Fox Park Neighborhood Overview

Location

This trapezoidal-shaped neighborhood is defined by I-44 on the North, Gravois Avenue on the South, Nebraska Avenue on the West, and by South Jefferson on the East.

History

Located in South City between the Tower Grove East and McKinley Heights neighborhoods, Fox Park was settled by German immigrants in the early 1880s. Many of these first- and second-generation German settlers were craftsmen, and they left behind a neighborhood rich in architectural detail.

Fox Park shares its name with the small park that stretches between Shenandoah and Victor, but it takes its spirit from St. Francis de Sales Oratory, the only German Gothic church in St. Louis, long known as “the Cathedral of South St. Louis.” 

Anchored by the soaring 300-foot steeple of the Oratory, Fox Park Neighborhood’s interesting and significant architecture earned Historic District designation for the area in 1985.  The Fox Park Historic District currently includes approximately 350 contributing buildings. Of those, about two-thirds are two to six-family buildings; a little less than one-third are single-family houses. Styles include Italianate/Mansard, Eclectic Revivals, Arts & Crafts and sparsely detailed 20th century flats. The district also contains good representative examples of small-scale corner stores dating from the late 19th century into the third decade of the 20th century.

Although the period of significance spans the years from 1883 to 1935, most of the buildings in the Fox Park neighborhood are expressions of the evolution between 1885 and 1915 of St. Louis working and middle-class housing. Designed, constructed and occupied predominantly by first and second generation German-Americans, the architecture is unified by similar materials, attention to detail, and careful craftsmanship.

Today, Fox Park remains a part of the City’s fabric of diverse and viable neighborhoods. It features a wide range of affordable, historically significant homes. Plus, it is just minutes away from Tower Grove Park and the Missouri Botanical Garden, downtown St. Louis, the South Grand shopping district, schools, churches, and much more.