The Jewel Box, located on a 17-acre site in Forest Park, was built by the City of St. Louis in 1936 and is operated by the Department of Parks, Recreation and Forestry.

It is listed on the National Historic Register.

The Jewel Box was dedicated Nov. 14, 1936 and cost about $117,000, with about 45 percent coming from Public Works Administration (WPA) funds. It was designed by city engineer William C. E. Becker and Robert Paulus Construction Co. was the contractor.

With its unconventional, cantilevered, vertical glass walls rising majestically 50 feet high, the Jewel Box opened in 1936 to national acclaim. The Post-Dispatch called the Art Deco-style structure, "the latest word in display greenhouses." It was an instant success, attracting more than 400,000 visitors a year in its heyday.

But the current Jewel Box is not first one to bear the name.

The original plan for Forest Park in the 1870s called for a floral conservatory but it was not built.

It wasn't until 1916 that John Moritz, the head gardner for the Parks Dept., turned a section of the park greenhouses into a display for winter-weary St. Louisans. The shows gained popularity and in the 1920s the displays changed monthly.

By 1926, this display area of the park greenhouses became known as the "Jewel Box" after a visitors remark that the floral patterns resembled a jewel box.

In the 1930s, park usage was increasing dramatically but resources for the park were severely limited. In the winter of 1933-34, the greenhouse remained open during the evenings so more people could see the display. On Easter Sunday 1934, 25,752 people entered the greenhouse between 5 a.m. and 9:20 p.m.

Park officials announced plans for a new floral conservatory. In 1936, a Federal WPA grant along with $75,000 from the city, allowed the construction of the long-awaited new facility. It was officially named the St. Louis Floral Conservatory, but even from the beginning it was called "the new Jewel Box."

The design was the result of a year of testing by City Engineer William C. E. Becker who used several miniature models. It was intended to admit the greatest amount of light, to reduce damage from hail and to reduce maintenance costs. Only the walls are glass, all of the horizontal surfaces are metal. Rolled awnings regulated the amount of light instead of the usual lime and cement mixture painted on greenhouse glass.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch called it, "the latest word in display greenhouses." It received national acclaim and was successful in reducing hail damage, demonstrated by a hail storm in 1938 that broke more than a thousand panes of glass in the greenhouses, but left the Jewel Box undamaged.

The Jewel Box was an immediate popular success. The first show contained more than 3,000 chrysanthemums in a formal, Chinese-style design. After being open less than three months, electric lighting was added so it could remain open until 9 p.m. to accommodate the large crowds. More than 416,000 visitors saw the Jewel Box in 1939. (For comparison, the Art Museum had an attendance of 390,000 for the same period.)

Through the mid-1970s, a thousand people a day were still visiting the conservatory, about half of the attendance during the early 1950s.

The pinch for park funds continued. During the period of 1945-1976 only a Magna-harp and chimes were added to the Jewel Box, both with private donations.

In 1970, an admission fee of twenty-five cents was added to help maintain the site. Also that decade, the Jewel Box and surrounding gardens were opened to weddings and parties for a fee.

In the early 1990s, Abbott Asbestos volunteered to remove and encapsulate the fraying asbestos around pipes. A grant provided funds for new plant materials and volunteers for the rose garden. A substantial grant from Smith Barney Inc. rehabilitated the statuary and the Vandeventer Gates on the surrounding ellipse.

Volunteer efforts by the Waterlily Society improved the reflecting pools at the entrance. The Parks Department refilled the pond on the grounds and rebuilt the Pan-Asian footbridge.

For the last five years, the Flora Conservancy of Forest Park has created beautiful perennial and annual beds adjacent to the Jewel Box using plants and materials donated by local growers and funds from the Parks Department. Through their efforts, a fountain at the Jewel Box has been repaired and refurbished with water flowing from it for the first time in 30 years.

The recently completed $3.5 million renovation of the Jewel Box insures that it will be a St. Louis jewel for future generations.

In 1936 the Jewel Box was "the latest word in display greenhouses." Today it is an aged St. Louis treasure that has been restored to its former glory.