Jackson County (Mo.)
Historical Society
Historical
Perspective
by David W.
Jackson
In 1901, the Fourth was hot
Our last installment piqued interest with
the mention of Fairmount Park. Here’s another story about the Park as it
relates to the Fourth of July in 1901.
First, let’s commemorate the
earliest local celebration of Independence Day when the Lewis & Clark Expedition
camped just north of here along the Missouri River in 1804 and, "ussered [ushered]
in the day by a discharge of one shot
from our Bow piece [likely, a swivel cannon].” According to
Clark’s journal, they also, “saluted the departing day with another
gun, an extra Gill of whiskey."
With the exception of an issue here or
there, newspapers for eastern Jackson County and Independence do not survive
prior to 1898. The Jackson Examiner’s
first coverage of the Fourth of July in 1898 reported a successful
celebration with a bandstand erected on the Independence Courthouse lawn;
speeches; a costumed “Goddess of Liberty; reading of the Declaration of Independence; etc. The first Independence Examiner newspaper coverage available in 1906
provided a reminiscence from “an old soldier” titled, “A Submerged War
Story,” where he relayed the events of the ”battle of Gettysburg and siege of
Vicksburg culminating on the fourth day of July, 1863.” The Kansas City Star’s earliest coverage
of July 4th was in 1882. Other papers predate this, but that’s as
far as my fuse has yet burned.
Streamers about July 4th in
Kansas City were more elaborate judging from the 1901 festivities celebrating
the quasquicentennial (or 125th
Anniversary) of the signing of the Declaration
of Independence.
Imagine scorching weather in a time
long before the invention of air conditioning…and when women and men of the
Victorian age dressed in smothering layers from neck to wrist to toe…no
exceptions.
The mercury broke all records on
this day in 1901 since the weather bureau’s establishment 13 years prior. A
squelching 103.3 degrees was “recorded by a very conservative government
thermometer.” In fact, “Kansas and Missouri afforded the highest temperature
readings in the country” on July 4, 1901; Harrisonville, Mo., registered 106
degrees. The highest previous temperature in the bureau’s statistics up to
that point had been 103 degrees in 1897.
Though there was little relief
trying to catch a breeze on the streetcars, Kansas Citians enjoyed outdoor
public entertainments at local parks, fair and exposition grounds. Fairmount Park (once located along
today’s Independence Avenue/24 Highway just east of Mount Washington Cemetery
between Willow and Harris Avenues) had the largest crowd in its history. The
lake was alive with boats and the beach was thronged. You couldn’t get near
the big, cool spring. And, at the café, hotel and counters where refreshments
were sold, “one had to wait his turn.”
All over the expansive lawns tired humanity rested. Picnic parties were too
numerous to be accommodated in the picnic grounds and they were scattered
about the entire park.
That night, a magnificent show in
the sky was seen through and above the big trees. Band concerts were the most
widely enjoyed entertainment for the thousands of people in attendance; and,
the “arrangement of national airs” were particularly moving. In short, “The Fourth was celebrated noisily, continually and elaborately.”
This anniversary celebration was so
well attended that there weren’t enough streetcars in operation to take
everyone home from the Park, despite the Metropolitan Railway Company having
run all of the cars that its powerhouse could pull on the Independence and
Fairmount lines. The last streetcar left Fairmount Park at midnight. Many who
missed late-night connections in Kansas City had to walk home.
This 1901 Fourth of July celebration
is a snapshot of life before radio, television, TiVo, movies, computers,
iPods, etc.” In fact, electricity was so new that most homes weren’t yet
wired. The automobile had not yet replaced the horse and wagon. Our Kansas
City predecessors were on the verge of industrial and technological
revolution and didn’t even know it!
What will people in 2058 or 2108 look
back and find about us?
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