Missouri Botanical Garden - Welcome to My Garden Missouri Botanical Garden

Stop on Spoehrer Plaza
Hello, and welcome to the Missouri Botanical Garden. My name is Henry Shaw, and this Garden was my gift to the city of St. Louis over 150 years ago, in fact the locals still refer to it as Shaw’s Garden. Since 1859, millions of visitors have delighted in the finest of horticultural displays. Not only is my Garden a place of beauty, it is also a leading center for scientific research about plants. Today, it is widely considered one of the top three botanical gardens in the world.

Please join me for a journey through our history. Follow the prompts on signage throughout the grounds to learn more about my beloved Missouri Botanical Garden.

Stop at Linnean House busts / Photo of original landscape

Although Henry Shaw owned expansive property, he planned the Missouri Botanical Garden for a relatively narrow strip of land stretching north from his country home. A fruticetum, or collection of shrubs, grew in what is the present-day parking lot. Just south of this area was the Main Conservatory, built in 1868 to house exotic plants.
Shaw completed this small brick greenhouse in 1882. He wanted it to complement the original main conservatory pictured on the sign. He named it the Linnean House to honor Carl Linnaeus, the botanist who created our standard scientific system of naming plants and animals.

The Linnean House originally housed palms, citrus trees, and other plants that could not withstand St. Louis winters. The original plants were all in pots; there were no permanent plantings. After World War I, the house was renovated: the roof was converted to all glass, and many loads of soil were brought in to create landscape beds. Rare conifers, rhododendrons, azaleas and heaths were planted, along with a handful of camellias. A central water feature was added and fashioned to look like a natural spring along the Meramec River. In the late 1930s, the conservatory was converted to house mainly camellias, which still grow here year-round. The Linnean House remains the oldest continually operating greenhouse west of the Mississippi River.

Stop at Spink Pavilion / Photo old entrance gate

From the start, founder Henry Shaw had planned for his garden to be a place of public enjoyment. In March of 1859, the Missouri legislature passed the official charter, and on June 15, 1859, the Missouri Botanical Garden opened its doors to the public.

Shaw welcomed visitors in grand fashion, they entered his Garden through the pillars of an impressive stone structure, in fact it was this building – well – more or less!

Originally the Main Gate aligned with Flora Avenue, which at that time was a small tree-lined path leading to the Garden from the edge of the city at Grand Ave. Over the years, Flora expanded and the street was no longer in alignment with the entrance. By 1920 the original entrance was torn down and the materials reused to build this larger entrance structure, which is once again in alignment with Flora Ave.

Today, this building is known as the Spink Pavilion and represents a fun bit of Garden Trivia. On the exterior of the building, is inscribed “Missouri Botanical Garden, 1858.” It remains a mystery as to why the actual 1859 opening year was not used. No matter the cause of the delayed opening; the earlier date is a permanent reminder of Mr. Shaw’s optimistic nature.

In 1982, the Garden built a new visitor center entrance at 4344 Shaw Boulevard and the original Main Gate was closed and repurposed as a private event space.

Stop at Sassafras grove / photo original look of TGH

The land that is known today as the Missouri Botanical Garden was discovered by Shaw as he explored the territory surrounding the city of St. Louis. It was a wide and seemingly endless expanse of tall-grass prairie, with few trees, except for a small grove of sassafras growing on a low hill. Shaw purchased the land and determined to establish a country home on the property.

Shaw retired at the young age of 39. Years later prior to his last trip abroad he hired prominent local architect George I. Barnett to design his country home, a two-story Italian-style villa of painted brick. Completed in 1851, the house featured an asymmetrical design, with two high-ceilinged stories on Shaw’s western half, three low-ceilinged stories on the servants’ eastern half, and a tall tower in the center. Approaching from afar, the home’s tall tower and the sassafras grove were the first objects visible. For this reason Shaw gave the name, Tower Grove, to his country estate.

Stop at Museum Building

In 1856, as Henry Shaw embarked on the creation of his garden, he sought the guidance of Sir William Jackson Hooker, the director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. Shaw wrote to Hooker about his property, about the extremes of the American climate, and to ask for help. Hooker responded, urging Shaw to combine both beauty and science into his future garden. He recommended Shaw acquaint himself with Dr. George Engelmann, a St. Louis physician and botanist.

Dr. Engelmann was familiar with Henry Shaw before they ever corresponded. Engelmann had already written to premier botanist Dr. Asa Gray of Harvard, describing Shaw’s project and expressing his desire that something “valuable and permanent” would come of his efforts.

Undoubtedly, Shaw’s associations with Sir William Hooker, Dr. Gray, and Dr. Engelmann helped shape the Garden’s future as a noted center for scientific endeavors. To augment this role, Shaw generously endowed the Henry Shaw School of Botany and the Engelmann Professor of Botany at Washington University in 1885. In his will the Garden’s future as a scientific institution was secured.

In 1859, Shaw commissioned architect George I. Barnett to design this Museum Building to house the Garden’s original library and herbarium. It was completed the following year. Today the Museum Building is closed to the public.

Stop at Temple of Victory

In typical Victorian fashion, Missouri Botanical Garden founder Henry Shaw arranged for his mausoleum long before his death. In 1862 he constructed a mausoleum out of Missouri limestone and placed the structure in a grove of trees directly in front of Tower Grove House. However, in 1885, Shaw changed his mind believing that the limestone would not hold up to the elements over time. He had the limestone structure moved here, and commissioned a marble statue, The Victory of Science over Ignorance, to be placed inside in 1887.

The statue is an exact copy of the statue by Vincenzo Consani in the Pitti Gallery at Florence, Italy. In this statue Victory is depicted with her sword laid aside and writing on a shield with an inscription below that reads: The Victory of Science over ignorance. Ignorance is the curse of God. Knowledge is the wing wherewith. We fly to heaven.

Shaw believed that, in addition to providing recreational, educational, and aesthetic benefits, botanical gardens should expand and apply knowledge about the natural world. For 150 years, the Garden has maintained Shaw’s emphasis on research and conservation. Today, the Missouri Botanical Garden is one of the world’s leading scientific institutions studying plants and working to preserve biodiversity around the world.