Fairground Park: What History Remains

For many St. Louis area residents, Fairground Park is a faded memory, or an unrecognized part of the city and its history. Before St. Louis was nationally and internationally recognized for Forest Park and the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, the city hosted the annual Agricultural and Mechanical Fair (1856-1902), drawing crowds from around the country. The 132-acre Fairground Park is situated in north St. Louis at the intersection of North Grand Boulevard and Natural Bridge Avenue.

The land that is now Fairground Park was the site of this fair for half a century. The city’s website for the park describes the old fairgrounds, which included exhibition halls, a racetrack and jockey club, and the largest amphitheater in the country at the time it was built. In 1876, St. Louis’s first zoological garden was constructed on the fairgrounds of the Agricultural and Mechanical Fair. The city’s original zoo included a monkey house, a carnivore house, and a bear pit, among other attractions.[1] In the space that is now Fairground Park, St. Louis established itself as one of the country’s preeminent cities.