Jackson County (Mo.) Historical Society
Portals
to the Past by David W. Jackson
Little
Blue Valley holds vistas and history
Summer is a
great time to tour nearby museums and historic sites. As you enjoy your history
community’s offerings, remember that historic
preservation includes more than saving old buildings and operating
museums. Protecting landscapes and cultural heritage sites is equally
imperative, especially with the swift encroachment of relentless urban
sprawl. Shouldn’t we reserve the few natural spaces that remain so future generations might enjoy the pristine splendor of an
old-fashioned Sunday drive in the countryside? Consider the
scenic and historic Little Blue River Valley along South Noland and Lee’s
Summit Roads between 40 and 350 Highways, and arterial roads. This picturesque valley may be one of the
last remaining, virtually untouched rural vistas in Jackson County. The
Valley boasts historic sites and homes; farms; family-owned businesses;
sacred burial grounds; pioneer churches; and, Civil War battlefields. Then
there’s the stunning views afforded on drives through these wooded hillsides
that make this a gem needing to be treasured. Former
Native-American paths along the Valley predate the earliest European emigrant
enclave settling Little Blue, Missouri. One of the first was William Moore,
one of a dozen American Revolutionary War patriots who made it as far west as
Jackson County. Moore’s log cabin beside Ess Road
is near his gravesite located east of the Kemper family’s Walnut Hill home
that overlooks Little Blue (a stately home built by Kansas City lumberman
Hans Dierks, and later a country retreat of a
Kansas City notable named Pendergast). Infamous Cole
Younger’s father, Col. Henry Washington Younger, owned a huge plantation in
this area until the Civil War when Kansas marauders killed him, and forced
Cole’s mother to burn the family home in the dead of winter. Younger’s
cousin, Armenia (Crawford) Selvey, was one of
several Confederate-sympathizing women who died when their Kansas City prison
collapsed, triggering William Quantrill and his raiders to burn Lawrence, Ks.
Armenia and two other girls from the prison were buried in the Davis-Smith
Cemetery (intermarrying pioneer families that owned adjoining land). Also
laid to rest there are Union and Confederate veterans, and a second
Revolutionary War patriot, Lewis Starr. Preservationists desire today to mark
this historic quarter-acre parcel. Civil War
engagements ravaged this section of the Little Blue Valley, including a
skirmish along White Oak Creek to the south, and another on Grinter’s farm, at the northwest corner of Lee’s Summit
Road and Little Blue Road. This tract is just north of present-day Truman
Medical Center-Lakewood; the hospital’s chronology dates to 1852 when Jackson
County established a 300-acre Poor Farm on this site. After the Civil
War, a multitude of livestock and dairy farms established and thrived on the
fertile grasses of the Valley, and lifted the area to world-renowned status
in the first part of the 20th Century. W.B. Frey’s Lakeside Dairy
Farm surrounding the town of Little Blue, Missouri was once the world’s
largest Hereford farm. Jersey cows on W. L. Yost’s Cedar Croft Farm (along
the west side of present-day Lee’s Summit Road at Little Blue Road) produced
150 gallons of milk per day. Cedar Croft’s residence is being restored, but
the surrounding property is in jeopardy of being compromised by subdivision. Four Gates Farm along Rickey Road was designed by noted
Kansas City architect Mary Rockwell Hook. And, Unity Farm sustained people in
need through the Great Depression. Before going to
Washington, Harry S Truman in 1934 promoted reserving large tracts of Jackson
County land for future parks and recreational facilities in a report titled, Results of County Planning. A current master
plan for this section of the Little Blue Valley is in place, but its recommended low-density/large-lot residential areas
with open spaces are gradually eroding with each amendment to smaller, denser
development. Will tomorrow’s
citizens have physical evidence of this historic district’s attractions?
Before the uniqueness of this area is obliterated forever, this rural
landscape is what the people who live on or own land today in the Little Blue
Valley must ally to preserve. Hopefully preservationists, community
development leaders, contractors, and developers will collaborate with the
mindfulness and foresight championed by Harry S Truman when he launched Results of County Planning nearly 75
years ago. |
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