Why limit my visit to one Kansas City when I can visit two?
I am going to have to try to swing through Peculiar, Missouri next time I’m in the area. The name intrigues me. I wonder if they have T shirts?
This makes three new states so far for this trip: Indiana, where I “mooch-docked” in the parking lot of the Cracker Barrel, Jefferson City, Missouri, and now Kansas City, Kansas.
I set up camp at Walnut Grove RV Park, which is actually in Merriam, Kansas. It was a pretty good campground for an urban setup. It definitely had a great location for what I wanted to do. There were a few places on The List in Kansas City for next time, and I wanted to visit some friends. I love how the internet introduces me to new people and makes it possible for us to stay connected.
My first visit was with Sue, who had me over for dinner.
We met in a Facebook group for interesting women a few years back. (In my opinion, we both meet that criteria.) When I mentioned that I was planning to pass through her area, she invited me to visit. We had a lovely visit. Her husband, Tom, stuck his head in from time to time. He did let me snap a photo of him, but he had on a cap pulled low and stood in the shadows. It didn’t turn out well, so I guess you’ll just have to take my word that we met without the photo to back it up.
Hmm. Could he be in the witness protection program? That might explain why he wasn’t eager to have me take his photo.
The next day, I met up with Airstreamer friends, Elizabeth and Jack. They recommended this place. They said it had THE BEST PIZZA.
Quite frankly, I do believe they were correct. This is a local chain, and they have many locations. My friends, the experts, said that the one at 5105 Main Street, Kansas City, MO is the best one, so we met up there.
We compared notes about what had been going on in our lives and then parted ways.
They got into their TV (which is how RVers refer to their tow vehicles.)
Incidentally, their RAM 2500 is a Big Red Truck, but they call him BeRT, as opposed to my RAM 2500, which I called BART, for Big Ass Red Truck.
They got in BeRT and headed off to further adventures. Until next time! I wonder where that will be? So far, we’ve met up in Arizona, Ohio and now Missouri.
After all that art ‘n’ architecture, I was feeling quite peckish. I found myself a Mexican restaurant and tucked in.
Beans, rice and corn – my favorites!
After that, it was time to find something else to explore before I moved on. I thought I’d see if the cathedral was as elegant as the capitol.
I have to admit that I wasn’t expecting such a modern building.
I decided to walk up and see what I could see. Quite frankly, the roofline made me think of fast-food restaurants from the 1960s. That style of roof is known as a folded plate roof. I did a Google search to see if I could find any examples. Here’s a repurposed Neba restaurant.
Supposedly Neba stood for “Nicest Eating Beef Around.” I could have sworn that my father said it was named after the founder’s dog. My father had a rather fey sense of humor.
Not all such ’60s restaurants got repurposed. This one reminds me of the Mister Donuts you used to see around.
Ah! There it is! Mister Donut with the folded plate roof.
But, I digress, which is to be expected. This cathedral was built after the Diocese of Jefferson City was created. In 1956, territory was taken from the Archdiocese of St. Louis, the diocese of Kansas City and the Diocese of Saint Joseph. The plans for the church were drawn up in 1966, and the first mass was held in 1968.
I walked up to the doors, which were designed by Brother Stephen Erspammer, S.M. of St. Louis. According to my Preferred Source, since the cathedral is built into a slope, the doors open at ground level, which makes for a barrier-free access. These doors weigh 500 pounds each, though. I hope that doesn’t keep out the weak! I did managed to make my way in, so they must be very well balanced.
The bronze medallion embedded in the center set of doors depicts an eternal Christ. He is seated among the sun, moon, stars and rainbows of the heavens. With one hand, the figure makes the ancient gesture of a teacher.
Teacher friends, how many of you make this gesture?
The other hand hold the book of Scriptures, with the words “Ego sum lux mundi,” which means I am the light of the world.
The doors on right and left sides have handles designed in the shape of the Greek letters, Alpha and Omega, recalling John’s vision of Christ in Revelation.
With all the cars in the parking lot, I assumed that a mass was underway, or, perhaps, about to start. Since I miss a many of my weekly masses when I am on the road, I was hopeful that I might be in time for a service.
I passed by this sign, reminding people of proper church etiquette.
My goodness! I had walked in on a Knights of Columbus mass! I had seen them from time to time at masses in the cathedral in Kalamazoo, but I always felt they were kind of a “secret society,” although if they want to be a secret society, they need to come up with a uniform that is a little more inconspicuous.
The Knights of Columbus is the world’s largest Catholic fraternal service organization. It was founded in 1882 by Michael J. McGivney in New Haven, Connecticut and named in honor of the explorer Christoper Columbus. It was originally designed to serve as a mutual benefit society for working-class and immigrant Catholics in the United States. It developed into a fraternal benefit society dedicated to providing charitable services, including war and disaster relief, and actively defending Catholicism across the globe and promoting Catholic education.
Incidentally, JFK was a fourth degree member of the Bunker Hill Council number 62. Many other notable Catholic men from the United States have been Knights of Columbus, including Americans Ted Kennedy, Vince Lombardi, Al Smith, Sargent Shriver, Samuel Alito, John Boehner, Ray Flynn, Jeb Bush and Sergeant Major Daniel Daly, a two-time Medal of Honor recipient.
I had a few minutes before mass began, so I took a quick look around.
This collection of hat boxes in what I assume was the “crying room” tickled my fancy. I imagine those be-plumed, cockaded chapeaus would be hard to wear in the car!
But, in case you are a Catholic male and you were put off joining by having to wear the regalia, you are in luck! As of July 1, 2019, the new uniform for fourth degree members will be a blazer and beret.
CNS photo/Knights of Columbus
Ceremonial swords will still be part of the uniform. Knights are free to continue to wear the old uniforms, but the thinking is that updating the look will attract more members to the organization.
Oh, dear! They have a pipe organ. Well, I can put up with anything for a while.
The time came to receive the Eucharist. And soon, mass had come to a close.
The Knights of Columbus lined up holding their chapeaus.
They put them on.
They raised their swords.
Due to the color of the lining of their capes, what I must assume were higher ranking officials processed through the phalanx of Knights.
Then mass was over. I didn’t want to intrude, so I didn’t pull any of them aside to ask what I had just witnessed.
I got in the car and headed back toward the capitol. My next stop was Jefferson Landing.
I found a place to park and got out to explore. This was going to have to be a quick visit. The weather wasn’t “tourism friendly” and the day was winding to a close. However, a quick visit is better than no visit.
Jefferson Landing State Historic Site is significant because it is a rare preserved Missouri River Landing.
On one side, you have the Lohman Building. It was constructed in 1839 by James Crump. Over the years it was used as a grocery store, warehouse, telegraph office, tavern and hotel. It earned the nickname “the landing” and was recognized as a popular meeting place for lawmakers and businessmen.
So, if Crump built it, why is it know as the “Lohman Building?” Crump’s business partner eventually bought him out. I guess naming rights went with the purchase.
On the other side of the street is a hotel built by Charles Maus. He built it in 1855 and it opened as the Missouri Hotel. For some reason, the name was changed to Veranda Hotel. I wonder if it had a veranda at some point? However it finally became known as the Union Hotel after the Civil War.
The buildings were restored as part of the state’s bicentennial celebration in 1976. The Lohman building depicts and 1850s general store and ware house and features a film on the history of the site and of Jefferson City. The Union Hotel houses the Elizabeth Rozier Gallery, which has changing exhibits that emphasize Missouri’s history, art and Culture.
Of course, it was so late in the day that I had to rely on my Preferred Source for this information. The exhibits were closed, but if you plan to visit, up-to-date information can be found at the Missouri State Parks website.
The lower level of the Union Hotel is used as the Amtrak station.
Jefferson City is pretty close to halfway between the two – smack dab in the middle of the state. That seems to be a good place for a state capital.
A freight train rumbled by while I was standing there taking it all in. I know that graffiti is technically vandalism, but some of it is really eye catching.
I wonder if it was fall formal season in the high schools. These folks spent several minutes snapping photos of the friends.
I headed up the brick road.
On the left side of the street, a wedding was taking place.
On the other side, a wedding party photo shoot was underway. On top of that rock outcropping, art was imitating life – or was it the other way around?
It was a statuary grouping of the Corps of Discovery!
Hey! The sculptor was Sabra Tull Meyer! Where have I seen that name before? Oh, yeah! In the capitol! She is very good at capturing portraits in bronze.
This monument depicts a specific day in the historic journey of the Corps of Discovery. According to a marker at the site, “…on June 4, 1804, a keelboat and two pirogues containing the members of the Corps of Discovery passed this spot as they headed upstream to the headwaters of the Missouri River and across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. The Lewis and Clark Expedition was in the twenty-second day of their two-year, four month long odyssey. Already fighting the strong currents of the Missouri River, the party had managed to cover over 145 miles since leaving their winter encampment at the River DuBois, in present day Illinois. The expedition still had 3,855 hard miles stretching ahead before they reached their destination on the western rim of the continent.”
The sculptures were unveiled June 4, 2008, 204 years later.
York was William Clark’s slave. According to another source, “He was William Clark’s servant from boyhood, and was left to William in his father’s will. He had a wife, and possibly a family, before the Lewis and Clark Expedition. In 1804, York was compelled to leave his family and accompany Clark and 40 others on the Lewis and Clark Expedition.”
Lewis was not in favor of slavery. Seaman was his companion, purchased for $20 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania while he was waiting for the boats to be completed for the expedition. According to my Preferred Source, the corps ate over 200 dogs while traveling the trail, but Seaman was spared. Lewis felt so strongly about his dog that when he was stolen by one of the tribes, he threatened to send three armed men to kill them.
Not only were the participants in the Corps rendered so well, I was taken with the items that were on the rocks around them.
This bag seemed to be carried by Drouillard, or maybe it was the bag that Clark used to carry his sextant.
York carried this bag.
I imagine that this must have been Meriwether Lewis’ journal.
I wonder if this belonged to York or Douillard?
I bet that this hat belonged to Clark. Lewis was already wearing his.
Duck – it’s what’s for dinner!
Just one more look and then back to the car.
It’s time to get back to the the trailer and get ready to roll in the morning. Next stop: Kansas City!
When last, I left you, we had exited the House Lounge after appreciating the Thomas Hart Benton murals. Our next stop is the House Chamber.
The windows are exquisite. By playing around with the exposure, I was able to bring up the colors a bit.
This is the stained glass window above the speaker’s platform.
The ceiling has a beautiful piece of leaded glass in it. I’m not sure why it’s purple, but there you have it.
The sides of the chamber are decorated with words that I imagine are intended to inspire the legislators.
LIBERTY…EQUALITY…LAW…JUSTICE…
ENTERPRISE…PROGRESS…HONOR.
The window immediately above the word PROGRESS shows the world as it was unfolding. From what the guide said, I gathered that the artist was really forward-thinking in his depiction of the airplane. Progress, indeed.
I was captured by this decorative detail and decided to include it in this post.
At the back of the chamber is this mural dedicated to the War to End All Wars, now known as World War I. I borrowed this from someplace on the internet. I’d cite the source, but I lost it.
Here are the photos that I managed to snap.
From one side…
And as far away from it as I could get while still in the visitors’ gallery.
The last stop on this tour is the Hall of Famous Missourians. These busts are all privately funded and depict prominent Missourians honored for their achievements and contributions to the state. According to my Preferred Source, these busts were created by Missouri sculptors Sabra Tull Meyer, E. Spencer Schubert and William J. Williams. As of 2013, there were 44 inductees in the Hall.
You can relax. I am not going to present all of the honorees.
First we have Mark Twain, otherwise known as Samuel Langhorne Clements. Born in Hannibal, Missouri in 1835. He died in 1910. I visited his grave in Elmira, New York as well as his house in Hartford, Connecticut.
Saint Rose Philippine Duchesne, 1769-1852. She is recognized for being an American Frontier Educator. Born in Grenoble, France, she came to America in 1818 and open the first free school west of the Mississippi in a log cabin in St. Charles, Missouri.
She worked with the American Indians, who called her “Quah-kah-ka-num-ad” or “The Woman Who Prays Always.” She was beatified by Pope Pius XII in 1940 and canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1988.
Tom Bass was born into slavery in Boone County in 1859. He lived most of his life in Mexico, Missouri. He became one of the most popular horse trainers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is credited with helping to start the American Royal Horse Show in Kansas City. He died in 1934 at the age of 75. He succumbed to a heart attack, which people attributed to his distress over the death of Belle Beach, one of his favorite horses.
Josephine Baker is also claimed as one of Missouri’s own. She was born in St. Louis in 1906 and her plaque honors her for being an international entertainer and human rights activist. She lead an interesting life. Not only as a singer and dancer, but as a movie star, a civil rights activist, and working with the French Resistance during World War II. After the war, she was awarded the Croix de guerre by the French military and named a Chevalier of the Legion d’honneur by General Charles de Gaulle. Although she had renounced her U.S. citizenship when she married French industrialist Jean Lion in 1937, Coretta Scott King offered her unofficial leadership in the Civil Rights Movement after Martin Luther King’s assassination.
Melton D. “Mel” Hancock is included in the Hall. He is the founder The Taxpayer’s Survival Association, which put forth “The Hancock Amendment.” This is Missouri’s Constitution Tax and Spending Limitation. His organization worked with other groups in the state and got it placed on the ballot through a petition drive and it was adopted by the voters in 1980. (Side note, if this were Michigan, the legislators would feel free to do something to thwart the will of the voters.) From 1989 – 1996, he represented the state’s 7th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives.
Astronomer Edwin Powell Hubble, 1889-1953, is also one of the honorees. Hubble developed the theory and law proving that the universe is expanding, developed the theory that the universe extends beyond the Milky Way and a technique to measure the distance of those galaxies from our galaxy. Hubble Classification is still used today to measure and classify all galaxies beyond the Milky Way. The Hubble Space Telescope is named in his honor.
I always associated Marlin Perkins with Nebraska. I guess it was due to “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.” But, no, this well-known zoologist and naturalist was born and raised in Carthage, Missouri. He was also director of the Saint Louis Zoo from 1962-1970. He hosted the television show 1963-1985, which was almost to the end of his life in 1986. I’d say he had a good, long run.
I did not know that Emmet Kelly Sr. was from Missouri, but it appears that they claim him as their own. While he was born in Kansas in 1898, his hometown was Houston, Missouri. His character, based on the hobos of the Depression Era, was known as Weary Willie. Our guide told us that the statue held a secret, if you took a flash photo of it.
One of the tour members managed to snap a photo with flash, and I took a photo of her photo. Amazing!
Next is a completely different sort of clown. Rush Limbaugh. The citation honors him for overcoming adversity while climbing the ladder to become the top radio talk show host in the country. I read over his Wikipedia entry. The only adversity I could find was that he dropped out of college. His mother said that, “He flunked everything,” and “he just didn’t seem interested in anything except radio.”
Virginia Louis Minor was born in Virginia in 1824 and moved to St. Louis in 1843. She founded the first woman’s suffrage organization in the United States. She attempted to register to vote in 1872 and she sued the registrar who refused to let her register. Her case, Minor v Happensett, went to the United State Supreme Court, which denied women the right to vote under the 14th Amendment.
She worked for women’s suffrage until her death in 1894.
I’m not sure why Ginger Rogers and Sacajawea are displayed so close together. Do you suppose they are running out of space?
Ginger Rogers was born in Independence, Missouri in 1911. She won a Best Actress Oscar for the 1940 film, “Kitty Foyle.” She danced with Fred Astaire in ten films. Her most famous quotes is “I do everything the man does, only backwards and in high heels.”
Sacajawea was born in 1788 Lemhi River Valley, near present day Salmon, Idaho. On her plaque, she is recognized as being the Shosone interpreter for the Lewis and Clark Expedition. in 1800, when she was around 12 years old, she and several other girls were kidnapped by a group of Hidata after a battle that resulted in the deaths of several Shoshone. She was taken to the Hidatsa village, near present-day Washburn, North Dakota.
According to my Preferred Source, When she was about 13, she was sold into a “nonconsensual” marriage along with another young girl to Toussaint Charbonneau, a Quebecois trapper living in the village. She was pregnant with her first child when Lewis and Clark spent the first winter near there. Charbonneau professed to be able to speak Big Belley language, which is what the Hidatsa spoke. He told them that his wives spoke the Shoshone language. They hired him and told him to bring along one of his wives.
Sacajawea died in 1812. Or was it 1884? There is no definitive proof, although 1812 is the more accepted date.
This gentleman is George Caleb Bingham. He was a 19th century American painter of the American West, with a large selections of his works of at the St. Louis Museum of Art. Much of his best work generally relates to life and commerce along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, and to the people of Missouri in and around St. Louis, Jefferson city and Kansas City, among other Missouri places. He became known as “The Missouri Artist” and is considered by some to be Missouri’s first artist.
In addition to being an artist. he also served in the Missouri House of Representatives and other various positions in government.
David Rice Atchison is another interesting politician. Although he was born near Lexington, Kentucky in 1807, he was the U.S. Senator from Missouri for 1843-1855, and there are those who claim that he was President for one day in 1849. That’s the President of the United States, mind you.
How did that happen? The term of outgoing president, James K. Polk, ended at on noon March 4, which was as Sunday. On March 2, outgoing vice president George M. Dallas relinquished his position as President of the Senate, at which time Atchison was elected President pro tempore of the Senate. According to the Presidential Succession Act of 1792, the Senate president pro tempore immediately followed the vice president in the presidential line of succession. As Dallas’s term also ended at noon on the 4th, and neither President-elect Zachary Taylor nor Vice President-elect Millard Fillmore had been sworn in to office on the day, it was claimed by some of Atchison’s friends and colleagues that on March 4-5, 1849, Atchison was Acting President of the United States.
It must be noted that Atchison himself never claimed to be Acting President and historians, constitutional scholars and biographers all dismiss the claim. tI is a fun little story, nevertheless.
Missouri does have one genuine native son who was President – Harry S Truman. According to the plaque, he was considered one of the Nation’s greatest presidents and most remarkable statesmen. Born in Lamar, Missouri in 1884, he lived out his post-presidential years in Independence, Missouri.
He was a Missouri Senator from 1935 – 1945, when he became Franklin D. Roosevelt’s third vice president. He followed John Nance Garner, 1933-1941, and Henry A. Wallace, 1941-1945. One of these days, I am going to have to research just whyFDR felt that he needed to switch vice presidents. In any event, Truman had been vice president for less than three months when FDR died from a cerebral hemorrhage in the Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia. Talk about on-the-job training! He had to take the reins and bring WW II to a close, which included making the decision to use the atomic bomb. I have read in several sources, that when he took office he wasn’t even aware that there was an atom bomb being developed.
I am including this photo of his bust on the pedestal so that you can see the poppy on it. Truman served in WW I, which he only managed to get into because he secretly memorized the eye chart to compensate for his poor vision. My visit to the capitol was in 2018, which was the 100th anniversary of the end of WW I. The poppy is the symbol of remembrance. I believe it gained popularity because of the poem “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae.
And now, I really will move along. Thank you for bearing with me through this long series of posts about the Missouri State Capitol.
