Brief Historic Notice
The public being freely admitted to the Gardens, under a few needful regulations, must naturally want to know something, about improvements, and the intentions of the projector in making these collections of plants & plantations, of trees & shrubs. It is with a view to satisfy such laudable curiosity, and to increase the interest with which the Gardens are visited that this Guide is now compiled.
About the middle of the last century the spot that now forms the Botanical Garden at Tower Grove, was a fertile rolling prairie, & from its productiveness was early selected for cultivation by the inhabitants of the village of St. Louis—it was separated from the Commons by a fence running along what is now call’d Grand Avenue—and concessions or donations of land made by the Spanish Military Commanders to such heads of families as required them, of one or more arpents in width by forty deep running west & so cultivated in. Maize & Wheat, but more frequently left in Natural Grass, to cut for hay—the fence was kept up against animals feeding on Commons, until about 1780. A Gate was kept, near where the East Gate of Tower Grove Park now stands, on Grand Ave., by a concessioner, call’d Louis Denoyer who lived there until the year of the attack by Indians 1780, the place being call’d Barrière à Denoyer, the concessions of land being so designated, as recorded in the old Livre terrien or Land Book.
About the year 1830 Thos Jefferson Payne becoming the owner of some of the 40 arpen’lots, enclosed a portion of the west end & erected a small house in 1840 which Henry Shaw came into possession by purchase &by perfecting the title to the acquisitions of Payne & further purchases from the old French claimants—Payne had built stables for the keeping of blooded horses, and laid off a race tract, the centre of which was the grove, near which in 1849 Shaw (the writer) erected his house, with a tower &called it Tower Grove and from that date to the present time, he has been assiduously occupied in laying off avenues & planting trees. During his travel in Europe from 1840 1850, observing the great attention paid to public Parks & Gardens in England, France & Germany & the high esteem which these institutions are held by the people of those countries, he conceived the idea of founding a Missouri Botanical Garden—for which, the grounds, ample in extent, & in close vicinity to the future great city of the west were so appropriate, & the quality of the soil being all that could be desired.
The plan of the Garden was determined on, drains constructed, & the walls surrounding the same commenced in l855—a number of Bohemian cultivators were engaged & the soil of the Garden & Fruticetum (16 acres) trenched or turned over two feet deep—the substantial enclosures & entrances being finished, the Museum and Library was built in 1860, the books and herbarium for which were selected by our learned citizen Doct. Geo. Engelmann during his visit to Europe about that time. In 1870 the plants requiring more room than the original houses afforded, the Palm house was erected in a more central part of the Garden, which with the additional wings for mist stove & temperate houses affords accommodation to accumulative treasures of the vegetable kingdom, for which still further space being required a larger house with double walls & glass was constructed in 1882 and dedicated to Linnaeus by placing his bust on the entrance.
That interesting division the Arboretum, was commenced in 1860 & planted from that time to the present—it contains a collection of all such trees as will grow in the open air in the climate of St. Louis—persevering attention been paid to the pineturn where will be found growing specimens of the Coniferae. The Querceturn includes such Oaks as have been found hardy—when the importance of timber trees is considered and the length of time requited for the full growth of the most usefull & desirable kinds these specimens will be most interesting to future planters of timber trees.
Medicine, commerce, agriculture, horticulture, & many valuable branches of manufacture, will derive much benefit from the establishment & maintenance of a Botanical Garden at St. Louis—the climate being intermediate more species of plants can be cultivated than either north or south of this latitude—The Garden in its three divisions (comprising from 50 to 60 acres) from the first has been open to the public for daily admittance not only the grounds, but the plant houses & museum are open to visitors, the number of whom during the past twenty years had been near a million.
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