Dwight: ‘Forgotten Tales of Kansas City’

Flashback time…

This book was published 10 years ago, but I only read it recently. I think every native Kansas Citian would enjoy it, as well as any adopted Kansas Citian who intends to learn more about their hometown.

Each story (sixty-five in all) explores some little-known aspect of local history.

I think there is a unifying theme that links them together-Kansas City as a frontier town, with all the strengths and weaknesses that implies.

In 1854, when the first of my ancestors came to this area, State Line Road was the western boundary of the United States. This was the jumping off point to the West, as well as the road “Back East” entry ramp.

Naturally you gathered there fur trappers, barge men, gamblers, gun slingers, visionaries, fanatics, entrepreneurs, reformers, prophets, cranks, and freed slaves. You name it, they all passed through Possum Trot-the original name of the City of Kansas. Many stayed and their presence made for a composite of the myriad cultures that originated elsewhere in the country.

As this collection of tales vividly demonstrates, the city went through a series of ordeals during its formative decades that would have dissuaded the faint hearted from sticking around.

A bloody Civil War battle in what is now Loose Park, biblical plagues of grasshoppers, tornados and epidemics, bank robbers, train robbers, and later, mobsters.

In addition to the usual array of corrupt politicians.

My particular favorite was Mormon founder Joseph Smith, who preached that the Garden of Eden was in Independence and that when Adam and Eve were expelled, they went to Carroll County in Northwest Missouri, (I have it on good information that the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was located on the site of the Cool Crest Family Fun Center on Highway 40.)

Seriously, if you would like to know more about Jesse James, Cole Younger, Harry Truman, Nell Donnelly, Daniel Boone, Satchel Paige or any number of other local worthies this book is for you.

Succinct, lively, with a variety of topics covering life here over two centuries, this little volume packs a lot of reading pleasure. You’ll learn a lot too!  I highly recommend it.