Calvary and Forest Hill

One of the more unique landmarks in Kansas City is the Forest Hill Abbey. The magnificent architectural piece was never really an abbey, being built as a mausoleum within the Forest Hill / Calvary Cemetery complex. The cemetery is not quite as interesting as others, but does store the souls of quite a few celebrities from the history of Kansas City.

One can find interesting folks like the Greenlease Family; somewhat of a Shakespearean tragedy of sorts. Robert C Greenlease Sr was one of the most successful entrepreneurs of his era. Working in early Kansas City repair shops, he invented his own car, the Kansas City Hummer, and went on to host the first Cadillac franchise west of the Mississippi. His life was overshadowed by the kidnapping and subsequent murder of his son though.

Uriah S Epperson rests there too; probably not as well known as business rival William Rockhill Nelson, but he played an equally prominent part in nearly every aspect of the social, cultural, and political development of the City during the early 1900s. He organized a couple of different Underwriting groups, was the the driving force behind promoting Convention Hall, and owner of the reportedly now-haunted Epperson House at E 51st Street and Cherry in MidTown. The ghost is not his. That is a whole other story.

Satchel Paige is probably one of the most famous I have discovered so far, who is not buried in the Abbey. The Hall of Fame Negro and Major League Baseball Player played for the Kansas City Monarchs negro baseball team from 1935 to 1936 and again from 1939 to 1948, 1950 and 1955. Returning to the pitcher mound again in 1965 for the Kansas City Athletics, he was the oldest man to throw a pitch in a Major League Baseball, and went on to pitch for 3 innings. He was the first play from Negro Leagues to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

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further reading

Greenlease Kidnapping

FBI.gov

Biography of Uriah Epperson (1861-1927) and Mary E. Epperson

KCHistory.org

Convention Hall ~ Kansas City History ~ Men Who Made Kansas City

KCConvention.com

Satchel Paige (1906-1982)

FindAGrave.com

Mount Saint Mary's Cemetery

A bit north of East 23rd Street, between Cleveland Avenue and Jackson Avenue, hosting a fantastic view of the skyline, stands one of the oldest cemeteries in Kansas City, dedicated in 1877.

The original 40-acre tract of land was purchased in 1873 by Father Donnelly, resident pastor of the St John Francis Regis Catholic Church (later Church of the Immaculate Conception), who indicated a cost at the time of $8,175 in “principal, interest, taxes, fencing and roadmaking.”

The cemetery hosts the remains of those originally interred at St Francis Regis Cemetery, many of the pioneers and founders, some rather notable and notorious figures from the history of the city, and 45,000 others of the Catholic faith that contributed to building and growth of Kansas City.

Among the notable Kansas City pioneers found at this cemetery are Pierre and Eleanor La Liberte were the original land owners of much of what is now downtown Kansas City; they conveyed the original land on which the Church of the Immaculate Conception now stands. Gabriel Prudhomme, a fur-trader and landowner, owned the land purchased for development of the City. He died in a bar fight in 1831, and was originally interred at St John Francis Regis Cemetery, but his remains were not moved to Mount St Mary’s Cemetery when they were discovered in 1985.

Doctor Benoist Troost was one of the original investors that purchased the land from Gabriel Prudhomme; a Dutch-born doctor/investor, he was also involved in Kansas City’s first newspaper, and the Kansas City, Hannibal & St Joseph Railroad Company. While it is not the final resting place of the infamous Francois Chouteau, considered to be the Founding Father of Kansas City for his efforts to be the first to locate and maintain a trading post in the area, many of his children and grandchildren are interred at this location.

Other points of interest include the grave of J Pino Fournaise, who died in 1871 at the age of 124. Can you believe that? Most of the influential Jarboe family is also there; the first telegram ever sent from Kansas City was to Father Donnelly, summoning him to the death bed of 28 year old Lydia Ann Jarboe.

The first police officer and firefighter to die in the line of duty rest in Mount St. Mary’s, as does William Grooms, the Kansas City police officer killed during the Union Station Massacre in 1933. Ragtime band leader and composer Edward Harry Kelly, north side prohibition boss “Brother” Johnny Lazia, as well as 1960s and 1970s mafia crime boss, Nicholas Civella, and of course, Father Donnelly, who was first buried in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, then later moved to Priest Circle in 1927.

Unfortunately, the years have not been kind to this cemetery. As the surrounding neighborhood began to decay during the 1970s, the ignorant and disrespectful took the opportunity to topple, destroy or otherwise deface many of the sculptures and monuments. The Church and volunteers have made an effort to restore and repair some of them, but others are lost forever.

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further reading

A final resting place for Missouri's founding settlers

The Catholic Key

Mount Saint Mary Catholic Cemetery

Find A Grave Cemetery

Bourbon Waterfalls

After suffering a week of torrential rain, and the promise of it continuing through the weekend, we decided a day trip to a sunnier location was in order. The National Weather Service indicated southeast Kansas to be the only place within a couple of hundred kilometers where it would not be raining, so we set our sights there.

There is not particularly much to see or do in that part of Kansas, or so we always assumed.Digging a little deeper uncovered a few oddities that would ultimately take precedence.

Kansas has waterfalls! Who knew?

We certainly did not. We chased quite a few of them around the hills of Arkansas, among other places, but always figured that Kansas was entirely too flat. Apparently, there are quite a few waterfalls in Kansas, primarily in the Flint Hills area, and near the northwestern edge of the Ozark Plateau.

Just a short 40 km hop west of Fort Scott, in Bourbon County Lake State Park, Wolfpen Creek feeds into a 103-acre lake held back by an earthen dam. The spillway path at the northeast corner of the lake flows through a small marshy area and follows what appears to be the original, though slightly modified creek bed, cascading gently a couple of times before falling 10 meters over limestone and shale outcrops to a small pool below, then flowing on to the Marmaton River.

The falls are spectacular, a cool spot tucked in below the hot and humid surroundings of the lake, and relatively easy to access. Following a gravel road around to the front of the dam and passing over a bridge so small it is not really worth mentioning, a 4x4 path leads to a small parking area near the base of the falls.

While only a short 100-meter walk from the road, part of the path to the base of the falls requires clambering over a pile of rocks approximately ½ meter in size; another path from the parking area leads one on a short 60-meter hike up to the limestone creek bed at the top of the falls.

Some folks were swimming around in the pool when we arrived, and others arrived after us for more of the same, so we guessed it must have been safe enough. Unprepared for that sort of fun though, we could only watch on jealously. Testing the water a little, it was not especially cool, but not warm either. It is very likely tepid bath water at the height of summer, if the falls are running at all.

According to a fact sheet on another site, the falls usually dry up by the end of June, and the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks & Tourism lowers the lake level during the fall and winter months, so there is a short window from April through June to see these falls.

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Further Reading

Bourbon State Fishing Lake

Kansas Wildlife, Parks & Toursim

Kansas Big Brutus

Rising out of the corn fields of southeastern Kansas, an engineering marvel towers over everything in the surrounding area, visible for several miles, and stands as a testament to the coal-mining history of the region.

The Bucyrus-Erie Model 1850B electric shovel, nicknamed Big Brutus, stands proudly against the skyline of the little town of West Mineral, Kansas. The largest of its kind, it stand 16 stories tall, weighing in at 5000 metric tons.

Nearly 50 meters long, the boom gives the machine most of its height, but the rest of it is equally impressive in scale. The dipper capacity is 68 cubic meters, enough to fill three train cars, and the body of the beast, larger than most houses. Surprisingly, the crew consisted of only three people.

Resting at the end of the last strip pit it dragged, the machine spent much of its life steadily working northeasterly from Oswego, dragging dirt from above coals seams in pit after pit. These pits are now filled with water and part of the Strip Pits State Wildlife Management Area, but very noticeable from the air on Google Maps.

Pittsburg & Midway Coal Mining Company contracted for the construction of this beast in 1962 at a cost of $6.5 million. Assembled on site, after delivery of parts transported to the location on 150 rail cars, the shovel ran 24 hours a day, 7 days a week from 1963, removing approximately one square mile of overburden annually. The machine operated until 1974, when it became simply too cost prohibitive to continue operations. A sign on the site proclaims the electric bill for just one day of operation, $27,000.

In 1985, Big Brutus was dedicated as a “Museum and Memorial Dedicated to the Rich Coal Mining History in Southeast Kansas” and two years later, recognized by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) as a Regional Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark.

The site and museum host an array of other oddities related to mining in southeast Kansas, containing numerous artifacts and machinery used in mining operations. Inside the museum, visitors can view replicas of Big Brutus, and photos of it in operation, along with other coal shovels and mine works.

Only a short day trip from Kansas City, it is quite a site to see, and worth a visit for anyone interested in heavy machinery. Words cannot express the immensity of the machine. Indeed, the full impact of the enormity of this piece of machinery does not become fully apparent until one stands at the foot of the monster, or after having climbed around it and inside.

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further reading

Big Brutus, Inc.

BigBrutus.org