A Sad Day in KC: A Hollow Gesture from KC Park Board

It’s been an interesting era in Kansas City and it’s felt more like the 1960s than nearly 60 years after. I like the message I read Wednesday from the Miller Nichols Charitable Foundation, but—respectfully—wouldn’t agree with its characterization of Miller Nichol’s thoughts to change the name of the fountain dedicated to his father, had Miller been here today. 

Miller was a hard-charging leader and a person I greatly admired. He and Ben McCallister co-chaired efforts to rebuild Mill Creek Park and I worked my tail off side-by-side with them and a few others throughout 1985 and 1986 to create one of the most actively utilized parks in Kansas City. Miller and Jeannette were/are remarkable people and he’s one of the few people I could take seriously when he would tell me “We have cities to build.” My aunt Nancy Sweeney was Miller’s assistant for four decades of his lifetime of work dedicated to the citizens of Kansas City. I knew and greatly admire the Nichols.

The Nichols family and Miller and Jeannette especially had enormous skin in the game, as they did with contributions to the J.C. Nichols Fountain, appropriately named in honor of Miller’s father in 1960. I personally believe history should be preserved, irrespective of what are considered personal flaws of someone nearly a century after the fact. J.C. Nichols was among the most dynamic and talented urban planners in American history, and his life’s work still influences Kansas City today. Attempting to impose the social values of 2020 on historical figures constitutes the hollowest of gestures: What does this really change? Nichols remains deserving of this tribute to his honor. 

I’m glad to see the Nichols Foundation’s donation to the City of Fountains Foundation. Lord knows, Anita Gorman and others have worked very hard for many decades to preserve this great legacy. It’s difficult, however, to see and digest the suggestion of removing the namesake of one of our city’s greatest leaders and industry legends. I realize and respect there is pressure from citizens in this unsettled era, but I would challenge the question of renaming a monument of one so deserving, who made such mammoth contributions to Kansas City and to its history.

Kansas City dedicated the former Brush Creek Park in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1978. If a monument is to be dedicated to Dr. King in Kansas City, I believe it should be erected in this prominent park. 

J.C. Nichols and Miller Nichols are among the largest contributors of building Kansas City. Removing the Nichols name from the boulevard and the J.C. Nichols Fountain dedicated in his honor 60 years ago is very inappropriate, in my opinion. 

Planned Resolutions

At 8:30 Wednesday morning, I drove to Mill Creek Park and the home of Kansas City’s most infamous fountain. I wanted to take a photo of the monument before it was removed. The Park Board spared no time in removing the plaque dedicating the fountain to J.C. Nichols. By 8:30 a.m., the plaques were gone and discarded in the back of a parks department truck and wet concrete was being finished. The City of Fountains received a $100,000 donation from the Miller Nichol’s Charitable Foundation, the protestors got their wish to remove the Nichols name from this monument and the KC Park Board unanimously approved stripping the Nichols name. Not a one of them with an ounce of investment in Mill Creek Park or the J.C. Nichols Fountain, such as Jeannette and Miller Nichols, Ben McCallister, Anita Gorman and myself, to name a few. It’s a sad day in Kansas City when leaders won’t align to preserve the memory of the civic giants and industry icons that built the great city we enjoy today.