United States · Missouri · St. Louis
Benton Park West, St. Louis — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Brick storefronts line Cherokee Street in Benton Park West, a streetcar suburb of St. Louis held between Gravois Avenue and Jefferson Avenue.
About Benton Park West
Where to stay in Benton Park West
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
Benton Park West trades in houses and storefronts rather than hotel lobbies, so a room here means a bed elsewhere in St. Louis. Gravois Avenue carries Missouri Route 30 along the north and west, and Jefferson Avenue draws the eastern boundary.
Cherokee Street is the draw. If you want Mexican bakeries, Spanish-language storefronts and the Cinco de Mayo crowds inside a short walk, aim at the blocks above Cherokee Street. The northern streets around Saint Wenceslaus Catholic Church run quieter, and Love Bank Park gives the shopping run a place to sit.
About Benton Park West
What are the main landmarks in Benton Park West?
Benton Park West carries its landmarks along Cherokee Street and the blocks just north of it. Casa Loma Ballroom has stood at 3354 Iowa Avenue since 1927, when it opened as the Cinderella Recreation Hall and Dance Academy. Saint Wenceslaus Catholic Church takes a block of Oregon Avenue.
The Transgender Memorial Garden occupies the corner of Wyoming Street and California Avenue. Love Bank Park sits among the shopfronts. The names that carry furthest lie outside the bounds: the Oratory of St. Francis de Sales rises across Gravois Avenue in Fox Park, and Chatillon-DeMenil House stands east of Jefferson Avenue in Benton Park.
What is the history of Benton Park West?
Benton Park West is a name from the 1970s, made by merging two older neighbourhoods, Compton Hill and Marquette-Cherokee. The streets are far older. A cable streetcar replaced the horse-car line on Gravois Avenue in 1880, and the frontage filled with two-part commercial blocks of dark red brick.
The city then widened Gravois Avenue to 98 feet, reopening it on December 7, 1932; a motorbus replaced the streetcar the following day. In 2005 the National Register listed the quarter inside the Gravois-Jefferson Streetcar Suburb Historic District, whose period of significance runs from about 1880 to about 1940.
Where is Benton Park West?
Gravois Avenue closes Benton Park West on the north and west, Jefferson Avenue on the east, and Cherokee Street, South Compton Avenue and Potomac Street on the south.
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Updated September 2026