Photo Credit: Missouri History Museum
Bicyclists of the League of American Wheelmen pose by the Frank Blair statue at the northeast corner of Forest Park before the second annual St. Louis County Bicycle Tour in 1892.
Cycling was popular as a means of transportation and recreation at the turn of the twentieth century. By the early 1900s cyclists, pedestrians, and motorists were struggling to coexist on busy St. Louis roads. Cycling proponents lobbied for a bicycle license tax that would fund the construction of bicycle paths, but the tax never passed. Cycling races like the 1894 Forest Park bicycle race were popular with both cyclists and spectators and drew contestants from as far away as Chicago.