Forest Park Highlands

{{Short description|Amusement park in Missouri}}

File:Forest Park Highlands (NBY 435571).jpg

File:Entrance to Forest Park Highlands.jpg

Forest Park Highlands was an American amusement park in St. Louis, Missouri. It operated from 1896 to 1963.

Forest Park Highlands opened in 1896 as a beer garden.{{Cite news|title=Forest Park Highlands Closing Would Be Removal of Landmark|date=1963-01-13|work=St. Louis Post-Dispatch|page=3|via=Proquest}}

Sophie Tucker, John Philip Sousa, and Jack Dempsey appeared there.

It featured a pagoda from the 1904 World's Fair held across the street in Forest Park.{{Cite book|last=Garner|first=Doug|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gkijLGRR0ykC&q=forest+park+highlands|title=Forest Park Highlands|date=2007|publisher=Arcadia Publishing|isbn=978-0-7385-5162-3|language=en}} It also had a ferris wheel, railway, dodgem cars, tiltawhirls, shooting galleries, doll throws, and wheels of chance.

By 1963, the park was struggling and there was interest in building a community college on the site. A fire on July 19, 1963, destroyed all but the swimming pool and the frame of the wooden roller coaster.{{Cite news|title=Amusement Park Razed in St. Louis Fire|date=1963-07-20|work=Chicago Tribune|page=2|via=Proquest}} Two years later, it was announced that St. Louis Community College–Forest Park would be built on the land.{{Cite news|title=Out of Ruins, a Campus|date=1965-08-01|work=St. Louis Post-Dispatch|pages=32–33|via=Proquest}}{{Cite web|url=https://photos.riverfronttimes.com/vintage-photos-forest-park-highlands-amusement-park/|title=21 Vintage Photos of Forest Park Highlands Amusement Park|date=2016-07-11|website=Riverfront Times Slideshows|language=en-US|access-date=2020-04-05}}

The park's 1920 Dentzel carousel survived the fire and operates today at Faust Park in Chesterfield, Missouri.