The Pageant and Masque of Saint Louis: Spectacular Photos from the Historical Pageant that depicted the History of St. Louis, 1914

Over four nights in late May 1914, Forest Park in St. Louis, Missouri became the setting for one of the most ambitious civic performances in American history. The Pageant and Masque of St. Louis ran from May 28th through May 31st, drawing enormous crowds to Art Hill, where a massive stage had been built along the Grand Basin. The event was organized by the St. Louis Historical Society with a clear goal: to tell the full story of St. Louis — from its Indigenous roots to its modern identity — through live drama, dance, and spectacle.

Building the stage was a major undertaking on its own. Workers drove wooden piers into the water of the Grand Basin, constructed an enormous performance platform, and assembled the set pieces needed for dozens of scenes. The structure known as the Great Bear, Wasapedan, rose over the park during construction — a towering landmark that signaled the scale of what was coming. Passers-by stopped to watch the crews work, and photographers documented the progress from the earliest days of the build.

More than 7,500 St. Louis citizens volunteered to perform. They filled roles ranging from Native American warriors and French colonists to Maya priests and Civil War soldiers. The sheer number of participants meant that Forest Park’s readying areas buzzed with activity before each performance — crowds of people in costume waiting their turn to take the stage, horses being led into position, and directors coordinating the movement of hundreds of actors at once.

The event was divided into two parts: the Pageant and the Masque. The Pageant was a historical drama that walked audiences through centuries of St. Louis history in chronological order. It opened with scenes of Indigenous life and early European exploration, then moved through French colonization, the Louisiana Purchase, westward expansion, and finally the Civil War. Each episode was performed by volunteer actors in period costume, many of them riding horses or arriving on stage in wagons and stagecoaches.

One of the most dramatic scenes in the Pageant re-enacted the Day of the Three Flags — the moment in 1804 when the Louisiana Territory passed from Spain to France, and then almost immediately to the United States. The French flag was raised in St. Louis as the French townspeople celebrated its return, before the American flag replaced it. The sequence captured a pivotal turning point in the city’s identity, and the photographs from this scene show crowds of performers packed onto the stage for the flag-raising ceremony.

Scenes of westward expansion followed, including the departure of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark from St. Louis and their eventual return. The Pageant also staged the arrival of the steamboat Gen. Pike, the growing wagon trains of American settlers flooding into the city, and the 1825 visit of the Marquis de Lafayette. For the Lafayette scene, actors costumed in formal 19th-century dress performed at a ball in his honor, with St. Louis Mayor William Carr Lane — played by William R. Glasgow — greeting Lafayette, portrayed by Charles Burlingame.

As the stage directions read, ‘The old French type of dress is rapidly disappearing, the various American types taking its place; some of these are hunters, some farmers, and some gentlemen in black or plum colored coats. Many wagons pass, each with its troop of settlers, many of them walking beside or behind the vehicle’

The Pageant’s closing episodes covered the Civil War. A troop of Union soldiers marched off the stage as the band played the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” while in the same scene, another group of young men departed for the Confederate side. The Pageant ended at a St. Louis newspaper office, where a group of men gathered to receive word of General Robert E. Lee’s surrender.

The Masque was an entirely separate, allegorical production. Written and directed by Percy MacKaye, it opened on a stage set as an ancient Maya temple, complete with a great plaza and an altar in front of a large mound. Maya dancers and musicians entered the plaza while priests performed a ceremony, and groups of men, boys, and girls danced around them. The scene then shifted into an allegory about St. Louis itself — with actors playing figures like “Gold,” “Imagination,” “Poverty,” and the “Flower of Love” battling over the soul of the city.

In the Masque, actor John L. Tierney played “St. Louis” — the character of Louis IX of France, patron saint of the city — who descended onto the stage to meet the World Adventurers. Other performers represented distant lands and peoples, including William E. Mack as “Africa,” Clarence E. Fleming as the “Oceanic Islands,” and Frank Ferguson as “Australia.” A French knight in full armor appeared in a medieval scene, attended by a young man in costume. The Masque used these wide-ranging characters to build a symbolic portrait of St. Louis as a meeting point for the world.

The Masque also featured cultural groups from across the immigrant communities of St. Louis. Swedish and Scottish performers brought their own traditional costumes and dances to the production. A group of young women performed the gavotte, a French folk dance, as part of the program. These performances reflected the diverse ethnic makeup of St. Louis in 1914, with each group contributing something of their own heritage to the collective drama.

Native American scenes appeared throughout the Pageant. Actors in Indigenous dress performed the Osage Calumet dance, re-enacted councils between tribal leaders and French settlers, and portrayed the Sauk and Fox Indians negotiating with General William Henry Harrison. In one scene, American pioneers including General Harrison, Captain Stoddard, and Pierre Chouteau met with Sauk and Fox representatives on stage. These scenes drew on the actual historical record of Indigenous and European interaction in the Mississippi Valley.

Audiences filled Art Hill in extraordinary numbers each night. The sloping hillside provided a natural amphitheater, with rows of seats arranged to face the stage below. The Grand Basin separated the audience from the performers, so the stage — lit for evening shows — was viewed across open water. Camera operators and press photographers recorded the performances from the front of the stage, capturing the spectacle for newspapers and archives.

Behind the scenes, an executive committee of prominent St. Louis citizens oversaw the production. The committee posed for photographs on the drama’s own set, a sign of how closely the city’s civic leadership was tied to the event. Costume groups gathered for group portraits before and after performances, and the photographs taken across those four days form one of the most complete visual records of any civic pageant from the era.