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Look Back: Forest Park Highlands, 1963
Date: 7/17/2011 Album ID: 1286110
Photos by Post-Dispatch staff photographers
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For 66 years, the Forest Park Highlands amusement park had been a popular summertime diversion. Families still jammed the park the afternoon of July 19, 1963, when black smoke began curling from the restaurant. Fire grew quickly with menacing red and yellow flames. Shifting wind pushed it through the old corrugated metal and wood building, creating an inferno, and jumped from carnival ride to ticket booth until most of the park was engulfed.
The entrance to the Forest Park Highlands in winter 1953, all locked up to await the next year's season. The Highlands was a popular amusement park at 5600 Oakland Avenue, across from Forest Park, for almost seven decades until a fire destroyed most of it on July 19, 1963. It opened in 1896 as the Highlands Cottage Restaurant, but business didn't pick up until it added a merry-go-round to attract customers. The owners added more rides the next year, transforming the beer garden into an amusement park. By the time of the fire, the 14-acre park had nine children's rides and 14 major ones, including a roller coaster known as the Comet. On the site now is the St. Louis Community College at Forest Park. (Kenneth Gouldthorpe/Post-Dispatch)
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An aerial view of the Highlands some time prior to the fire. Small by the standards of today's Six Flags St. Louis, which spreads across 150 acres, the Highlands was a huge draw for school picnics, church groups, families and mobs of young people. At far right is U.S. Highway 40, then also called the Express Highway. The street in the foreground is Macklind Avenue. (Post-Dispatch)
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Riding on the one of the Highlands' airplane rides in 1941. The park usually had some kind of ride inspired by aviation. (Arthur Witman/Post-Dispatch)
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Riders on the Comet rush down the first big drop on the ride in July 1941. The Comet, the Highland's third-generation roller coaster, had been installed the year before. Its advertised top speed was 60 miles a minute, an obvious bit of tub-thumping puffery but a good line for its devoted thrill-seeking fans. The Comet survived the fire of July 17, 1963, but was demolished three years later to make way for St. Louis Community College at Forest Park. (Post-Dispatch)
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Happy faces on the Comet in 1941. Most of the riders appeared to be enjoying the run. (Arthur Witman/Post-Dispatch)
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Some of the hand-carved horses for the last carousel at the Highlands. It was among the last built by Michael Detzel Co. of New York before it went out of business in 1929. The carousel also survived the fire and was moved to Sylvan Springs Park in south St. Louis County. In 1980, it was restored and moved inside a building at Faust County Park in Chesterfield, where it still is operated. (Kenneth Gouldthorpe/Post-Dispatch)
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The Tilt-a-Whirl at the Highlands gives its patrons dizzying spins in 1941. (Jack Gould/Post-Dispatch)
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Some riders loved the Tilt-a-Whirl's spin, especially the girl on the right. This photo also is from 1941. (Jack Gould/Post-Dispatch)
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Not everybody took a liking to the Tilt-a-Whirl. (Jack Gould/Post-Dispatch)
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A mother rubs her daughter's face with a cool towel during a hot summer's excursion before they head home with the prizes the girl had won at the games. (Post-Dispatch)
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An Aero Jet ride replaced the airplane ride after World War II to reflect the dawn of the jet age. A woman enjoys the sudden climb of her jet during a spin in June 1956. Pilots could make the jet go up and down -- hydraulic systems on the long arms actually did the work. (Jack Gould/Post-Dispatch)
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The Comet may have been a selective taste, but almost everyone enjoyed the fun-house mirrors. Three girls make wacky images on June 30, 1963, not quite three weeks before the devastating fire. (Floyd Bowser/Post-Dispatch)
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The fire began about 2:30 p.m. in the basement of a large building that housed the restaurant, dance hall and concessions midway. Highlands workers tried to fight it with fire extinguishers, but it spread quickly. The first alarm was called in at 2:38 p.m. from a fire-alarm box at the park entrance. Everybody got out, but the fire quickly spread through the building on the south boundary of the park. Winds from the south on a hot, 97-degree day pushed the fire north across the park, consuming all but the roller coaster, the carousel and the Ferris wheel. It filled the air with thick smoke, and police closed U.S. 40 (Express Highway) during part of the lengthy battle with the fire. (Post-Dispatch)
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Firefighters spray water in a losing battle with the fire that consumes the main building. (Edward J. Burkhardt/Post-Dispatch)
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Firefighters walking from the restaurant building blaze after their supervisors ordered them to pull back. (Edward J. Burkhardt/Post-Dispatch)
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Another view of the smoke boiling across the empty U.S. Highway 40 and over the Aviation Field ball diamonds in Forest Park at about 5 p.m., two and one-half hours after the fire began. (Robert LaRouche/Post-Dispatch)
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Firefighters refresh themselves in the Highlands swimming pool from the combination of the searing fire and the 97-degree heat. They also dropped hoses into the pool to draw water for their pumper trucks. (Jack January/Post-Dispatch)
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The twisted remains of the rocket ride. The fire's intense heat bent the steel structure. (Lester Linck/Post-Dispatch)
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The former Highlands' 148-foot tower is taken down slowly on July 29, 1965, during final clearance to build the community college. The tower had been erected for the 1904 World's Fair and was topped by an American flag made of light bulbs. The wrecking company tried to find a taker for the flag, but nobody wanted it. (Jack January/Post-Dispatch)
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A grappling machine prepares to chew into the old entrance of the Comet in July 1965 during demolition to make way for the college. (Post-Dispatch)
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