Local History Blog

The Scout statue in Penn Valley Park has kept watch over downtown Kansas City for almost a century. Since its dedication in 1922, it has become a symbol and mascot for the city and a favorite subject for generations of photographers. But look through some of those photos over the years, and you may – or may not – see a few things intermittently missing. Reader Jeffrey Swoyer is a life-long Kansas Citian. He admits that he never paid much attention to The Scout until a visit with an out-of-town friend who had noticed the photographic disparities. Some pictures show the quiver on the rider’s back, some don’t.

The ghost of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church is back to haunt “What’s your KCQ?” for an encore appearance during this spooky Halloween season. Proceed at your own risk. Jason Dean, a parishioner at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, wrote of hearing about a controversial priest who died in 1886 and haunts the church to this day. In conjunction What’s Your KC BOO?, our special Halloween edition of What’s Your KC Q focusing on Kansas City’s haunted lore, he asked us to investigate. We found … intrigue. St. Mary’s wasn’t St. Mary’s when the church was first established in 1854. St. Luke’s Mission, as it was initially known, had humble beginnings. Lacking a permanent home, its congregation met at a variety of locations near today’s River Market neighborhood. The church prospered and, by 1867, had purchased a lot on the southeast corner of Eighth and Walnut and erected its first permanent home.

It’s a story that has become a part of Kansas City baseball lore: a local team enlisting famed frontier lawman Wild Bill Hickok to umpire a game against a heated rival. How much, if any of it, is true?