Development was a big story in Kansas City, Kan., recently, with the
groundbreaking of a new apartment complex at 130th and State, a new
community center at Donnelly College and an effort to draw attention to
the need for more development in the northeast area.
Just
about the same time as all this happening, Dwayne Knott, who is on the
board of the Friends of Kaw Point, was dreaming up a new idea for
development at Kaw Point Park and the levee in Kansas City, Kan.
“We’re working very hard to bring an interpretive center here,” Knott
said during the Lewis and Clark re-enactment event at the park last
weekend.
Kaw Point Park has one of the richest histories of any
place in the community, according to Knott. First at the site, at the
confluence of the Missouri and Kansas rivers, was the Kanza tribe, he
said. Then, Lewis and Clark stopped at the site during their expedition
to explore the new territory in 1804. The Wyandots in 1843 purchased
ground and formed Wyandot City in what is now Kansas City, Kan., and
then sold it. The Exodusters were next at the site in 1873. In 1925, the
last Exoduster building was torn down, he added. In 1942, craft built
here that was later used in the Normandy landing was launched from Kaw
Point.
What’s at the site now is the Kaw Point Park, with the
levee and the sea wall, a small amphitheater, a small outdoor education
pavilion, the Confluence of Nations Plaza, that tells about Lewis and
Clark and native tribes, along with trails, and a boat dock.
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