The beautiful Missouri Botanical Garden, generally known as Shaw's Garden, is open for the use of the public. Compton Hill Reservoir Park, on the South Side, though small, is one of the finest in the city. Its water tower and basins are a part of the municipal water system, costing more than $30,000,000. The city water is pumped from the Mississippi River and purified as it passes into great settling basins. Though St. Louis' attractive houses are found almost everywhere outside the strictly business quarters, the real residence section has gradually been growing toward Forest Park, and many of the city's business men have built homes in the suburbs beyond the western limits of the city. One of these suburbs, University City, bids fair to become America's most beautiful residence town. Unlike most of our large cities, St. Louis has no sharply defined factory district. Its manufacturing establishments are distributed over nearly the whole city. An important part of its manufacturing interests centers on the eastern bank of the Mississippi in the city's Illinois suburbs. [Illustration: THE ART MUSEUM] The industrial development of these Illinois suburbs was greatly increased by the opening of the Eads Bridge in 1874. Before this time there had been no bridge connection over the Mississippi. Passengers and freight ferries had plied regularly between St. Louis and her suburbs across the river, but there were seasons when floating ice made the river impassable, sometimes cutting off communication between the two shores for days. The Eads Bridge is 6220 feet long and is so built that the railroad tracks cross it on a level lower than the carriage drives and foot paths. With its completion, communication between opposite sides of the river became as easy as between different parts of the city. [Illustration: THE EADS BRIDGE] Other bridges have since been built. In 1890 the Merchants Bridge, used solely by railroads, was built across the Mississippi three miles to the north of Eads Bridge, and now there is the McKinley Bridge between the two. In addition to these the city is building a bridge which, when completed, will be open to traffic without toll charges. [Illustration: SHAW'S GARDEN] [Illustration: A PUBLIC BATH] Among the Illinois suburbs thus brought into closer touch with the western side of the river are East St. Louis,--a growing city of about 75,000,--Venice, Madison, Granite City, and Belleville. Being principally manufacturing communities, these cities contribute in no small degree to St. Louis' importance as an industrial center. [Illustration: A MISSOURI COAL MINE]