Forest Park Highlands (Images of America: Missouri)

By Doug Garner

Book Overview

Forest Park Highlands was once St. Louis's largest and best-known amusement park. In its earliest years, the Highlands boasted a fine theater and one of the largest public swimming pools in the United States. After the 1904 world's fair closed, several attractions found a new home at the Highlands; the large pagoda--a re-creation of the temple of Nekko, Japan--served as the park's bandstand for several years. Roller coasters are the lifeline of every good amusement park, and the Highlands always had two. The end came for the Highlands in a spectacular fire that decimated almost the entire park on July 19, 1963. Only the Comet roller coaster, the Ferris wheel, the Dodgems, the carousel, and the Aero Jets survived. Forest Park Highlands covers other historic amusement parks in St. Louis as well, starting with the earliest, West End Heights, and ending with Holiday Hill, the last remaining park.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0738551627
• ISBN13: 9780738551623
• Release Date: October 2007
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing (SC)
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.72 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.6" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Forest Park Highlands

Doug Garner really knows his history of this amusement park. His photos and artifacts are amazing! A true believer in the joy of the amusement park! Highly recommend. tons of photos! Debra

Forest Park Highlands, St. Louis, Mo

This book was fantastic. It brought back so many memories of spending fun times in the 1960's at the Forest Park Highlands Amusement Park in St. Louis, Mo. I highley recommend it for anyone who was lucky enough to experience the rides at this great park.

Helluva Ride!

What a delightful read! Doug Garner takes us on a nostalgic ride through Forest Park Highlands' by-gone days as page after page explodes with amusement park Americana. Doug's vivid descriptions and extraordinary photographs bring back the wonderfully delicious smell of cotton candy, french fries, and hot dogs; the piercing shrieks of pure joy; and the thrilling roar of the roller coasters which permeated the air on those memorable hot summer days in St. Louis. Amusement park aficionados everywhere will relive the excitement of yesteryear in this informative and entertaining depiction of the birth and death of one of America's great parks. Kudos to Doug Garner for this comprehensive tribute to St. Louis' most famous park!

Doug Garner comes through

A lot of us familiar with Doug Garner's expertise have been waiting for years and years for him to finally get to do the book he wanted to do on the Highlands. As expected, he's produced a simply terrific photo book packed with information and details only he would know and that rarity--captions which go beyond just describing the photos to bring them to life and offer rich background information. It's all done with style and verve and for dessert he throws in West End Heights, Suburban Garden, Westlake Park and Chain of Rocks Fun Fair. I have waited all my life to see photos of Suburban Garden, as I grew up a five minute walk from the place, or what little was left of it. Arcadia has come a long way from its early efforts and this book will sell big with anyone who loves St. Louis history, amusement parks, roller coasters or quality bookmaking. Congratulations, Doug!

Drama in the Heartland

Mr. Garner has captured a time and a place in America that tells an arresting story about this nation's ideas of play and fantasy...then he caps it off with a blazing inferno that fixes this park forever in St. Louis history. I love it. And is it just me, or are some of the photo captions downright sly?