All Stories: 82
Stories
Blind Boone in Warrensburg
The park that today is known as Blind Boone Park once served as the park for African American residents of Warrensburg up until the Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka, KS Supreme Court ruling that mandated the integration of public…
Blind Boone in Warrensburg
John William Boone was born on May 17, 1864, to Rachel Boone in Miami, Missouri, in a Union army camp occupied by the Seventh Militia, Company I. Rachel Boone had been enslaved at birth in 1843 in Kentucky. It is unclear just exactly who enslaved…
Blind Boone in Warrensburg
John Lange, Jr., was born enslaved in Harrisburg, Kentucky on October 4, 1840 to a free man and an enslaved mother. During the Civil War he worked with his father as a butcher and at the end of the Civil War the Lange family moved to Columbia…
Blind Boone in Warrensburg
When Willie was eight, Rachel Boone married Harrison Hendricks and moved into his home, which sat "just back of the old Land Fike's Mill [Eureka Mills] on Mill Street." Melissa Fuell Cuther noted: "The house was a one-room log…
Blind Boone in Warrensburg
Melissa Fuell was born in Warrensburg, Missouri, on May 15, 1886, and attended and graduated from the Howard School and was active in music. She went on to study at the Lincoln Institute in Jefferson City, where she trained to be a…
Blind Boone in Warrensburg
The Magnolia Opera house, an 800 seat theater, was located at 145 West Pine at the corner of Washington and West Pine. Construction started on the theater in 1889, but the first performances did not occur until 1890.
The Magnolia Opera house was…
Blind Boone in Warrensburg
Blind Boone passed away in Warrensburg, Missouri, on October 4, 1927, while visting his step brother at 408 W. Market Street. (The actual home is no longer extant.)
African American men and women from Warrensburg attended Blind Boone's…
Blind Boone in Warrensburg
On January 5, 1884, Blind Boone and his concert company performed at the Empire Theatre. Ellie Fike, daughter of Henry C. Fike, who operated the Eureka Mills north of town, attended the concert with her mother and wrote about it in her…
Blind Boone in Warrensburg
Blind Boone gave several concerts at the Christian Church in Warrensburg and, according to his biographer, Mellissa Fuell, he considered himself a member of the denomination.
On December 19th and 20th, 1890, Blind Boone gave two concerts at the…
Blind Boone's Warrensburg Experience Blind Boone Concert Company
In 1880 John Lange entered into a written contract with Rachel Hendrix that he would pay her $10 a month for young Willie's musical talent until he was 21. His first concert was in Columbia and it grossed only $7. At that time the company…
Knob Noster State Park Recreational Demonstration Area Storygraph
The National Park Service's Recreational Demonstration Area storygraph was completed in the 1930s and offers an idyllic view of what an organized group camp or demonstration area might have looked like.
While the foreground in this drawing…
Knob Noster State Park Camp Bobwhite Historic and New Pool
Camp Bobwhite has offered a swimming pool since the camp opened to the public in the 1940s. Long before the use of air conditioning, swimming pools offered a fun place to cool off during the summer months and campers looked forward to pool time.…
Knob Noster State Park WPA Bridge on Entrance Road
The National Park Service placed the Montserrat Recreation Demonstration Bridge, or Knob Noster State Park Bridge on Entrance Road, in the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.
The Works Progress Administration and the National Park…
Knob Noster State Park Camp Shawnee
The National Park Service added the Shawnee Organized Group Camp to the National Register of Historic Places as a Historic District in 1985. The Works Progress Administration constructed the camp as part an effort to create recreational…
Knob Noster State Park Camp Bobwhite Director's Cabin
The Works Progress Administration constructed the original Camp Bobwhite Director's Cabin in the late 1930s. Its exterior has changed little over the past several decades. As you can see from the earliest image, the park's road ended at a…
Knob Noster State Park Camp Activities
One of the primary objectives of the creation of the Monteserrat Recreational Demonstration area that later became Knob Noster State Park in 1946 was to get individuals to engage with recreation and the outdoors.
The campers who stayed at either…
Knob Noster State Park Camp Shawnee Cabins
A number of religious and civic organizations utilized the campgrounds since the opening of the park. When the park opened in the 1930s as part of the Montserrat Demonstration Area, the Camp that became Camp Shawnee was originally named Camp…
Knob Noster State Park History and Significance
Since 1946, Knob Noster State Park has welcomed visitors to its forests, waters, cabins, and camps. The park's history begins, however, not after World War II, but in the depths of the Great Depression. During the 1930s, President Franklin…
Knob Noster State Park Camp Bobwhite Dining Hall
The dining hall at Camp Bobwhite resembles one of the many rustic buildings that the Works Progress Administration (WPA) built as part of the Montserrat Recreation Demonstration Area during the 1930s, which was later given to the Missouri State…
Knob Noster State Park Camp Bobwhite Recreation Building
Camp Bobwhite's Recreation Hall was not part of the original construction of the camp, which was completed on October 10, 1946. Other than the dining hall, the camp had no larger structure for groups to gather.
In January of 1956 the…
Knob Noster State Park Camp Bob White
Originally, the National Park Service (NPS) planned five organized group camps at Knob Noster State Park; however, over the course of the park's planning and development period, the NPS and Works Progress Administration (WPA) workers created…
Harry Truman Returns to Jackson County Missouri as President Kansas City Federal Building
The president started the second day of his visit home by first visiting his Aunt Ella Noland at 216 N. Delaware Street in Independence and then he traveled to his office in Kansas City, which was located in the federal building at 811 Grand Avenue.…
Harry Truman Returns to Jackson County Missouri as President Visiting 216 N. Delaware
On June 28, 1945, around 9:00 a.m., Harry Truman started his day by visiting his aunt, Ella Truman Noland, and cousins, Nellie and Ethel Noland, at 216 N. Delaware.
Ella Truman Noland was an older sister to John A. Truman, Harry Truman's…
Harry Truman Returns to Jackson County Missouri as President Independence Motorcade
President Truman's blue Cadillac approached the Independence square via West Lexington and circled the square traveling west on Maple Street, directly in front of the 1933 Courthouse, which he had remodeled when he was County Judge.
The…
Brief history of Leeton Missouri
Leeton was named after J. J. Lee, the original owner of the town site and Leeton was formally established in 1895. Prior to the formal founding of the town, a post office had been established in 1882. Today the community has a little over 500…
Brief history of Corder Missouri
Corder Missouri, located in Lafayette County is approximately sixty miles east of Kansas City and was founded by Nathan Corder from Rappahannock County, Virginia. Corder came to the area with a large number of slaves in 1839. By the 1850s, the…
Brief History of Waverly Missouri
Waverly, located in the Middleton Township in the northeast corner of Lafayette County was platted in 1845 as Middleton, Missouri--named because it was between Arrow Rock to the east and Lexington to the west. Residents of the area petitioned the…
Brief history of Odessa Missouri
Odessa was founded in 1878 when the town's first inhabitants moved into the region. These settlers were primarily Eastern Europeans who had moved to the United States. The town was named after the Ukranian city of Odessa. The first post office…
Brief History of Lexington, Missouri
Gilead Rupe, founder of Lexington, established a ferry on the Missouri River in 1822. In 1823 Lexington became the county of seat of Lafayette County and grew quickly. By the 1830s and 1840s Lexington became a bustling and prosperous merchant hub…
Harry Truman Returns to Jackson County Missouri as President Municipal Auditorium
President of Kansas City University, Clarence R. Decker, conferred an honorary degree on President Truman at a ceremony that was held at the Municipal Auditorium at 8:30 in the evening.
The president delivered a formal speech in response which…