Case Park in Kansas City

 

Ermine Case, Jr., Park (N39⁰6’11” W94⁰35’34”) is 2 acres and part of the 31-acre West Terrace Park. The park extends from 7^th Street south to 11^th Street, west of Pennsylvania Avenue, Jefferson Street, and Summit Street. The traffic circle and overlook at 8^th Street and Jefferson Street is known as Clark’s Point. This is one of only a handful of locations along the lower Missouri River that can be documented as a place that Lewis and Clark stood. It is a site on the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail. The explorers climbed this bluff in 1806 on the return journey from the Pacific and noted that it would be a good place to build a fort. They also gathered pawpaw fruits here. In 1804, on the western journey, they saw an immense flock of Carolina parakeets near here. In the center of the traffic circle is the Corps of Discovery statue by Eugene Daub, depicting William Clark, Meriwether Lewis, York, Sacagawea, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau (her baby), and Seaman (Lewis’ dog). The statue contains an inscription, “of courage undaunted and a fidelity to truth,” along with a quote from Thomas Jefferson, “I could have no hesitation in confiding the enterprise to him.” A rock wall at Clark’s point was constructed by the Works Progress Administration in 1941.

Also at Clark’s Point are markers erected by the Chouteau Society, describing the French settlement and heritage of the area. The Missouri River from St. Louis to north of Kansas City was initially mapped by Etienne Veniard, Sieur de Bourgmont, in 1713. He noted the low range of hills on the south side of the river near the confluence with the Kansas River. In 1724, Bourgmont visited a Kansa village site near present-day Fort Leavenworth and also journeyed toward Santa Fe. In 1742, Verendryes explored the Missouri River to near its headwaters in Montana. Fort de Cavagnial (1744 to 1764) was a French trading post at the village of the Kansa. Le Page du Pratz published a 1758 map and narrative which described the river, and Indians told the French of the Great Salt Lake, Bitterroot Mountains, and the Snake and Columbia Rivers. The Kansa later moved to the mouth of the Kansas River, and Francois Choteau set up a trading post, Chez Les Canses, at what was called Kawsmouth. Because news of the Louisiana purchase from France may not have reached throughout the Louisiana territory, Lewis carried a French passport.

At 10^th and Jefferson Street within the park is a Choteau Society marker describing Chez Les Canses, or Chouteauville settlement. In 1799, French-speaking traders and farmers moved from the French Colonial area of present-day Illinois to the present-day Kansas City area. One settlement was at Randolph Bluffs, near the Missouri River confluence with Rock Creek (Chouteau Bridge-State Route 210 area) on the north side of the Missouri River, and a second was at French Bottoms, now called the West Bottoms. The West Bottoms settlement was French speaking until at least 1840; and consisted of strip farms on either side of Turkey Creek. The community was served by a French Catholic church of St. Francis Regis near the present-day intersection of 11^th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. The settlement  was eradicated by the flood of 1844.

Within Case Park is the James Pendergast Memorial statue, erected in 1913 in Mulkey Square Park and moved later to this location. It is surrounded by picnic tables. The monument was erected by his younger brother, Thomas Pendergast, who ran county politics at the time. It overlooks the West Bottoms, where he operated a saloon and began the Pendergast political machine.

A plaque by the Equal Justice Initiative’s Community Remembrance Project was located in the park until 2020, when it was vandalized. The historic marker memorialized the 1882 lynching of Levi Harrington by a mob of several hundred white people in Kansas City, for the crime of shooting a police officer. The next day another man was arrested for the killing. No one was held accountable for the lynching.

Case Park includes the off-leash West Terrace Dog Park at the north end. Adjacent to the dog park near the corner of 8^th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue is a sculpture by Stacey Sharpe, called Air Play. Near 10^th Street is a playground, including a structure called the Bamboo Jungle. West Terrace Park from 7^th Street south to 17^th Street was part of the original George Kessler 1906 Parks and Boulevard System plan. Case Park is crossed by the Riverfront Heritage Trail, which enters the park at 9^th and Jefferson Streets and leaves at 10^th and Summit Streets. The park adjoins the Quality Hill Historic District and Quality Hill Center Historic District.

Earth Day Message 2013

Today we celebrate the 43^rd anniversary of Earth Day, an event which began on April 22, 1970.  The year 2013 is also the 43^rd anniversary of the National Environmental Policy Act, a law which has influenced all areas of professional environmental practice.  One of the most important concepts in NEPA is its focus on environmental significance, a concept which was the forerunner of today’s discussions about thresholds and tipping points.  It is the purpose of NEPA, and our purpose as practitioners, to identify those impacts which are beyond the routine, which take us in a new, not necessarily good, direction, and which threaten the uniqueness of our region. When these impacts are identified, it is our task, consistent with NEPA and the numerous related environmental laws, to propose measures that will mitigate these impacts, including avoidance, minimization, restoration, and compensation.

As we think about environmental significance, it is worth remembering what archaeologists and biologists have learned about Easter Island, also called Rapa Nui.  More than 2,300 miles from South America and 1,400 miles from the nearest Polynesian island, nine-mile-wide Easter Island is remote—so remote that only one influx of people, perhaps in a party of only 20 or 30, is believed to have settled the island about 900 to 1200 CE. Eventually, the population increased to several thousand.  Once settled, the colonists were likely trapped.

Easter is home to more than 900 50-foot-tall, 250-ton statues carved from the volcanic rock found on the island. These were erected between the 10th and 16th centuries and once lined roads leading from the volcanic quarry to other spots on the island. In addition to the statues, the human community created ceremonial shrines and the only written language in Oceania. Caves around the coast contain paintings of deities, birds, and fertility symbols.

The grasses and shrubs found when the islands were first seen by Europeans were not the original vegetation. Pollen in swamps indicates the existence of a giant palm and 20 other tree species. The palm was gone by 1450, and other large trees by 1650. Deforestation, most likely caused by the combination of humans and introduced rats, began around 1280.  Humans may have used the trees to move the statues, while rats introduced by the humans likely ate the seeds and kept them from reproducing.  The last statue was carved in 1680, just before Europeans visited in 1722. 

At some point, a few islanders must have realized that their lives were going to change for the worse when all the trees were gone. Yet, in what was surely a moment of profound tragedy, they were unable to stop it. Their civilization collapsed.  We may never know if they could have done more.

A current concern is climate change.  The Earth Day Network website notes that the year 2012 was marked by many climate change milestones. Arctic sea-ice cover reached a record low in September. The United States experienced its hottest year ever; this, after the World Meteorological Organization announced that the first decade of this century was the hottest on record for the entire planet. Superstorms rocked the Caribbean, the Philippines and the northeastern United States; droughts plagued northern Brazil, Russia, China, and two-thirds of United States; exceptional floods inundated Nigeria, Pakistan, and parts of China.

Can we avoid the Rapa Nui moment with climate change, or is it already too late?  Should we do more?  We do not know the answers, and some will not admit there is a potential problem.  But as environmental professionals it is our job to be on the lookout for those Rapa Nui moments.  It is a complex world, and there were no simple answers when the trees were falling on Rapa Nui, as there are no simple answers today.  It might have been the rats, it might have been the humans, or it might have been both.  But when the trends are pointing in the wrong direction, environmental professionals are needed to contribute to the health and sustainability of our only home, the planet Earth.

Harold Draper, NAEP President