Missouri History Museum

The land occupied by Fairgrounds Park was once the site of agricultural fairs, a Civil War camp named Benton Barracks, racetracks, and a zoo before being abandoned in 1902. On October 9, 1909 St. Louisians gathered to dedicate the site as a city park in a ceremony that included a parade of thousands of north side school children and a speech from a Civil War veteran, John W. Noble, who had been stationed at Benton Barracks under General William Sherman. The ceremony was concluded when Mayor Frederick Kreismann formally dedicated the park to the children of St. Louis “as a place where they may come to learn lessons of human liberty, love, and gratitude to St. Louis and America.”