The State Historical Society of Missouri COLUMBIA, MISSOURI WINTER 1968 THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MISSOURI The State Historical Society of Missouri, heretofore organized under the laws of this State, shall be the trustee of this State—Laws of Missouri, 1899, R.S. of Mo., 1959, Chapter 183. OFFICERS 1965-68 LEO J. ROZIER, Perryville, President L. E. MEADOR, Springfield, First Vice President LEWIS E. ATHERTON, Columbia, Second Vice President RUSSELL V. DYE, Liberty, Third Vice President JACK STAPLETON, SR., Stanberry, Fourth Vice President JOHN A. WINKLER, Hannibal, Fifth Vice President REV. JOHN F. BANNON, S.J., St. Louis, Sixth Vice President R. B. PRICE, Columbia, Treasurer FLOYD C. SHOEMAKER, Columbia, Secretary Emeritus and Consultant RICHARD S. BROWNLEE, Columbia, Director, Secretary, and Librarian TRUSTEES Permanent Trustees, Former Presidents of the Society E. L. DALE, Carthage E. E. SWAIN, Kirksville RUSH H. LIMBAUGH, Cape Girardeau ROY D. WILLIAMS, Boonville GEORGE A. ROZIER, Jefferson City Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1968 LEWIS E. ATHERTON, Columbia R. I. COLBORN, Paris ROBERT A. BOWLING, Montgomery City RICHARD B. FOWLER, Kansas City FRANK P. BRIGGS, Macon VICTOR A. GIERKE, Louisiana HENRY A. BUNDSCHU, Independence ROBERT NAGEL JONES, St. Louis Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1969 ROY COY, St. Joseph W. WALLACE SMITH, Independence GEORGE MCCUE, St. Louis JACK STAPLETON, SR., Stanberry L. E. MEADOR, Springfield HENRY C. THOMPSON, Bonne Terre JOSEPH H. MOORE, Charleston ROBERT M. WHITE, Mexico Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1970 WILLIAM AULL, III, Lexington GEORGE FULLER GREEN, Kansas City WILLIAM R. DENSLOW, Trenton GEORGE H. SCRUTON, Sedalia ELMER ELLIS, Columbia JAMES TODD, Moberly ALFRED O. FUERBRINGER, St. Louis T. BALLARD WAITERS, Marshfield EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE The twenty-nine Trustees, the President and the Secretary of the Society, the Governor, Secretary of State, State Treasurer, and President of the Univer­ sity of Missouri constitute the Executive Committee. FINANCE COMMITTEE Four members of the Executive Committee appointed by the President, who by virtue of his office constitutes the fifth member, compose the Finance Committee. T. BALLARD WAITERS, Marshfield, Chairman WILLIAM R. DENSLOW, Trenton GEORGE A. ROZIER, Jefferson City ELMER ELLIS, Columbia LEO J. ROZIER, Perryville MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVIEW Published Quarterly by THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MISSOURI COLUMBIA, MISSOURI RICHARD S. BROWNLEE EDITOR DOROTHY CALDWELL ASSOCIATE EDITOR JAMES W. GOODRICH ASSOCIATE EDITOR The MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVIEW is owned by the State Historical Society of Missouri and is published quarterly at 201 South Eighth Street, Columbia, Missouri 65201. Send communications and change of address to The State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65201. Second class postage is paid at Columbia, Missouri. The REVIEW is sent free to all members of The State Historical VOLUME LXII Society of Missouri. Membership dues in the Society are $2.00 a year or $25 for an individual life membership. The Society assumes NUMBER 2 no responsibility for statements made by contributors to the magazine. JANUARY 1968 CONTENTS THE ACQUISITION OF ST. LOUIS' FOREST PARK. By Kevin C. Kearns 95 THE ARMY OF ISRAEL MARCHES INTO MISSOURI. By Warren A. Jennings 107 A NEW VIEW OF THE BATTLE OF PEA RIDGE. By Albert Castel 136 MISSOURI'S NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARKS. By Dorothy J. Caldwell 152 VIEWS FROM THE PAST: MISSOURI RECREATION 166 HISTORICAL NOTES AND COMMENTS News in Brief 168 Local Historical Societies 174 Honors and Tributes 186 Gifts 188 Missouri History in Newspapers 192 Missouri History in Magazines 197 Graduate Theses Relating to Missouri History 200 In Memoriam 202 BOOK REVIEWS 203 BOOK NOTES 207 FERRYING ACROSS THE RIVERS 211 VINNIE REAM Inside Back Cover THE COVER: This period scene of old Ste. Genevieve, is reproduced from a diorama located in the Old Courthouse, Broadway and Market, St. Louis, Mis­ souri. Created during a Public Works project in the 1940s, the diorama is part of the Louisiana Purchase Exhibit of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. The photograph of the diorama was furnished to the Society by John Frost McDonald of St. Louis. Missouri Historical Society This sketch of Forest Park in 1875 was one of several that were instrumental in swaying public sentiment in favor of buying the land. THE ACQUISITION OF ST. LOUIS' FOREST PARK BY KEVIN C. KEARNS* In many respects the twentieth century was born in Forest Park in St. Louis. Many of the new ideas and inventions of man were displayed at the famed Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904 held on the grounds of this park, and truly the eyes of the world were turned to the State of Missouri which served as host to the grand event. Missourians were proud, for this was to be their opportunity to display a world's fair even greater than the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. As the 668 acres in the western portion of Forest Park were being prepared for the approaching spectacle, the excitement and anticipation shared by all citizens of * Dr. Kearns is presently an associate professor of Geography at Colorado State College in Greeley, Colorado. He received his B.S. degree from Washington University in St. Louis and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from St. Louis University. 96 Missouri Historical Review the State were fostered by a statement in the St. Louis Post- Dispatch: The Chicago World's Fair was built upon a flat. The St. Louis World's Fair will be built within a forest. The fair of 1893 was a glittering vista of level plain. The fair of 1903 (as it was originally scheduled) will be a shimmering show of castle-crowned eminences.1 It was natural that the Louisiana Purchase Exposition should receive world-wide publicity and noteworthy that the majority of the contemporary publications were united in featuring the high moral tone of the Exposition as well as its vast proportions. For this fair was to be something special—even for world fairs, and it was expected that the millions of visitors would marvel at the beauty of the park upon whose grounds the fair was being held. It was generally conceded prior to the official opening of the fair that the natural beauty of the park grounds would indeed be one of the major attractions to visitors from virtually all parts of the globe. Some twenty-nine years before the Louisiana Purchase Exposition began work on the park terrain, the commissioners of Forest Park issued a statement in their records attesting to the abundance of pristine beauty which was so responsible in the ultimate decision to select that particular site for the fair grounds: Forest Park will prove attractive at all seasons, Spring will give it, with its luxuriant, indigenous grasses and the varied verdure of its native and cultivated trees, an exquisite beauty and freshness. In the leafy month, the light and shadow of its open lawns, interspersed with groups and individual trees, will be presented in striking contrast with the dark recesses of the wilderness, where it will be a study to preserve all of the impressive features of the primeval forest. The changing leaves of Autumn, found in such perfec­ tion in our country, here offer the greatest contrast, and the splendid variety and combination of colors. In Winter, when snow and sleet cover the earth and drape the trees in the clear and bright morning sun, a scene fairy-like and indescribable will be disclosed. But in the summer after­ noons, and early mornings, the park will prove the most i World's Fair Bulletin (St. Louis, July, 1901) ,11. Reprinted from St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The Acquisition of St. Louis' Forest Park 97 delightful. The early Spring, the protracted and ardent heat of the summer months, and the glories of our Indian Summer, lingering almost until merry Christmas, renders, in this climate, a "forest" park—attractive and enjoyable for quite eight months of the year. When opened to the public, it will be the rendezvous point of our people in a gay throng of carriages, and of the visitors by the lines of quick transit, then prepared for their accommodation.2 Pre-eminently the Exposition, held in such an environment, was robust, healthy, educational and inspiring. It left in the minds of the guests only the most favorable remembrances of all that they had seen and experienced. This was really the first World's Fair to assume a distinctly universal and democratic character. It was an object lesson in the brotherhood of mankind and an in­ spiration for a world where difference need not imply discord. It was the crowning achievement of the universal congress of com­ petitive exhibits that the 1904 World's Fair should be so inspiring to all humanity—and it was all taking place in Missouri—on the grounds of Forest Park. There was almost a general consensus that no better and more fitting site could have been chosen upon which to place the fair and that if a different location had been decided upon, the World's Fair in St. Louis would never have been as popular. If there existed a commonalty of approval in 1904 as to the selection of the site for the Exposition, the years of the early 1870s were filled with an atmosphere of disagreement and controversy over the proposal to establish a park in western St. Louis County. The fact is, that Forest Park did not come easily to the city of St. Louis. The property which is now Forest Park was retrieved to use­ fulness long before its ownership had passed into the hands of St. Louis. Previous to being acquired by the city, it was owned by several prominent families, such as that of Robert Forsyth, who utilized this land as a farm and for their complete country home.