Wydown Skinker Neighborhood Overview

Location

The Wydown-Skinker neighborhood is located in the far west end of the City of St. Louis. It is bounded by the City limits on the West, Forsyth Boulevard on the North, Forest Park (Skinker Blvd.) on the East, and Clayton Road on the South.

History

All of Wydown-Skinker was part of the grounds of the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition (the World’s Fair). Within this area were a large Ferris Wheel, part of which was recently excavated in an archaeological exploration, and the complex that housed the Filipino Igorot tribes members brought for “display” as representatives of a new American colony. Washington University located at its current site in 1905, immediately after the closing of the World’s Fair. Several buildings on the campus, including Brookings Hall and Bixby Hall, were used as part of the Fair. Most of the homes and institutions in the neighborhood were built in the 1920s, as the City of Clayton developed. The first homes in Hillcrest were built before World War I, followed by post-World War I construction in Hi-Pointe and Ellenwood. Most of the three-story apartments in DeMun Park were built in the twenties, followed by the first high-rise buildings on Skinker about 1929. The most recent of the latter type date from the early 1960s, such as 665 South Skinker.