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Rosedale exhibit continues at Wyandotte County Museum

One of the landmarks of Rosedale is the Rosedale Arch, a World War I memorial to Rosedale soldiers that was based on the Arc de Triomphe. Rosedale is currently celebrating its 150th anniversary, and an exhibit at the Wyandotte County Museum tells the story of the community, which is part of Kansas City, Kansas. (File photo by Mary Rupert)

by Mary Rupert

Currently at the Wyandotte County Museum, Bonner Springs, is the Rosedale 150th anniversary exhibit.

The exhibit has been extended until June 25, said Amy Loch, museum executive director.

Rosedale was an independent city until 1922, so it is celebrating the 150th anniversary of its founding and also the 100th anniversary of its annexation into Kansas City, Kansas, she said.

Rosedale has its own community identity, and the Rosedale Development Association, instrumental in keeping this identity alive, was the partner for developing this exhibit, she said.

Some of the most notable features of the Rosedale area are the Rosedale Arch and Mount Marty. The Rosedale Arch, a World War I memorial based on the Arc de Triomphe, was dedicated in 1924 to those Rosedale soldiers who served in World War I.

Also featured in the museum exhibit are the Vox Theater or Rosedale Theater, Strasser Hardware and the former Rosedale High School, now a middle school, Loch said.

“We have some stadium seats from the original high school, several sports trophies, clubs, plaques and trophies,” she said about the school exhibits.

Rosedale had its own mayors in the early days, and some items from the families of mayors are on display at the exhibit, she said.

A coat from one of the early Rosedale mayors is on display, as well as items from the Rainbow Mennonite Church, she said. The church had several mergers over the years, with different names and locations, and traces its history to the early Rosedale days.

Also part of the exhibit is a 15-minute video history of Bell Memorial Hospital, the forerunner of the University of Kansas hospital in Rosedale, she said.

Rosedale also has been known for some of its streets that originally were lining up with the numbering system in Kansas City, Missouri, and not the numbering system in Kansas City, Kansas. After annexation, Rosedale had to rename a number of streets and churches to be in sync with Kansas City, Kansas, she said.

Long-time Rosedale historian, the late Margaret Landis, also is featured in the museum exhibit, according to Loch. Her book about Rosedale history, “The Winding Valley and the Craggy Hillside,” and an audio recording that she made while giving a Rosedale history presentation at the “History and Culture of Wyandotte County” class at Kansas City Kansas Community College are part of the exhibit.

Loch said there are a number of maps and city directories that are being used by museum visitors to look up their ancestors and see where they lived in Rosedale.

There’s also a slide show of additional photos where some visitors found their relatives’ pictures, she added.

The Wyandotte County Museum, which is located inside Wyandotte County Park at Bonner Springs at 126th and State, is open to the public from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays. Admission is free. The next exhibit at the museum will be the 100th anniversary of the Fairfax area of Kansas City, Kansas, which will start in July.

Historian tells of Sumner High School

by Murrel Bland

Chester Owens Jr. received a telephone call in about 2005 (he can’t recall the exact date) telling him that many artifacts of Sumner High School were about to be destroyed. He quickly rescued these historic items, storing many of them in the basement of his home.

This is one of several stories that Owens told Sunday afternoon, March 20, at a quarterly meeting of the Wyandotte County Historical Society at the Wyandotte County Museum in Wyandotte County Park, Bonner Springs. About 50 persons attended.

Today, there is a history room at Sumner Academy of Arts and Sciences displaying many items including the rescued artifacts.

Owens, a dedicated historian of Sumner High School, came to Wyandotte County with his family from Ashdown, Arkansas, in 1946. He became a sophomore at Sumner.

Owns told of how Sumner became the only segregated high school, by law, in Kansas. On April 12, 1904, a very popular white youth, Roy Martin, was shot and killed in Kerr Park. Charged and convicted was Louis Gregory, a Black youth. Throughout the years, Black historians have argued that Gregory was trying to defend himself. The white community was up in arms. The solution was to segregate schools—all Black students would attend Northeast Junior High and Sumner High School.

Kansas Gov. E.W. Hoch was reluctant to sign the bill that made Sumner a segregated school; he did it only after being assured Sumner would be of the same quality as other buildings in the Kansas City, Kansas, School District. The law also guaranteed that Sumner faculty members would be paid as well as their white counterparts. These factors attracted faculty members from all over the United States.

The name of the high school was chosen honoring U.S. Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, an abolitionist.

Owens told several prominent graduates, faculty members and administrators of Sumner. They included:

• William Foster, president of the American Bandmasters Association and board member of the John Phillips Sousa Foundation.
• Fernando J. Gaitan Jr., senior U.S. Court Judge for the Western District of Missouri.
• John McClendon, first Black head coach of any professional sport.
• Leon Brady was band director at Sumner. His jazz band raised $25,000 from private sources so the band could attend international competition in Paris—they called the event “Sumner in Paris.”
• Col. Vernon Coffey was appointed as the U.S. Army aide to President Richard M. Nixon.

The Historical Society named Owens the “Historian of the Year.”

Murrel Bland is the former editor of The Wyandotte West and The Piper Press. He a member of the Board of Trustees of the Wyandotte County Historical Society.

Owens to speak at historical society’s quarterly meeting Sunday

Local historian Chester Owens Jr. will be the guest speaker at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 20, at the quarterly meeting of the Wyandotte County Historical Society and Museum.

The meeting will be at the Wyandotte County Museum, 631 N. 126th, in the Wyandotte County Park, Bonner Springs. The entrance road is off 126th and State Avenue.

Owens will speak on the history of Sumner High School.

A graduate of Sumner High School, Owens was the first black person elected to the Kansas City, Kansas, City Council. Elected in 1983, he served two terms on the council.

Owens is a graduate of Pittsburg State University, where he received a bachelor’s degree in business administration. He retired in 1998 as president at H.W. Sewing and Co.