United States · Missouri · St. Louis
Franz Park, St. Louis — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Franz Park is a Dogtown neighborhood of St. Louis between Dale Avenue and Manchester Avenue, built up by the families who worked its clay and brickworks.
About Franz Park
Where to stay in Franz Park
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
Franz Park keeps almost no hotel rooms of its own. Beds are found instead across the city limits in Richmond Heights, or north along the Forest Park edge, both a few minutes up McCausland Avenue. Dale Avenue fronts houses only.
Manchester Avenue carries the garages, taverns and used-car lots along the southeastern boundary, while Blendon Place shuts the western side with a run of quiet blocks. Franz Park suits you if ball diamonds, lighted tennis courts and a Dogtown address matter more than a downtown hotel desk.
About Franz Park
What are the main landmarks in Franz Park?
Franz Park shares its name with the public park at its center, ground that E. D. Franz handed to the city in 1915. Ball diamonds and lighted courts fill it. Small post-war frame houses, brick residences, Dutch Colonials and stone-fronted homes stand along the same blocks, a mix left by building that came in fits after the mines shut.
McCausland Avenue and Manchester Avenue hold the commercial frontage, with Ellendale beyond the southeastern line. The Saint Louis Art Museum, the Saint Louis Zoo and the Missouri History Museum all stand inside Forest Park, north across Dale Avenue and outside Franz Park.
What is the history of Franz Park?
Franz Park grew from the mid-1880s, when clay mining and new railroad lines opened this ground west of the city. German, Italian and Polish families followed the work, and most of them took jobs in the local brickworks. The name arrived in 1915, for one E. D. Franz.
Mines and brickworks shut after the Second World War, and subdivisions filled the cleared ground, which is why one street can carry frame cottages, brick fronts and stone. Operation Neat came in 1970. Mothers patrolled the park with baseball bats against delinquency in 1965, and the city answered by declaring a Franz Park Day that August.
Where is Franz Park?
Franz Park runs from Dale Avenue south to Manchester Avenue, the line of Missouri Route 100, with Blendon Place and the city limits west. Hi-Pointe adjoins the north.
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Updated September 2026