Lafayette Park - Lafayette Square Historic District - St. Louis, MO - NRHP Historic Districts - Contributing Buildings on Waymarking.com

County of site: Independent City of St. Louis
Location of lake: Lafayette Park, Lafayette Square Neighborhood, St. Louis
Park bounded by: Lafayette Ave., Missouri Ave., Mississippi Ave., and Park Ave.

"Lafayette Park is the locus of the Square. The existence of the Park stimulated development of the Lafayette Square neighborhood and contributed to the unique character of the district. The physical expanse of the Park, circumvented by the 120-foot-wide streets, produces an impression of spaciousness in the center of Lafayette Square. Furthermore, the strong vertical polarity of many homes, a design compatable with premium park-frontage lot values, creates an aesthetic sensation unique in the City of St. Louis. Although the height of the buildings and size of the lots generally decreases with distence from the Park, many blocks removed from the public square express the vertical orientation on a more modest scale. (St. Louis City Plan Commission, 1971, 13). William T. Harris Row (1100-1124 South Eighteenth Street), and the 1800-1900 blocks of Hickory and LaSalle streets (between South Eighteenth Street and Mississippi Avenue) express particularly well a design relationship with the larger homes on the Park. However, the uniformity and compactness of the structures on the back streets conveys an impression of intimacy and contrasts sharply with the expansiveness of the park perimeter.

"It is significant that Lafayette Square developed around the largest of St. Louis' City Parks (prior to Forest Park, opened in 1875), that the Square contained the first of the City's many "Places," and that so many of the original homes remain today in relatively stable condition.

"Lafayette Park was the first public park in St. Louis. Established by statute in 1836, Lafayette Park consists of that portion of the old city commons retained in municipal ownership at the time of the subdivision of the public pastureland. During 1836, the City Council stipulated that "the Square formed and bounded by Lafayette, Park, Mississippi, arid Missouri Avenues shall be reserved as a public square 1," and furthermore, the ordinance directed that the major throughways fronting the park be maintained at a width of not less than 120-feet, with other arteries to be not less than sixty-feet wide." ~ NRHP Nomination Form

"Lafayette Park was set aside from the St. Louis Common in 1836 and dedicated in 1851 as one of the first public parks, and by far the largest of its era, in the City of St. Louis, Missouri. It is considered by many historians to be the oldest urban park west of the Mississippi. At 30 acres Lafayette Park is one of the larger parks in the city even though it is still dwarfed by Forest Park which is about 46 times larger." ~ St. Louis Parks Division

Lafayette Square Historic District MAP of Contributing/Non-Contributing buildings and sites