USA > Missouri > Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I > Part 100
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The Remaking of Kansas City.
When, in 1893, Kansas City in earnest inaugurated the movement to estab- lish a park and boulevard system the first park board said in the report to the city government :
"There is not within the city a single reservation for public use.
"There has been in our city thus far no public concession to esthetic con- sideration.
"It would be difficult to find anywhere a locality that can rival the topo- graphical eccentricities of our city."
This indictment was sweeping but the counts were almost literally true. There
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had been some agitation of city improvement. There had been sporadic effort toward what might be called landscape treatment. Nothing had been accom- plished. Overlooking the old Union depot site is a very high bluff. The top of this was a bare limestone cliff. Toward the base a steep slope was covered with broken rock and soil. Over the edge of the bluff at least two generations of householders had dumped cinders and refuse. The cliff was covered in places with signs either painted upon the rock or upon boards suspended from - the upper edge. The slope was dotted with disreputable looking shanties front- ing on narrow trails. Such was the face which Kansas City presented to every comer into the Union depot. The community took note of this condition. Some public spirited citizens asked George E. Kessler to design an improvement of this West Bluff in order that the city might present a better first appearance to. the traveler. From the top of the Union depot the place was studied and sug- gestions were put on paper. But the effort to redeem the West Bluff went no farther until the general plan of the park and boulevard system was designed for the first park board in 1893. Then those early sketches were utilized to make the West Bluff what is now West Terrace.
Before the general plan of a park and boulevard system was designed, Kansas City was given two object lessons in landscaping. One illustrated what could be done. The other demonstrated what was not adapted to local conditions. The latter was a restricted residence place, with gates at both ends, with lots facing upon a boulevard controlled by the lot owners. This form of improvement had shown its popularity in St. Louis and some other places. It met with no encour- agement in Kansas City. The exclusiveness did not appeal to enough people to fill the first of these places and realty owners projected no new ones.
Very different was the impression which "Little Hyde Park" made on Kansas City. On the South Side was a tract of ground lying well for residence pur- poses except that near the center of it was a badly broken strip of a few acres. From the depression arose steep hillsides, in places showing the bare ledges of limestone. The danger was that this piece of bad ground would become the nucleus of cheap improvements which would exercise a damaging influence on the prices and the settlement of surrounding plateaus. Several holders of the good ground combined, got control of the broken place, and asked Mr. Kessler to design a plan of treatment which would protect the whole neighborhood. The result was the transformation of the ravine and its slopes into a narrow park two or three blocks long. . The natural features,-the rock cliffs and the trees were preserved. Walks were laid out. Shrubbery was planted. Seats were furnished. Roadways were built close to the edges of the narrow park so that no houses pre- sented their rears to it. The result was that both frontages on "Little Hyde Park" were taken quickly as especially attractive sites for homes of good class and the whole surrounding territory was made desirable for the better grades of improvements.
In a modest and experimental way this improvement of one of many broken parts of Kansas City was the pioneer to the present system. Hyde Park was designed as a private enterprise about 1888. It was taken into the system and is today one of the many "eccentricities" of Kansas City topography which have , been chained together by boulevards. These rugged places have been made little
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park centers from two hundred to five hundred feet wide, increasing instead of endangering the desirability and value of all eligible residence ground near them. The miles of Gillham Road and the Paseo illustrate the influence of the "Little Hyde Park" object lesson.
The first board of commissioners described very well the manner of growth of Kansas City during the period when beautification was given very little thought. The board said, "Our better residences are largely planted in groups or colonies. on certain sightly streets and in particularly charming localities; but these colonies have not spread out and have not grown together. Between them and around them there exists much land utilized for small residences, small stores and mis- cellaneous purposes."
The Pioneer Policy.
Deliberate judgment of those who planned the original system was for small parks, for long narrow parks. The policy was to obtain at the minimum of cost the greatest possible length of park and boulevard frontage. Thereby the bene- fits were generally distributed. The first board and the landscape architect believed that such a policy would bestow the greatest good on the greatest num- ber of people. The Paseo, Gillham Road, the several parkways are illustrations of this pioneer park and boulevard policy.
The first president of the first park board of Kansas City was a practical man with a vision. He was August R. Meyer. He continued to head the board nine years, until he died. His associates were Simeon B. Armour, Adriance Van Brunt, Louis Hammerslough, and William C. Glass. Fortunately for Kansas City, this board was not disturbed until its work was laid out and well under way. Admitting all that could be said of its ruggedness, Mr. Meyer saw great possibil- ities in Kansas City's bluffs and valleys. In his first report he said :
"Possessing an irregular and diversified topography that would lend itself readily to improvement under the hand of the landscape architect, and abounding within her own limits in charming and not infrequently beautiful spots, our city has not only so far failed to make use of these advantages, but, on the contrary, the desire on the part of the owners of the land to bring their lands into market has resulted in destroying much of the natural beauty of our city. Localities and land that possess natural beauty of a high order, and there are many such within the city, points that command rare and distant views into and beyond the great and fertile valley of the Missouri, are in the hands of private in- dividuals. Handsome cliffs and bluffs, interesting and charming ravines, characteristic of the country around us, and which under the treatment of the skillful landscape architect would be susceptible of inexpensive conversion into most valuable public reservations, because, by preserving in them features of great natural beauty, they would, in a measure, blend the artificial structure of the city with the natural beauty of its site, and at the same time would supply recreation grounds, are now themselves disfigured by shanties and worthless structures, and in turn exercise a depressing effect upon the value of adjoining lands, better suited than they for private uses."
Today Kansas City realizes; in the words of the landscape architect. Mr. Kessler, "that these very topographical eccentricities afforded the basis upon which to form her diversified system of parks and boulevards. The principle which was adopted in the very beginning was to follow nature as closely as possible, to adapt the planning to the natural conditions."
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In his first report Mr. Meyer appealed to the moral sense of his fellow citi- zens : "To make the most of life is the highest duty of the individual, and to permit and advance its fullest development and enjoyment is clearly the first and greatest duty of every municipal corporation towards its citizens. Life in cities is an unnatural life. It has a tendency to stunt physical and moral growth. The monotony of brick and stone, of dust and dirt; the absence of colors with which nature paints ; the lack of a breath of fresh air, write despair on many a face and engrave it upon many a heart. How is a poor man's boy to grow into a cheerful, industrious and contented man, unless he can play where play alone is possible, -- that is on the green turf and under waving trees, can take with him into man- hood the recollections of an innocent, joyous boyhood, instead of the impressions of dirty, white-faced and vicious gamins, and their and his acquaintance with immorality and vice."
Others who served on the park board during the trying years until the system was fairly in operation and showing its splendid results were Charles Campbell, . Robert Gillham, William Barton, James K. Burnham, J. V. C. Karnes.
The park board has had as presidents: J. J. Swofford from 1901 to 1904; Franklin Hudson from 1905 to 1908; A. J. Dean, in 1909; D. J. Haff from 1910 to 1912; Henry D .. Ashley in the year 1912-13; Cusil Lechtman, 1913-14.
Years of Legislation and Litigation.
Eight years of legislation and twelve years of litigation carried the park and boulevard system over the paper stage. Kansas City people were talking about parks and other public improvements in 1888. They formed a board of free- holders and submitted the draft of a new charter. The old charter dating back to 1875 was very restrictive; it tied the hands of the people. The new charter was submitted and defeated. Next year, in 1889, another trial was made and a new charter was adopted. It had an article on "parks," but that was not effective. At the next session of the legislature Kansas City tried to get a park law. But because the law was included in the revised statutes without a title it was declared unconstitutional in 1890.
The next step was the formation of the Municipal Improvement Association of Kansas City in 1891. Fifty public spirited citizens banded themselves to- gether with August R. Meyer as president. The definite purpose was the "im- provement of Kansas City." This body proposed amendments to the city char- ter which were adopted in 1892. The first park board was appointed and entered upon an exhaustive study of the field. A report was made. It looked well on paper and was highly commended by the press. But the power to go ahead with practical work was wanting. Kansas City could not issue any more bonds. The debt-making power of the city under the constitution of the state was exhausted and more. A judgment against the city had been obtained by the National Waterworks company for payment of the waterworks system. By the old contract the city had bound itself to reimburse the company at the termination of the franchise of twenty years and the United States court had held the city liable and had given judgment.
The only way to acquire boulevards and parks was through special assess- ment or taxation against benefited property. The supporters of the park move-
THE KANSAS CITY PASEO AT SEVENTEENTH STREET BEFORE THE RENAISSANCE
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THE MAKING OF A CITY
ment went to the legislature a second time and procured the passage of an elab- orate act giving the city power to form districts and to assess benefits. The act went far beyond the new city charter framed by freeholders under section 16, article IX. of the state constitution. It was practically an amendment of a freeholders' charter." Would it stand in the courts? The park board didn't know. A friendly suit was brought under the first attempt to condemn land. This test was of far-reaching importance not alone to Kansas City. It involved construction of the state constitution as regarded all freeholders' charters.
"Up to that time," said Delbert J. Haff, who had charge of the litigation for the park board, "our supreme court had held uniformly that notwithstanding the provisions of the constitution of the state which authorized St. Louis to frame a charter for its own government and which authorized other cities of the" state having a population of 100,000 or more to frame and adopt similar char- ters and to amend such charters in the same manner, this constitutional pro- vision did not prohibit the legislature from passing laws which would repeal or amend the charters of such cities, known as 'freeholders' charters.' In other words, the supreme court had established a doctrine that the constitutional pro- visions did not intend to establish an imperium in imperio, that is, did not intend to establish a kingdom within a kingdom, or a separate government that would be independent of the legislature of the state.
"There was always a difference of opinion among the members of the supreme court as to the meaning of this provision of the constitution, and Mr. James O Broadhead of St. Louis, who framed this provision, and under which St. Louis adopted its charter inde- pendent of other cities of the state, always maintained that the purpose of said constitu- tional provision was to make such cities self-governing-to give them local self-government -and that the legislature had no authority to tamper with the charter of St. Louis and for the same reason could not amend or repeal provisions of the charter of Kansas City, in matters of purely local and municipal concern. As soon as the act of 1893 was adopted, the park board of Kansas City brought a suit for the condemnation of park lands in order to test the validity of the act. This case reached the supreme court at the same time and at the same session as did the case of Murnane vs. City of St. Louis and was argued and submitted on the same day. Shortly afterward, the supreme court handed down an opinion definitely deciding, by a vote of four to three, that the legislature of the State of Missouri is prohibited by sections 16 and 20 of article IX of the constitution of Missouri from enacting, amending or repealing any charter provisions of the cities of St. Louis and Kansas City relating to their local affairs and that special acts of the legislature of the state for the improvement of streets and to condemn or otherwise obtain land for park roads, boulevards, etc., are incompatible with the charters of said cities and, therefore. unconstitutional and void, and that such matters can only be regulated by the charters of said cities adopted by the people in the manner pointed out in article IX of the con- stitution."
Genesis of the Kansas City Park Law.
This decision of the supreme court seemed on its face like a knockout for the park board. In reality it was the best thing that could have happened. It cleared the way for the next step and furnished the legal foundation on which Kansas City proceeded to create the system, meeting and overcoming the great- est opposition ever put up in Missouri against public improvements. The coun- sel for the park board immediately drafted an amendment to the charter of
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Kansas City. He made it broad and comprehensive, embodying the powers which the park board had learned by long study were necessary if their elabo- rate plans on paper were to be spread all over Kansas City. This amendment went through at a special election in the spring of 1895. It has become known all over the country as "the Kansas City park law." It has been pronounced by jurists to be "the most complete practice act ever adopted in Missouri." It has stood the test of all the courts, for as soon as the park board began to con- demin property suit after suit was brought against it and carried to the highest court. Some of the ablest lawyers of the state were retained by property own- ers before the opposition was overcome. They tried by every means known to the profession to invalidate the law and failed. It was well said of Mr. Haff by an expert, "He took as an ingredient a crystallized public sentiment in favor of a park system and made an adamantine law which withstood all attacks.".
The property owners kept up the litigation five years until at last the fruits of the movement became apparent when all opposition died out and other parts of the city began to call insistently for extension of the system. Up to 1914 Kansas City had expended $13,813,929 in the acquisition, improvement and maintenance of these parks and parkways, every dollar of which had been raised by special assessment, with the single exception of one bond issue of $500,000, which was used in improvements, and an annual appropriation by the city treasury for the payment of the general expenses of the board. This latter appropriation has varied in amount from $25,000 to $75,000 per year.
The litigation was even carried into the United States courts, in the effort to upset the charter amendment or park law. The decision there sustained the Kansas City principle. The Federal judges held that parks were local improve- ments for public use of a character recognized as conferring such benefits in the increased value of lands within the neighborhood or locality of the park as to justify special assessments against the private property to pay for the land condemned for such purpose. Such assessments were not taxes within the meaning of the constitution establishing a maximum rate of taxation.
The litigation was in the end beneficial to the park movement. It resulted in establishing the validity of every proceeding. When the assessments became collectible, every recourse against them had been exhausted. Naturally, there- fore, the certificates which were offered in the market found ready purchasers at a high premium, yielding not only enough funds to pay the purchase price of the park lands, but a large surplus in each case which went into the park fund of each district for the improvement of the parks as they were acquired.
Mr. Haff was a Michigan University graduate. President Angell liked to keep his vision on the young men he turned out of Ann Arbor. Mr. Haff had written him of the carly efforts to make Kansas City a better place for residence. One day President Angell stopped off between trains. He didn't notify Mr. Haff, but he hired a cabman to give him a two hours' view of the boulevards. The cabman had learned the city in the pre-park era. The only boulevard he knew was in the southwestern part of the city. This boulevard was so-called because it was a few feet wider than the average street. Away went the cab with the university president uphill and downhill until he reached this alleged boulevard bordered by feed stores, belt line switches, coal yards and a varied
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assortment of small business enterprises. The limestone dust was a half-inch thick. The occasional struggling trees were gray with it. Some months later the good president and the energetic counsel for the park board met. The short stopover was mentioned.
Had the president seen the boulevard system, Mr. Haff asked.
Yes, the president had seen-a boulevard.
Mr. Haff waited for comments. The president was reticent. It required effort to reach an understanding. Since that time things have changed. No visitor to the city could now repeat President Angell's experience.
Sturdy continuous support by the press of the city helped in the attainment of present results. But when all factors are considered there is one which is accorded a very high place. It is the genius of George E. Kessler for this kind of work. Kessler made Kansas City beautiful. Kansas City made Kessler famous.
Born in Frankenhausen, Germany, Kessler received his early educational training in public and private-schools of the United States. He finished under private tutors in the polytechnic schools at Charlottenburg. The Art School at Weimar and the University of Jena gave him proficiency in engineering, for- estry and botany. Returning to this country, Kessler engaged in the general practice of his chosen profession,-landscape engineering. For ten years he developed private estates and residential districts in Baltimore, Cleveland and other cities. He took up the forestry experiments and kindred lines for Mr. Nettleton and his associates in the Kansas City, Fort Scott and Gulf Railroad, now part of the Frisco system. Such was the foundation which Kessler laid for his great work in Kansas City. For ten years before his real work there was begun he was studying and talking the possibilities of making Kansas City something more than a commercial metropolis on hills and hollows. Kessler was born to landscape art, just as James B. Eads was to the engineering pro- fession. Kessler had much the temperament of Eads. He was suave under try- ing circumstances, tireless, original in his ideas, a mixer with scientists, with cap- italists and with officials of every degree, inspiring all with confidence in his judgment on landscape matters. He was in at the first of the park and boule- vard movement. He was the landscape architect of the park board. At later dates twelve cities in the Mississippi Valley, from Cincinnati to Denver, re- tained Kessler in an advisory capacity for their developing park and boulevard work.
The Landscape Theory Which Wrought Wonders.
Perhaps the most striking fact about Kessler's work was the ready use he made of conditions as he found them. Another landscape architect might have moved small mountains to make levels and gentle slopes in these Kansas City parks. Kessler took cliff and bluff as the master landscape architect made them. He even accepted the abandoned quarry and storm-worn gully. He encour- aged grass and foliage to grow. He moved not a cubic yard of dirt if he could avoid it. Penn Valley was one of the most rugged patches on the topography of Kansas City. The real estate owner had added raggedness to ruggedness. Kessler came with his covering of sod for the bare places, his artistic screens of
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shrubbery and his clumps of trees. He created vistas and emphasized view- points. He found room for nearly five miles of park drives, without crowding or paralleling, in a space one-tenth that of Forest Park in St. Louis.
A depression, part ravine and part valley, divided, disfigured and depre- ciated the southern residence section. It was somebody's "branch" when there was no Kansas City. The depression was taken out of private possession by condemnation. At a cost of half a million dollars the park board acquired this strip of irregular width, including the bottom and sides of the depression from summit to summit. Where 200 feet width would do this, no more was con- demned. Where 600 feet was necessary to include all of the depression, so much was condemned. The cheap houses and shacks were swept out. Keeping away the graders, preserving the natural lines, Kessler laid out winding drive- ways the two and one-half miles' length of the strip. And this became Gillham Road. On the map it is the oddest-shaped combination of park and boulevard to be found. It extends from the edge of the business district in a zigzag, winding course southward through some of the best residence neighborhoods to a connection with the Swope Parkway. From the higher grounds on either side hundreds of fine residences overlook Gillham Road. Where the strip attains its maximum width of 600 feet a small park has been laid out, with paths and shelters. Where the strip narrows the driveway occupies the bottom and the slopes are lawns.
Penn Valley and the Cliff Drive.
Penn Valley was one of the most unattractive localities. It is south of the business center, on the west side of Main street, and out about Twenty-sixth street. Stone had been quarried in the hillside. Penn Valley was built over with a cheap class of dwellings in the boom period. The old Santa Fe Trail passed through the valley on the way from river landing to Westport. To trans- form the 131 acres into a park the board wrecked and removed 310 houses. Through condemnation proceedings the owners were paid $871,000. These proceedings were contested by between forty and fifty members of the Kansas City bar and the appeal to the supreme court was argued and reargued in behalf- of property owners by a large number of eminent counsel. The park movement won. And when the people realized what was possible in Penn Valley, a vol- unteer neighborhood movement to the southwest was started to transform a locality unsettled but similar in its ruggedness to Penn Valley. As a result of this volunteer action most of the ground was given by nearby property owners to create the beautiful Roanoke Park. A broken region in the midst of one of the most prominent residence sections was in danger of occupation by cheap houses and small industries. It is now a park, preserving and enhancing the character of the residence section surrounding it.
When it was proposed to create Cliff Drive, which passes through a highly romantic and thoroughly beautiful region full of surprising attractions, the prop- osition was strongly opposed. Officials of the city were taken out to see the loca- tion for the proposed drive. One of them declared the project impossible. He said that "a goat could not climb along where it was proposed to lay out the drive." Another official referred rather contemptuously to this location as "a
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