-
The Heart of Kansas City, Missouri
Union Station currently sits as the centerpiece of the Kansas City skyline. Thousands of visitors from across the metropolitan area and country admire its architectural beauty and world-class exhibits every day. However, four short decades ago in the 1980s, the future of the once-thriving railway station stood unclear. Plagued with the decrease in railway travel,…
-
Springfield’s Boy Scout Band
The Springfield Boy Scout Band’s history of goodwill tours, community engagements, and honors began in 1920. Springfield’s Boy Scout organization struggled at the time. Community support for the group came initially from Springfield’s Rotary Club, whose membership made its first civic project the funding of Springfield’s Boy Scouts. The leaders of Springfield’s council of Boy…
-
Ozark Jubilee
Ozark Jubilee was a massively popular country music variety show broadcast from the Jewell Theatre in Springfield, Missouri. It aired weekly on the ABC Television Network from 1955 to 1960. The Jubilee originated in December 1953 as a local television broadcast on KYTV and went through rapid transitions in 1954. From KYTV it was developed into a stage…
-
Remembering the Border War in History and Sport
University of Missouri head basketball coach Norm Stewart famously despised the University of Kansas so much that he refused to spend a penny in the Sunflower State. The legendary coach was well known for his hatred of the Jayhawks, even going so far as spending the night in Kansas City and gassing up the bus…
-
George Caleb Bingham: The Missouri Artist
Most people today know George Caleb Bingham (1811-1879) as an artist. During his lifetime, Bingham saw himself “as a public officer” or “as a writer,” with “artist” a close third. All views of him are equally true: Bingham was incredibly skilled with a pencil and brush, a fact attested to by the numerous works of…