Page:EB1911 - Volume 24.djvu/39

 (45 acres), probably the finest of their kind in the country, were gifts to the city from a public-spirited citizen, Henry Shaw (1800-1889), who also endowed the botanical school of Washington University. Carondelet (180 acres), O'Fallon (158 acres), and Fair ground(129 acres, including a 65-acre athletic field) are the finest of the other parks. King's Highway is a boulevard (partly completed in 1910) from the Mississippi on the S. to the Mississippi on the N., crossing the western part of the city. In accord with a general movement in American cities late in the 19th century, St Louis made a beginning in the provision of small “neighbourhood parks,” intended, primarily to better the lives of the city's poor, and vacation playgrounds for children; and for this purpose five blocks of tenements were condemned by the city. In the different parks and public places are statues of Columbus, Shakespeare (Tower Grove Park) and Humboldt (Tower Grove Park), by Ferdinand von Mueller of Munich; a replica of the Schiller monument at Marbach in Germany, and of Houdon's Washington (Lafayette Park); statues of Thomas Hart Benton (Lafayette Park; by Harriet Hosmer), of Francis Preston Blair (W. W. Gardner) and Edward Bates (J. W. McDonald), both in Forest Park, and of General Grant (R. P. Bringhurst) in the City Hall Park; all of these being in bronze. In the cemeteries of the city—of which the largest are Bellefontaine (350 acres) and Calvary (415 acres)—there are notable monuments to Henry Shaw, and to Nathaniel Lyon, Sterling Price, Stephen W. Kearny and W. T. Sherman, all closely associated with St Louis or Missouri. There are various lake, river and highland pleasure-resorts near the city; and about 12 m. S. is Jefferson Barracks, a national military post of the first class. The old arsenal within the city, about which centred the opening events of the Civil War in Missouri, has been mainly abandoned, and part of the grounds given to the municipality for a park.

The annual fair, or exposition, was held in the autumn of each year—except in war time—from 1855 to 1902, ceasing with the preparations for the World's Fair of 1904. One day of Fair Week (“Big Thursday”) was a city holiday; and one evening of the week was given over after 1878 to a nocturnal illuminated pageant known as the Procession of the Veiled Prophet, with accompaniments in the style of the carnival (Mardi Gras) at New Orleans; this pageant is still continued.

In trade, industry and wealth St Louis is one of the most substantial cities of the Union. Its growth has been steady; but without such “booms” as have marked the history of many western cities, and especially Chicago, of which St Louis was for several decades the avowed rival. The primacy of the northern city was clear, however, by 1880. St Louis has borne a reputation for conservatism and solidity. Its manufactures aggregate three-fifths the value of the total output of the state. In 1880 their value was $114,333,375, and in 1890 $228,700,000; the value of the factory product was $193,732,788 in 1900, and in 1905 $267,307,038 (increase 1900-1905, 38%).