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St. Louis Forest Park Highlands Comet coaster


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back in the day, St. Louis had an amusement park called the Forest Park Highlands, it was a famous park for many years, it was sadly destroyed by a fire in July of 1963.

 

The Highlands was home to the "Comet" roller coaster, which was at the time the largest coaster built.

 

Comet Facts:

 

height- 85 ft

length- 3,120 ft

 

opened May 15, 1941 and it was designed by Herbert Schmeck with trains from the PTC running on its course..

 

Ironically, the only thing that wasn't burned, was the Comet. The Comet was pulled down over three days in 1966, and until they tore it down, they had to place pieces of rubber over sections of the track to keep people from trying to take that one final ride..

 

you can see what the Highlands looked like in this video, it also includes a POV of the Comet! pre- TPR of course

 

 

ALL PHOTOS BELOW ARE OWNED BY DOUG GARNER AND CAN BE FOUND ON HIS WEBSITE WHICH IS DEDICATED TO:forestparkhighlands.com

FPHComet_1.jpg.49d04ec051fcb342429a6d7efabd196c.jpg

comet_aerial.jpg.3aa5b6818edcf691064e38c3f098bb71.jpg

Comet03.jpg.07d06d2eb32f046bfa1bb7b63ba7b0e8.jpg

cometfirst-ride309.jpg.958ad58b95191274e69912faa44311e5.jpg

cometgirls310.jpg.980994779121c9b440eb92b73c5a6d83.jpg

comet_pose2.jpg.bac9574ac52e8e1d2a7fe9f550b6e6c8.jpg

Comet05.jpg.9f935a5b9056f1bbde746381b495d2d4.jpg

comet-back058.jpg.445802d467024c77e317a7a23ead9970.jpg

as seen from Oakland Ave.

FPHComet_2.jpg.74fed0132b70fb38ba8d05e7d14392b9.jpg

coming down the first drop

closed-comet.jpg.9521aa5bb173b6a440075125e01ce107.jpg

Edited by larrygator
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The Comet looked like an awesome coaster. Thanks for sharing this; I never would have known about it if not!

 

Cool trains, as well. The pacing seemed great, and I'm sure the bunny-hop finale was really fun.

 

Did anyone here get a chance to ride it?

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Wow, this is awesome! I keep thinking of all the what-ifs and how Forest Park Highlands and the Comet might be if they somehow made it to today since Forest Park is only about a 20 minute walk from my front door.

 

I've been wanting to dig up some information on this place, and I wanted to ask if you know whereabouts along Oakland the park was located. In the overview shots of the Comet, it looks like there's another road to the left of the coaster's first turnaround running perpendicular to Oakland, and I'm thinking of a few possibilities (Skinker? Tamm? Hampton?) and searching Google maps to try and figure out where this place was. I'd love to hear any additional information you may have.

 

Thanks for sharing all this!

 

~Megan

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Wow, this is awesome! I keep thinking of all the what-ifs and how Forest Park Highlands and the Comet might be if they somehow made it to today since Forest Park is only about a 20 minute walk from my front door.

 

I've been wanting to dig up some information on this place, and I wanted to ask if you know whereabouts along Oakland the park was located. In the overview shots of the Comet, it looks like there's another road to the left of the coaster's first turnaround running perpendicular to Oakland, and I'm thinking of a few possibilities (Skinker? Tamm? Hampton?) and searching Google maps to try and figure out where this place was. I'd love to hear any additional information you may have.

 

Thanks for sharing all this!

 

~Megan

 

That street than ran along the back side of the Comet is Macklind Ave. The coaster ran along the south side of Oakland Ave. on the north end of the park, basically from where the current Hampton Inn and Suites stands on Oakland to the west all the way through the north end of the Forest Park Community College campus east to Macklind Ave.

 

Tamm Ave is about 1/4 to 1/2 mile west of where the park was and Skinker is about 1/2 a mile to a mile west...

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Wow, this is awesome! I keep thinking of all the what-ifs and how Forest Park Highlands and the Comet might be if they somehow made it to today since Forest Park is only about a 20 minute walk from my front door.

 

I've been wanting to dig up some information on this place, and I wanted to ask if you know whereabouts along Oakland the park was located. In the overview shots of the Comet, it looks like there's another road to the left of the coaster's first turnaround running perpendicular to Oakland, and I'm thinking of a few possibilities (Skinker? Tamm? Hampton?) and searching Google maps to try and figure out where this place was. I'd love to hear any additional information you may have.

 

Thanks for sharing all this!

 

~Megan

 

Forest Park Highlands stood in the place where Forest Park Community College now stands.

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  • 1 year later...

I remember the Highlands. It burned down when I was 16, just old enough to drive there on my own. We had a lot of fun there and I still think the Comet is the best roller coaster I have ridden. Another fun ride was the Bobsled. It wasn't as wild as the Comet but it was fun to ride.

 

I also remember Vincent Price on the Tonight Show as a guest one time where he was talking about going to the Highlands when he was a kid. He grew up in St. Louis.

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