Notes & Sources
Selected bibliography
William Barnaby Faherty, Henry Shaw, His Life and Legacies (Columbia: University of Missouri Press 1987).
Theo V. Brumfield, "A Study in Philanthropy: Tower Grove Park," Missouri Historical Society. Bulletin , 21 (1965), 315-22.
Esley Hamilton, National Register of Historic Places Nomination (typescript, 1989).
Nini Harris, "Tower Grove Park: Henry Shaw's Living Legacy" (St Louis: Friends of Tower Grove Park n.d.).
Historic American Buildings Survey: Tower Grove Park (U.S. Dept. of the Interior, National Park Service, Cultural Resources, Historic American Buildings Survey).
Robert E. Knittel, Walking in Tower Grove Park, A Victorian Strolling Park (St. Louis: Grass-Hooper Press 1978; revised 1983).
David H. MacAdam, Tower Grove Park of the City of St. Louis. Review of its Origin and History, Plan of Improvement, Ornamental Features, Etc. With Illustrations. Prepared by Order of the Board of Commissioners (St. Louis: R. P. Studley & Co., Printers 1883). Copies at St. Louis Public Library , Washington University's Steinberg Library as well as other libraries.
George McCue , Sculpture City: St. Louis (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1988).
Henry Shaw, Plants of the Bible at the Missouri Botanical Garden (St. Louis: R. P. Studley & Co. 1884).
Henry Shaw, The Rose: Historical and Descriptive; Gathered from Various Sources (St. Louis: R.P. Studley & Co. 1879; revised and expanded edition 1882).
Henry Shaw, The Vine and Civilization: from Various Sources (Saint Louis: [s.n.] 1884).
Carolyn Hewes Toft, St. Louis: Landmarks and Historic Districts (St. Louis: Landmarks Association, 1988).
Francis Tunica, Topographical Map of Missouri Botanical Garden / Tower Grove and Surroundings / Estate of Henry Shaw, Esq / Surveyed & Drawn by F. Tunica / St. Louis, Mo. Archt & Eng. / 1865 . Manuscript located in Archives, Missouri Botanical Garden.
Kris Zapalac. Inaugural Tower Grove Park website text; 1999.
The Architects and Sculptors of Tower Grove Park
Ross C. Adams and Carlo Nicoli. Founded in 1863, the Carlo Nicoli Studio was and remains one of the most famous of the many sculpture studios in Carrara, the center of Italian marble. Ross Adams was one of the many sculptors who worked and trained in a studio known primarily for the reproductions of classical and Renaissance sculptures it supplied (and still supplies) to museums and private collections around the world. Together with the studio's founder, Adams sculpted the busts of Gounod and Verdi for the Music Pavilion .
George I. Barnett (1815-1898). Born in England, George Ingram Barnett trained as an architect in the London offices of Sir Thomas Hine before coming to St. Louis in 1839. One of the city's first professionally-trained architects, he was also a charter member of the St. Louis chapter of the AIA, and the designer of the Equitable Building and the Church of St. Vincent de Paul.
Eugene L. Greenleaf (1815-1881). Born in Ohio, Greenleaf was married in St. Louis in 1840. He listed his occupation as "carpenter" or "builder" or "architect" in the city directories published in the years during which he was at work on Shaw's Tower Grove projects. He died in Illinois in 1881 and was buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery.
Ernst C. Janssen (1855-1946). The Ohio-born builder and architect had already worked for several years as a draftsman and carpenter when his father - a well-to-do merchant of hops and other brewery supplies - sent him to study architecture at the Polytechnische Schule in Karlsruhe, Germany (1877-78). After having received a gold medal for the best architectural thesis, Janssen returned to St. Louis and set up a firm with Otto Wilhelmi. In this firm, which lasted until 1881, and throughout his long career, Janssen's primary interest appears to have been in commercial structures, especially breweries; his designs were particularly sought out by the German-Americans of St. Louis and the surrounding regions. The Wilhelmi-Janssen firm's best-known work is the now-demolished Liederkranz Hall. In 1891 Janssen applied for admission to the St. Louis chapter of the American Institute of Architects; from that point until the 1920s he appears to have practiced independently; thereafter he also practiced in partnership with his nephew Oscar Janssen and with Jesse McFarland. Although Janssen was most active as a designer of commercial buildings, his best-known surviving structures are a number of the larger residences in the Compton Hill neighborhood, especially the Charles Stockstrom House (1907), a magnificent example of the American Chateauesque style in brick and terra cotta. He is responsible for the Pool Pavilion (1914) and the Stone Shelter (1923) in Tower Grove Park, and for the Friedrich Hecker monument (1882) in Benton Park. Source: Glynn Donaho, "E. C. Janssen, Architect," Compton Heights Tour brochure (1997).
Howard Kretschmar (1845-1933). A native St. Louisan, Kretschmar was apparently a man of many parts - a bookkeeper who sculpted on his own time until he could study abroad, he eventually became the first professor of sculpture at Washington University only to return to school to study osteopathy and pursue a second career in that field near Chicago. He is responsible for the first busts erected near the Music Pavilion , those of Rossini and Mozart.
Ferdinand Miller, later von Miller (1842-1929). Son of the founder of the Royal [Bavarian] Bronze Foundry, Ferdinand Miller continued to send many of the factory's products to the U.S. while also sculpting in marble and bronze himself. He was director of the Munich Academy of Art 1900-1918, and first president of the International Exhibition of Art.
Isaac Taylor (1850-1917). Taylor began working in the office of George I. Barnett the year after Henry Shaw donated Tower Grove Park to the city of St. Louis. He became Barnett's partner two years after the Park was opened to the public. Together they designed the Arsenal Gatehouse in Tower Grove Park and the Southern Hotel. After Barnett's death, Taylor went on to serve as director of works for the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition. In 1913 he designed the Jefferson Memorial on the former exposition grounds (now Forest Park).
Henry Thiele (1823?-1904?). Nothing is known of Thiele except that he lived in St. Louis from 1860s - 1890s and listed his occupation as "architect" in the city directories of 1874-76.
Francis Tunica (1830 - ?). An engineer, surveyor, architect, and topographic specialist (see his map of the park above under "On Henry Shaw and Tower Grove Park") who had served in the latter capacity in the U.S. Engineer's Bureau during the Civil War, Tunica seems to have begun his career in St. Louis's parks as the winner of the competition to design gates for Lafayette Park. Although there were no competitions to determine the designers of the gates and pavilions of Tower Grove Park, Tunica was apparently asked by the Commissioners of Tower Grove Park to provide a statement of his qualifications. They included at least six awards for best design in St. Louis competitions, and earned him the impressive salary of $2,000 per annum for supervising the construction of the park. He is the only architect to whom payments were made during the construction of the superintendent's villa, the stone stables and residence, and the Grand, Magnolia, and Kingshighway entrances and their attendant lodges. Tunica also served St. Louis as Inspector and Surveyor for the Board of Fire Underwriters and as State Bridge Commissioner.
Victorian Landscape Design
According to Henry Shaw himself, "The plan and planting of Tower Grove Park is the result of -- First, my experience in the formation of the Botanical Garden and arboretum at Tower Grove. Second, the public parks and promenades I have visited in England, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and other countries. Third, from reading eminent authors on Landscape gardening. Sir Uvedale Price on The Picturesque, Repton , Gilpin , Loudon , Downing , etc., the annual reports of the New York Parks and Affords Parks and promenades of Paris . . . . . The picturesque or strictly natural style I have never seen, except in the Landscape paintings of Rosa di Tivoli, Salvator Rosa, and others. Wild nature is not what the Landscape Gardener aims to produce. The cultivated or Gardenesque Style has been followed in the Park - nature has not been outraged by abrupt curves or distorted forms, but the endeavor has been to provide utility, variety, and beauty." (Tower Grove Park Miscellany).
Sir Uvedale Price (1747-1829), English landscape designer, the author of "An Essay on the Picturesque," defining a more naturalistic movement in landscape design favoring the "blasted tree" and other natural accidents over Lancelot ("Capability") Brown's carefully pruned, balanced compositions. Created baronet in 1828.
William Gilpin (1724-1804), English cleric and writer on landscape design; supporter of Uvedale Price's "picturesque" style. In addition to sermons and numerous biographies of Protestant reformers, Gilpin published a Dialogue upon the Gardens of the Right Honorable the Lord Viscount Cobham, at Stowe in Buckinghamshire (1748), travel accounts featuring picturesque settings, and Three essays: "On Picturesque Beauty"; "On Picturesque Travel"; and, "On Sketching Landscape," to which is added a poem, "On Landscape Painting" (1792).
Humphry Repton (1752-1818), English landscape gardener influenced by the picturesque movement; he published Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening (1795), Observations on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening (1803), and Fragments on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening (1816).
J.C. (John Claudius) Loudon (1783-1843) influential Scottish landscape gardener and journalist. An advocate of the informal "gardenesque" style emphasizing botanical study and thus eventually appealing to the desire of the Victorians to combine education/cultivation and pleasure, Loudon published popular works (often addressed to the "middling sort") as well as a Latin monograph on the trees and fruits of England. An Encyclopedia of Gardening (1822) and an Encyclopedia of Cottage, Farm and Villa Architecture (1833), as well as the monthly Gardener's Magazine and (with his wife Jane Webb Loudon) and the widely popular Suburban Gardener and Villa Companion.
Adolphe Alphand (1817-1891): the lavishly illustrated
Les promenades de Paris : histoire--description des embellishments--dépenses de création et d'entretien des Bois de Boulogne et de Vincennes, Champs-Élysées--Parcs--squares-- boulevards--places plantées, Étude sur l'art des jardins et arboretum (Paris: J. Rothschild, 1867- 1873).
Andrew Jackson Downing (1815-1852), American horticulturist and writer on gardens and domestic architecture. Many of his works are still (or again) in print: A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, Adapted to North America(1841), Cottage Residences (1842), The Fruits and Fruit Trees of America (with his brother Charles, 1845), and The Architecture of Country Houses, Including Designs for Cottages, Farm Houses, and Villas (1850). At the time of his death he was editor of The Horticulturist and had just begun planning the grounds for the U.S. Capitol, the White House, and the Smithsonian Institute.
Curiously, neither Henry Shaw nor MacAdam listed Thomas Meehan as an influence on Shaw's Tower Grove Park, despite the fact that he had served as Shaw's advisor and supplier of plants for Tower Grove Park from the beginning. Like James Gurney , London-born Meehan (1826-1902) was trained in horticulture at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. After two years there, he crossed the Atlantic and took up a position at a Philadelphia nursery, moving on from there only to assume control of Bertram's Garden, the first botanical garden in the United States. Meehan's considerable influence was spread through his publications - The American Handbook of Ornamental Trees (1853), Gardener's Monthly (1859 -, later Meehan's Monthly). Meehan was also one of the editors of the American edition of the prestigious Encyclopedia Britannica , agricultural editor of Forney's Weekly Press , fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and senior vice-president of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences.
James Gurney , Sr. (1831-1920), a Buckinghamshire native, trained at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew , whom Henry Shaw relied on for general horticultural expertise in his own lifetime and to whom he entrusted the park's direction after his death. Gurney was first hired by Shaw from the Royal Horticultural Society, to be the head gardener at the Missouri Botanical Garden in 1867. From the establishment of Tower Grove Park until 1903, Gurney served as a consultant for Tower Grove Park while retaining his position with the Garden and its Shaw School of Botany. In 1903 he turned his full attention to the Park, and especially to the cultivation of new varieties of water lilies in its ponds.