The Racist History of Creve Coeur’s First Park

Howard Phillip Venable, by all accounts, lived a remarkable life. Born in Windsor, Ontario, by 1918, he earned his bachelor’s and medical degrees from nearby Wayne State University in Detroit. Clearly a gifted physician, in 1943 Venable became the first African American to receive a master’s in ophthalmology from New York University. A year later, he recorded the highest score to that point on the American Board of Ophthalmology exam.

Despite his impressive resume, there were few positions for Black doctors in Detroit, prompting Venable to join the acclaimed staff of Homer G. Phillips Hospital in St. Louis. Here, Venable developed a reputation as an expert medical administrator, leading him to not only head the ophthalmology department at Homer G. Phillips, but also at Peoples Hospital of St. Louis and St. Mary’s Infirmary. 

Given his unique expertise in glaucoma research, Venable became the first Black faculty member at Washington University and first Black clinical faculty member at Saint Louis University. 

Yet for all of his achievements, and all of his accolades, Venable’s most trying task was the simple act of purchasing a home.     

In the 1950s, Venable and his family were displaced, like many African Americans, by the construction of Interstate 64. Thus, Venable joined the national suburban exodus and purchased two lots in the newly developed Spoede Meadows subdivision in Creve Coeur. 

Venable remembered Creve Coeur as “almost entirely Anglo Saxon, no Jews were living in Creve Coeur in those days and no Blacks either.”

 The white residents of the suburb were intent on keeping it that way.

Although twenty-two other African Americans also bought land in Creve Coeur, they were quickly dissuaded and bought out. However, the ophthalmologist, who was no stranger to trailblazing, remained resolute. 

Undeterred, white Creve Coeur residents, who Venable thought would be his neighbors, pooled their resources and created a collective fund to buy Venable’s property on several occasions. Venable refused every time. 

In such an environment, financial pressure quickly turned to legal coercion. The ad hoc investment group quickly transformed into the “Citizens Advisory Committee on Parks.” 

Yet, the word “parks” is a misnomer. The group was not interested in parks in a plural sense. In fact, Creve Coeur did not even have a public park at the time. They were only interested in building one park, and that park would be where Venable planned to build his home. 

According to their scheme, the citizens of Creve Coeur would pay one-half of the cost to build a park. The city of Creve Coeur would provide the other half, but more importantly, use eminent domain to seize Venable’s property.

Creve Coeur was not even a decade old at this point, having been incorporated in 1949. Thus, mayor E.R. Goodard, opposed the eminent domain measure, not because of its racism, but because such a policy could bankrupt the newly created municipality.

Clearly in the minority, Goddard was subsequently replaced by John Beirne, a member of the “Citizens Advisory Committee on Parks.” With their backing, the city council approved the eminent domain proposal and gave Venable two weeks to sell his property.

Yet, Venable was unmoved, literally. The city subsequently sued the doctor, commencing a multiyear legal struggle over the land. In 1959, the Missouri Court of Appeals ruled that Creve Coeur could in fact seize Venable’s property even though it acknowledged the role of racism in motivating the city’s actions.

After Venable’s attempt to move the case to the Missouri Supreme Court was denied, he eventually sold his property and moved to Baldwin. 

Adding salt to the wound, the park was named after mayor Beirne who was synonymous with the effort to deprive Venable of his property. Even portions of Venable’s unfinished home were turned into a clubhouse for the new park.

In some ways, the exclusionary intent of white Creve Coeur residents has endured. In 2020, of the suburb’s more than 18,000 residents, only 1,690 were Black. The numbers are paltry when compared to the nearby suburb of University City, which has a Black population of more than 36%.

In 2019, the city of Creve Coeur passed Resolution 1847, which acknowledging the racist history of Beirne Park, renamed it to Dr. H. Philip Venerable Park. 

However, Venable was not present at the rededication ceremony. He passed two decades earlier in 1998. 

In recognizing the bittersweet moment, Allen Venable, Howard’s nephew noted, "It is sad and you're happy, happy that it is finally getting the recognition that someone is pulling the cover off and letting the light shine."