United States · Missouri · St. Louis
Forest Park Southeast, St. Louis — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Forest Park Southeast is a quarter of St. Louis, Missouri, where stepped parapets and glazed brick front the houses on Arco Avenue. The Grove lies a block south.
About Forest Park Southeast
Where to stay in Forest Park Southeast
Each area has its own feel; here's who each one suits.
Forest Park Southeast splits into a strip and a grid. Manchester Avenue carries the bars and kitchens of The Grove through the middle, and the house blocks lie either side of it. Arco Avenue and Gibson Avenue hold the northern rows, Swan Avenue, Norfolk Avenue, and Hunt Avenue the southern ones.
Pick your side. Forest Park begins across Kingshighway Boulevard on the western edge, and the Central West End sits north across Interstate 64. You want this quarter if you intend to eat and drink on foot.
About Forest Park Southeast
What are the main landmarks in Forest Park Southeast?
Forest Park Southeast keeps its landmarks in brick rather than in monuments. The Forest Park Southeast Historic District covers most of the street grid, and its listed buildings run from the Lambskin Temple, an Art Deco Masonic hall on Kingshighway Boulevard, to the Woodward and Tiernan Printing Company Building on Tower Grove Avenue. Works and schools fill out the list.
Laclede Gas Light Company Pumping Station G stands on Chouteau Avenue, while Rock Spring School, a William Ittner design, and the Chouteau Building close the eastern side toward Vandeventer Avenue.
What is the history of Forest Park Southeast?
Forest Park Southeast was farmland before it was a neighbourhood. French communal fields called Prairie des Noyers covered this ground in the late 18th century, and by the 1820s it lay inside a tract held by Samuel McRee. Henry Shaw bought part of it in the 1840s.
The Missouri Pacific Railroad took its right-of-way along the southern edge in 1850, and the city annexed the ground in 1876 when the limits moved west from Grand Boulevard to Skinker Boulevard. Streetcar lines came after. Gibson Heights went up in 1880 as the first housing here.
Where is Forest Park Southeast?
Forest Park Southeast lies between Interstate 64 and Interstate 44, bounded east by Vandeventer Avenue and west by Kingshighway Boulevard and Forest Park.
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Updated September 2026