File:Lafayette Square Park, Lafayette Square, St. Louis, MO.jpg

English: Established in 1836, Lafayette Square Park is the oldest public park in the city of St. Louis, with its beginnings in 1764 as a common pasture for local residents in the vicinity of the village of Saint Louis, then under French authority, and remained a common pasture under the Spanish, and later, American control of Missouri. The pasture was mostly sold off in the 1830s, with a 30 acre park being left open as public parkland, which was formally dedicated as Lafayette Square in 1851, named for Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette, with the surrounding neighborhood developing as an affluent residential area between the 1850s and 1880s. During this time, the park was improved with paved pathways, a bandstand, fountain, police station, as well as ornamental plantings. Following the 1896 St. Louis-East St. Louis Tornado, which directly hit the square and the surrounding blocks, the area began to decline as residents moved further west, towards the Grand Center and Central West End neighborhoods, precipitating a still-ongoing trend of wealth moving further west, and eventually out of the city into the suburbs during the 20th Century. The neighborhood became increasingly commercialized in the early-to-mid 20th Century, and once-grand homes in the area were converted into boarding houses and apartments. In 1972, the Lafeytte Square Historic District, encompassing the park and the surrounding neighborhood, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and a revitalization effort was begun, which has resulted in gentrification of the neighborhood. Today, the park anchors a vibrant and relatively affluent neighborhood, which contrasts greatly with the decline of most other similar once-vibrant and once-affluent 19th Century neighborhoods around the center and north side of the City of St. Louis, many of which have been in a state of decay and decline since the Great Depression.