Forrest Smith (February 14, 1886 – March 8, 1962) was an American politician who served as the 42nd governor of Missouri. He was a Democrat.

Forrest Smith was born February 14, 1886, near Hardin in Ray County, Missouri. After receiving his secondary education at Woodson Institute in Richmond, Missouri, Smith attended Westminster College. On October 12, 1915, he married Mildred Williams and they were the parents of two daughters, Forrestine and Mary Josephine. Smith was a Methodist.

Forrest Smith began his lifelong political career in 1910 when he became deputy assessor for Ray County, Missouri. In 1914 he was elected county clerk for Ray County, a post he held for the next eight years. From 1925 to 1932 Smith served on the Missouri state tax commission, a post that laid the groundwork for a long career in statewide elected office. In 1932 Forrest Smith was elected Missouri state auditor, a post he would hold for the next sixteen years until being elected governor in 1948. According to the August 16, 1948, issue of Time magazine, Smith "helped himself get re-elected by reminding voters that he was the man who mailed out the old-age pension checks".^[1]

• The 1951 Municipal Land Clearance for Redevelopment Law. Signed by Smith, it allowed for the issuance of bonds by cities and towns statewide, which greatly expanded and improved public infrastructure such as water and sewer, as well as new industry in blighted areas.^[6]
• Forrest Lake, the centerpiece of Thousand Hills State Park near Kirksville, Missouri, is named for Smith.^[7]
• A dormitory at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri also bore his name before being torn down in 2004.
• Missouri environmentalists consider an eloquent denunciation by former Governor Smith of US Army Corps of Engineers plans to construct a dam the Current River as being one of the contributing factor to the plans' defeat.^[8]