Battlefield Preservation
The first steps toward memorializing the Battle of Westport came early in the twentieth century. In 1906, local historian Paul Jenkins published his Battle of Westport, while the Byram's Ford engagement was reenacted in Swope Park in 1912. During the 1920s, civic leaders under H. H. Crittenden of the Missouri Valley Historical Society conceived a plan to save the Westport battle sites near present-day Loose Park and Byram's Ford. Crittenden's father was Col. Thomas Crittenden, who led one of the Union cavalry brigades at the Byram's Ford battle, and later served as governor of Missouri. The mayor and council of Kansas City passed ordinances recognizing these sites; this was followed by the introduction of a bill in 1924 in the United States Congress to create a National Military Park. This endeavor proved unsuccessful, and memorial efforts ceased for several years. During the 1950s, much of the battlefield was disturbed by commercial and industrial construction, though the developer of one industrial complex did erect a memorial near the historic route of the Byram's Ford Road.
On the eve of the Civil War centennial in 1958, the Civil War Round Table of Kansas City was formed with former President Harry S. Truman as a charter member. Dr. Howard N. Monnett, a member of this Round Table, researched, spoke and wrote extensively about what he termed the "action before Westport". His book of that title was published in 1964 for the battle's centennial. Dr. Monnett's enthusiasm led to the eventual creation of an automobile tour of the widely-dispersed battle sites. By 1979, the founders of the Monnett Fund had successfully raised funds to erect permanent markers at 25 sites, and had created a self-guided automobile tour. These markers included a monument located at the meadow site, and several wayside markers on nearby Bloody Hill. The battlefield was entered on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989, after the Fund acquired 50 acres (200,000 m2) of the Westport battlefield, including the site of Byram's Ford itself. Title was transferred to the Kansas City Parks Department in April 1995, and archaeological surveys in 1996 revealed artifacts from the battle in and around the Byram's Ford area.
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Famous quotes containing the words battlefield and/or preservation:
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—Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949)
“If there is ANY THING which it is the duty of the WHOLE PEOPLE to never entrust to any hands but their own, that thing is the preservation and perpetuity, of their own liberties, and institutions.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)