by Mary Rupert
The new site director at Grinter Place, Bill Nicks, plans to present a free historical talk about Octave Chanute, a figure in Kansas City area history, at a Grinter Place Campfire Chat Oct. 22.
The event from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 22, will include a campfire, hot dogs, smores and free tours of the Grinter House, an 1857 home that is a state museum. Grinter Place is at 1420 S. 78th St., Kansas City, Kan.
Nicks said the program will be presented in a first-person format as if Chanute, who was a civil engineer in the 1800s, were speaking.
Nicks will discuss Chanute and his involvement with Kansas, Kansas City, Mo., and with the Wright Brothers, he said. Nicks has presented programs about Chanute for the past 20 years.
Chanute built the Hannibal Bridge and designed the Kansas City stockyards. “Without that bridge we wouldn’t have had stockyards along the Kansas River,” Nicks said.
“I became interested in him when I worked with the city of Lenexa and found he was the civil engineer who laid out the original town of Lenexa in 1869,” he said. Chanute also lived in Lawrence, Kan., and Kansas City, Mo., and worked all over eastern Kansas, he added.
Chanute did a lot of work with railroads and bridges, and laid track through Neosho County, where the city of Chanute, named for him, is located, Nicks said.
Nicks also in the past has presented historical reenactments of Wilbur Wright, early aviator, and Dr. James Naismith, the inventor of basketball. “I sure have a good time with my characters and people seem to enjoy them,” Nicks said. “I find them all fascinating gentlemen and interesting gentlemen.”
The Friends of Grinter Place are sponsoring this event, helping with the expenses involved with it and volunteering to take people on tours of the historic house, he said. It is free and open to the public.
It will be an educational and entertaining night for people who attend, Nicks said.
