State Parks Stories: Dr. Edmund A. Babler Memorial State Park Edition

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Dr. Edmund A. Babler Memorial State Park Celebrates 75th Anniversary

By Tom Uhlenbrock

Missouri State Parks

WILDWOOD, Mo. – The bronze statue of Dr. Edmund A. Babler that greets visitors to the park created in his honor has him standing beside two worried mothers with their ill children. Babler was a surgeon known for devoting much of his time to the less fortunate. Along with serving as a popular park for recreation, Dr. Edmund A. Babler Memorial State Park has evolved into an outdoor classroom that serves the young, including the disadvantaged and disabled, making the image even more fitting today than when the park was founded 75 years ago.

Beginning at noon on Oct. 19, the park will celebrate its 75th anniversary with a re-dedication ceremony in the grassy field in front of the statue.

“It’ll end in the evening with a program by the St. Louis Astronomical Society – it’s going to be a full-moon phase,” said Jeff Robinson, park superintendent.

In between will be speakers, open tram tours of the Civilian Conservation Corps buildings in the park, demonstrations of period crafts, live music, free face painting and games for children and a mini-food court with local food trucks.

“The original dedication was a huge event, Interior Secretary Harold Ickes was here,” Robinson said. “A historic photo we have shows the field was full of people. We’re going to try to duplicate that.”

This year also marks another important anniversary in the mission of the park. Ten years ago, Missouri State Parks entered into a partnership with the Rockwood School District that allows the district to operate an outdoor education center in the park.

The district offers a variety of outdoor and environmental education programs for students in Rockwood and other districts. The programs include archery, outdoor cooking, survival skills, pond ecology, team building and more.

“It’s been a win-win situation for both of us,” Robinson said. “I have not heard of any other school-state park relationship like it anywhere. It’s kind of a unique setup.”

An Island Preserve

When the park was founded in 1938, the landscape of forested ridges and deep ravines that empty into the nearby Missouri River was in the country, a long ride from the city of St. Louis. Now the park is surrounded by the suburbia of west St. Louis County, which includes the 150-square-mile Rockwood School District and its more than 21,000 students.

“It was pretty much all farms and homesteads, which is the opposite now,” Robinson said. “We’re kind of an island preserve, surrounded by landowners and residential areas. We’re one of the only natural environments left that doesn’t have people living on it.”

In the early 1970s, the park built the Jacob L. Babler Outdoor Education Center for the Disabled, which is named for the doctor’s older brother, a benefactor of the park. The center resembles a 300-acre retreat, with a kitchen and dining hall, four covered pavilions, eight heated cabins, a recreation hall with a full gym and a small swimming pool that was built to accommodate the disabled.

The Rockwood School District took over administration of the facility 10 years ago, and now offers a science-based camp for every sixth grader in the district. That means some 1,400 kids spend part of their school year in the park.

“Students may go out and catch insects in the pond and bring them back and look at them under microscopes,” said Heather Stewart, the district employee who supervises the center. “We’ll talk about what that insect means to the ecosystem, and what it can tell us about the health of the pond.

“We want them to be able to experience what they’re learning about.”

Rockwood also puts on Missouri Heritage Days in the park for its fourth-grade students. The program has fall and spring sessions where instructors in period costume demonstrate old-time skills and talk about the state’s history.

“An actor will represent Sacagawea while talking about Lewis and Clark,” Stewart said. “There are musical instruments from the period, and a demonstration of how a log cabin was built.”

During the summer, the Outdoor Education Center is used by rental groups, with those helping special-needs children getting first priority. For example, Camp Rainbow is a one-week event at the center for children with cancer.

Robinson, the park superintendent, said watching the special-needs children enjoy the swimming pool is especially rewarding for the park and school district staff.

“They’re with their peers and have no hang-ups. It’s kind of cool to see how the kids respond to that.”

The Doctor’s Vision

Jacob Babler was an influential businessman who, with his brother, Henry, bought the land they donated for a park to honor their late brother, Edmund. Jacob’s influence extended to Washington where he made sure Babler State Park was not overlooked by the New Deal’s Civilian Conservation Corps.

The park has 22 handsome stone-and-beam structures built by CCC crews in the 1930s, including a nine-stall stable that is a testament to the incredible stonework, which used rock quarried on the property.

The park no longer uses the stable for horses, but has remodeled the interior to serve the new emphasis on outdoor education. Now called The Outpost, the upstairs loft is used as a large classroom and meeting space, while the nine horse stalls below are used for individual demonstrations.

Rockwood operates BablerWiLD in the building, a science- and nature-based education program that is open to all local families, schools, campers, scouts and community members. The summer programs range from a half day to mini-camps.

Missouri State Parks offers its Babler Outdoor Adventure program at a second CCC building in the park. The program is for disadvantaged inner-city students from elementary through high school, with park staff instructing them about the outdoors. The park offers a free bus service to transport the youngsters.

“We get an average of 800 students a summer,” Robinson said. “Some of the kids who come here have never been in a park, never been in a creek and handled a crawdad. When they first get here in the morning, they’re scared of the water. By the end of the day, you can’t get them out of the creek.”

Robinson emphasized that Babler also has typical park amenities, like hiking, biking and equestrian trails, picnic areas and a campground. “Our roads are so wide, a lot of people come out here to run or walk,” he said.

However, he said the emphasis on outdoor education for young people and the disabled fits in with Edmund A. Babler’s vision for the park.

“I think it would be right down the alley of how Dr. Babler wanted the property to be used.”

For more information, visit mostateparks.com.

PHOTOS

SPS_BABLER_001: A statue of Dr. Edmund A. Babler greets visitors to the state park named in his honor in St. Louis County. Tom Uhlenbrock/Missouri State Parks
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mostateparks/10056997636/

SPS_BABLER_002: A group of sixth graders from the Rockwood School District attend an outdoor class at Dr. Edmund A. Babler Memorial State Park.  Courtesy of Rockwood School District.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mostateparks/10057063983/

SPS_BABLER_003: Sacagawea, as portrayed by Dana-Marie Lee, speaks to fourth graders from the Rockwood School District at Missouri Heritage Days in Dr. Edmund A. Babler Memorial State Park. Courtesy of Rockwood School District.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mostateparks/10057063673/

SPS_BABLER_004: The stables built by the Civilian Conservation Corps at Dr. Edmund A. Babler Memorial State Park have been remodeled into a meeting space called The Outpost. Tom Uhlenbrock/Missouri State Parks
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mostateparks/10056996276/