is this vision for just not a parcel of land, especially for the summertime. When it got hot, you could sleep there. But for the summertime for youth could go there to have activities.And that's why they were so populated a lot.

NiNi00:51:41

And there were two trends in parks and you still see this. And one is the passive park, which I love. Belle Reed park is a passive park.It's a place to look at the river and Illinois and watch the barge traffic and imagine Mark Twain. Then there are the active parks or recreation parks. We established lots of those at the beginning of the 20th century.And there was the idea that within a half mile, every half mile, you had to have a little park or playground. So if you go south of Tar Grove park and on Morgan Ford and just one block east or a half a block east, you've got McDonald park and Playground.It's a three acre park. It's only a half, it's not even a half mile away.

Mark00:52:37

Wow.

NiNi00:52:38

But the kids further south couldn't walk to Taro Grove Park. A six year old couldn't. If you look at the map of how they established. And they would even rent playground space if they couldn't buy it.Every half mile a six year old could make their way to a park and they.Of course now at that time we had the entire population of the metro area living within the city of St. Louis, except for a few scattered suburban early communities.We had the tax base to support it and other cities had things like settlement houses and all our program was different because our program in the parks was for the poorest to the wealthiest. They did not. It was we are all citizens of St. Louis and they had muni leagues. There were activities.The parks opened, the summer programs opened the Monday after the school year ended. And they had the little wading ponds. Those were closed. And yeah, they were great. But that was pre air conditioning and they were closed during polio.And so most of those have been written out.

Mark00:54:06

So many questions. I say we start a petition to name a park after Nene.

Arnold00:54:13

That would be great. That would be great. I think that's a great idea. So if you want to learn more, you can get this book, it's the St. Louis Parks, second edition.And you can get that@reedypress.com or you probably get that at a lot of bookstores, et cetera, et cetera. And you've got some places where you're going to be signing books and you're going to be visiting Carondelet historical society on June 14th.Oh, that's already passed Lafayette Square. Lafayette Square.

NiNi00:54:42

Lafayette Park. I'll be there. October 12th, Sunday afternoon in the pavilion, giving a program showing the evolution of city parks.

Arnold00:54:52

There you go. October 12th at Lafayette Park. I didn't even know what day it was or what month it was.

Mark00:54:57

I know. We didn't even get to talk about Benton park. And if they're going to get water back.

Arnold00:55:03

Yeah. Or fill in the cave underneath. I know.

Mark00:55:05

Filling the cave. I don't know what they should do with that thing. I know. There's so many questions we have and.

Arnold00:55:09

We ran out of time for Are.

Mark00:55:11

You going to come back soon?

Arnold00:55:12

Days of the day. Mental floss.

Mark00:55:13

We've got very little left here. Gosh, I don't know.

Arnold00:55:16

Nene, thanks for coming back again. You're always welcome.

NiNi00:55:18

It's my pleasure. It is my pleasure.

Arnold00:55:21

We need to continue to pick her brain and just to talk about St. Louis history.

Mark00:55:26

So much fun.

Arnold00:55:27

Yeah, it is.

Mark00:55:27

Yeah. This hour has flown by.

Arnold00:55:29

It really has. It really has.

Mark00:55:31

It has.

NiNi00:55:31

Thank you.

Mark00:55:32

Oh, thank you.

Arnold00:55:34

That's all for this hour, folks. We thank you for listening. If you've enjoyed this episode, you can listen to additional shows@stluntune.com.consider leaving a review on our website, Apple Podcast, Podchaser, or your preferred podcast platform. Your feedback helps us reach more listeners and continue to grow.Thank you to Bob Berthicel for our theme music, thank you to our sponsor, Better Rate Mortgage, thank you to our guest, Nene Harris, and a special thanks to co host Mark Langston. And folks, we thank you for being a part of our community of curious minds.St. Louis in tune is a production of Motif Media Group and the US Radio Network. Remember to keep seeking, keep learning, walk worthy, and let your light shine. For St. Louis in tune, I'm Arnold Stricker.

Mark00:56:19

Sam.