Local History Blog

When the Sporting Kansas City soccer club released new state line-themed jerseys in February 2022, fans noticed that one of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art’s shuttlecock sculptures, along with the Rosedale Memorial Arch, appeared together on the back. A curious reader asked What’s Your KCQ?, a partnership between the Kansas City Public Library and The Kansas City Star, to investigate the history of the arch, and why Sporting chose it to represent Kansas City, Kansas, on the jersey. In the aftermath of World War I, victorious American troops returned from Europe and patriotism was running high. In 1920, Kansas passed a law allowing public funds to support the construction and installation of military monuments, and the citizens of Rosedale, Kansas, were eager to take advantage of the legislation. And they knew just the spot.

A reader helped us get into the Halloween spirt by asking, “Did Spiritualism ever become popular in Kansas City?” The What’s Your KCQ? team found that not only did the movement gain followers here, it also caused a scandal that made national news. In 1881, Col. Robert Van Horn published an article, Philosophy: The New Hypothesis, in The Kansas City Review of Science and Industry. Van Horn, a publisher, congressman, and former mayor of Kansas City, had a distinguished record of service as a Union officer during the Civil War. He had also experienced personal tragedy beyond the horrors of war: He and his wife had four sons, only one of whom would outlive him. Van Horn was curious about life after death, but science was not answering his questions. In his article, he wrote that humankind needed to find life not in “animal and vegetable alone,” encouraging his readers to seek answers beyond our scientific understanding.

Kansas City culture wouldn’t be the same without fall fairs and festivals. But what’s celebrated and by whom has changed a great deal throughout the city’s history. An alarmed reader recently wrote to What’s Your KCQ?, a collaboration between the Kansas City Public Library and The Kansas City Star after running across a souvenir from an 1895 parade in the city on eBay. The antique was a remnant of the Priests of Pallas (POP) parade and included the letters KKK. The KCQ team quickly assured our reader that the letters did not represent that KKK, but something else entirely.

Kansas City in the 1880s was struggling to shed its frontier image, and the city was filled with a sense of boosterism. Professional and social clubs formed, their members all hoping to make a name for the young city and attract new investments. One such organization, the Flambeau Club, began holding parades to attract attention to downtown businesses. Later, inspired by Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans and the Veiled Prophet parade and ball in St. Louis, the Flambeaus decided Kansas City needed its own carnival season. In September 1886, a parade association formed to plan a multi-day festival the following year.

Just east of the Country Club Plaza and north of Brush Creek is an urban oasis of park land, gardens, and trails, including an eight-acre nature reserve and lake showcasing native plants and habitat. Opened in 2000, the Kauffman Memorial Garden and Legacy Park honor the philanthropic spirit of Ewing and Muriel Kauffman. The property, which includes the Kauffman Foundation headquarters and Anita B. Gorman Conservation Discovery Center, offers public greenspace in the heart of the city. But it is the neighborhood that existed before the Kauffman campus that is the subject of the latest installment of What’s Your KCQ?, a partnership between The Star and the Kansas City Public Library. Jared Pessetto was studying maps of the area from the 1980s, which showed a sizable residential district around 48th Street and Rockhill Road. He asked KCQ: “What happened to the neighborhood where Kauffman Memorial Garden is now located?”

The answer involves streetcar transit, flooding, university expansion, and, ultimately, urban conservation.