A granite grave in Fort Belle Fontaine Park in St. Louis honors police K-9s who are buried in its cemetery plot.
In the 1950s, policing in the United States changed drastically when five St. Louis police officers visited a K-9 training facility in England and petitioned for a similar facility to be built in St. Louis. In 1958, the first police dogs in America began their training, and by 1967, Fort Belle Fontaine Park became the burial place for these K-9s.
When Officer Wilbern Grove lost his K-9 dog Sabre11 to cancer in 1979, he was buried at the cemetery. “There was one unspoken rule that when your canine died, someone else dug the grave,” Wilbern says. “The sergeant from the training school picked him up to be euthanized. As sick as he was, he jumped in the police car like he was going to work. There was not a dry eye to be had.”
Fort Belle Fontaine Park is open to visitors 7 days a week from dawn until dusk.
This article originally appeared in the March/April 2025 edition of Missouri Life magazine.
