Kircher Park honors former Mayor Leon Kircher, who was first elected mayor of Eureka at age 30 and served from 1963-1967 and again from 1973-1975, advocating neighborhood parks, helping establish a precedent that developers set aside green space for parks, and helping create the Eureka Park Board. Eureka began in 1858 as a railroad camp along the Missouri Pacific Railroad, whose builders, seeing level land with few obstacles, exclaimed “Eureka,” giving the city its name. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, hobos arrived in Eureka by freight train seeking work and meals and used hieroglyphic symbols in public places to communicate where food, shelter, safety, or danger could be found. Railroad access also opened recreational use of the Meramec River, helping resort towns such as Times Beach and Diecke grow, with Diecke becoming especially popular in the 1920s and 30s as a cool retreat from the city. After World War II and into the 1950s, booming housing, suburban growth, highways, interstates, and more affordable car ownership drew travelers farther away, and the Meramec’s local resort towns declined. Times Beach then became an affordable residential community in the 1960s and 1970s, but after environmental contamination, evacuation, cleanup efforts, and a complete flood in 1982, Route 66 State Park occupied the former community site. The free-flowing Meramec River, left undammed through the 20th century, was once among Missouri’s most polluted rivers, but government cleanup restored water quality and ecosystems; it is now one of the state’s most ecologically diverse rivers, supporting abundant wildlife and aquatic life. Established in 1975, the Meramec Greenway was charged with planning and coordinating the recovery of 108 miles of the lower Meramec River, and through the work of the Meramec River Recreation Association, good water quality, recovering natural beauty, and more than 28,000 acres of public parks and conservation areas are now available.