Category Archives: Jefferson City

We Get A New Governor Today

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Mike Kehoe will be sworn in at noon today as our 56th Governor although it will be the 58th administration.  Two governors, Phil Donnelly and Christopher Bnd served two separate terms.

Kehoe succeeds Mike Parson, who now goes back to his farm in Polk County where he was working six years ago, when he was lt. Governor, when a Highway Patrolman showed up to tell hm he needed to get back to Jefferson City because Governor Eric Greitens was resigning.

I’ve referred to Govenor Mike Parson and Lieutenant Govenor Mike Kehoe as Mike 1 and Mike 2—and the Govenor’s Mansion for the last six years as the Parson-age.

Incidentally, a recurring political joke for many years asks voters if they would buy a used car from the candidate.  A lot of people did when he was a Ford dealer in Jefferson City.  He’s the second car dealer to be sworn in as Governor. Governor Arthur M. Hyde, who served 1921-1925 was a Buick dealer in Princeton and Trenton.

We’ve gone back over our notes on past gatherings to recall some special and sometimes not-so-special moments.

Each inauguration has some special touches. Sometimes the wheels fall off as was the case in 2013 when the usually reliable church bells tolling noon, the traditional time for the oath-taking, had a mind of their own and when the judge swearing in the governor mispronounced his name.

We listened back to The Missourinet’s recording of those events to put together this chronology showing how things fell apart at the critical moment.

11:59:56—band finishes playing “God Bless America.”

12:00:20—12:01:20—The bell at St. Peter Catholic Church tolls eight times.

Long pause.  Finally, Senate President Pro Tem Tom Dempsey, the MC, approaches the podium, and just as he draws a breath to introduce the judge to swear in the Governor—

12:02:23—a ninth bell (crowd and podium guests laugh loudly) Dempsey throws up his hands and retreats to his seat.

12:02:33—tenth bell

12:02:42—eleventh bell.  Then silence. There is no 12th bell for the noon swearing-in.  Voices on the platform (including Nixon’s apparently) are heard confirming, however, that there had been the 12th bell. Nope. Just eleven).

12:04:18—Convinced there are no more bells, Dempsey introduces St. Louis Circuit Judge Rex Burlison to swear in Nixon.

12:04:52—And Judge Burlison begins the oath by mispronouncing the Governor’s name:, “I, Jeremy Wilson Nixon…”  Nixon repeats, “I, Jeremiah Wilson Nixon…”

12:05:25—oath completed.   Church bells ring joyously throughout the city. Helicopter flyover.

Nixon’s first inauguration in 2009 was the second time in three inaugurals when the governor was sworn in early. Master of Ceremonies Charlie Shields, the Senate president pro tem, noted about 11:45 that the event was running early and the band would play some music to fill time. However after one number he announced the swearing in of the new governor would proceed. Shields said the National Guard, which operates the schedule for the inaugurations, told him through his earpiece to go ahead with the oath-giving and taking.  The swearing-in of Governor Nixon began at 11:52 and the church bells rang early.

The 2005 inauguration is remembered by some for the relatively warm weather and for the governor’s attire.

Governor Blunt refused to be sworn in while wearing the traditional tuxedo, which he referred to in an interview with The Missourinet as a “monkey suit.”  That night he did wear a tux, although the traditional attire for the inaugural ball is white tie and tails.  It was a frustrating few days for one of the Jefferson City tuxedo shops with which Blunt did business.  The owner tried…and tried…but failed to convince Blunt to be traditional in his attire.

Blunt used two Bibles.  In his inaugural address he noted that one was the Bible he used each day.  The second one would be given to his son upon his birth, which was scheduled for March.  He said it reminded him “that what we do today, tomorrow and across the next four years will help define the future opportunities of every Missouri Child.

2005 was the second time in recent memory that the new first lady danced in the inaugural ball a few weeks before the birth of the first couple’s first child.  Matt and Melanie Blunt had their first child, Branch, in March.  In 1981, Christopher and Carolyn Bond’s son, Sam, was born two weeks after the inauguration.

Bob Holden’s inauguration in 2001 was a scrambled affair that saw the first early swearing-in, in many years. Supreme Court judge Ronnie White, the master of ceremonies, called for the swearing-in of Attorney General Jay Nixon right after the invocation.  The schedule called for the inaugurations of the lesser officials to take place AFTER remarks from former Senator Thomas Eagleton and after the introduction of platform guests.  After Eagleton spoke and the guests were introduced, the other inaugurations took place.

The event, which had started at 11;15 instead of the usual 11:30 saw the inauguration of lower-ranking statewide officials by 11:45.  Rather than wait 15 minutes for the traditional noon-time inauguration of the governor, the ceremonies went right on ahead.  Just as the church bell across the street rang once to signal it was 11:45, Governor Holden was sworn in.  Radio and television stations planning to join the ceremonies just in time for the noon inauguration of the governor found themselves switching to the Capitol after Holden was well into his address, or not switching at all.  The church bells did not strike 12 because it would have interrupted the speech.  In his press conference after the event, Holden explained that he decided to go ahead with the swearing-in because it was 27 degrees and people were getting cold.

The early swearing-in caught the flight of four F-15s from the St. Louis national guard unit unprepared.  The jets, which usually formed up west of Jefferson City and flew over the Capitol west to east were far from being ready when word went out that the swearing-in was taking place and the 19-gun salute was being fired.  The jets wound up flying over the Capitol, more or less on a north to south route with two jets together and two others straggling behind, well out of formation.

The parties ended at 11;30 that night with fireworks over the Missouri River.  The explosions caught many Jefferson Citians unawares and awakened several.  Dozens of 9-1-1 calls were made.  One woman said she thought somebody was trying to break into her basement and called police.

The first Carnahan inauguration, in 1993, first brought the festival atmosphere which existed in and around the Capitol for the rest of the day after the ceremonies. Carnahan was sworn in using an old family Bible used by his great grandfather, a circuit-riding Methodist minister.  At one time there was a hole in the back cover.  Family tradition held that the hole was worn by the saddle horn of his great grandfather’s saddle.  A new cover was put on the Bible in later years that replaced that worn one. He did not wear a top hat–which is kind of an on-again-off-again tradition for these events.  Some people wear them; some don’t.  In 1989, when he was sworn in for his second term as treasurer, Carnahan wore a beaver topper with a long and distinguished history.  But he told us before the inauguration in ’93 that he reviewed the tapes of that event and saw he was about the only person who wore the traditional hat for the ceremony.  Others who had them either left them indoors or carried them. So he decided in 1993 to leave the hat off.  It belonged to his father, former Congressman A.S. J. Carnahan, who served in Congress for 14 years and was the first United States Ambassador to the African country of Sierra Leone, appointed by President Kennedy.

But his father was not the first owner of that distinguished hat.  It originally belonged to Congressman John B. Sullivan of St. Louis, whose wife Leonore became the elder Carnahan’s  successor in Congress and served with great distinction for many years.

Some might find a bit of irony in the telling of that story, we suppose.  Anyway, the hat stayed in the box in 1993.

But—

In 1997, Carnahan wore the beaver top hat—a little bit. He only wore it for the trip from the Mansion to the Capitol.  The ceremony was held in the rotunda because of the cold weather.

—As long as we’re speaking of top hats, here’s a little top hat history for you.  In 1969, when John Danforth was sworn in as Attorney General, he was the only one of the state officers who did not wear one.

Thomas Eagleton wore one that day although he refused to wear such a thing in earlier ceremonies.  He had complained that all during his military service his hats had been either too large or too small and he had refused to wear any hats since.

In 1961, when Harry Truman attended John Dalton’s inauguration, he refused to wear a top hat in the parade.  He wore his customary felt hat instead.

One highlight of the 1989 inauguration was the opening of the huge bronze doors on the south front of the Capitol.  The doors had been closed for many years.  They had been opened only for very special occasions for about 40 years.  The state had paid $122,000 to repair and restore the doors.  The hinges and frames were rebuilt and the finish to the doors was restored.  The doors weigh 7,200 pounds, stand more than 18 feet tall and are 12-feet wide. It takes seven minutes to get the things open.  The doors are divided into four panels.  the second and third panels–the center panels–fold inward toward the Capitol and lock against the first and fourth panels, which also fold inward to provide a panoramic view up the 30-foot wide grand stairway to the third, or legislative, floor of the building.   At the time the doors were installed, they were called the largest bronze doors cast since the days of Ancient Rome.

The bronze doors have been restored to their original appearance and the mechanisms have been repaired just in time for this inauguration.

The 1985 and 1989 inaugurations of John Ashcroft included prayers from his father, an Assembly of God minister.   Ashcroft, following his faith, did not dance at his inaugural balls. Each time he played the state song, “The Missouri Waltz,” on a piano in the rotunda.

In 1985, new Governor John Ashcroft made some headlines on his inauguration day when he did not dance at the traditional ball because of his Pentacostal background that discourages drinking, smoking, gambling, and dancing. Instead, he played a piano, accompanied by famous New Orleans trumpet player al Hirt, and the St. Louis Cardinals most famous harmonica player, Stan Musial. He did a similar thing for his 1989 inaugural.

In 1985, Former Governor Hearnes did not attend the ceremonies, saying he had not been invited far enough in advance.  Supreme Court Judge Warren Welliver refused to attend, showing his disappointment that an associate justice of the court was swearing in Governor Bond instead of the Chief Justice.  The Associate Justice that day was Albert Rendlen, former Republican Party chairman (Welliver was a Democrat), who later became a Chief Justice.  While he held that office, he swore in John Ashcroft for his first term.  Ashcroft was sworn in for his second term by Judge Edward Robertson, his former aide that he had shortly before appointed to the supreme court.  Robertson, who became the Chief Justice and is now in private practice, did not not swear in Governor Carnahan.  In fact, most members of the Supreme Court were absent from involvement in the 1993 ceremonies.  All of them were Ashcroft appointees.

It is not mandatory that the Chief Justice swear in the Governor.  Circuit Judge Sam Blair swore in his brother, James T. Blair, in 1957.  In 1881, Governor Thomas Crittenden was sworn in by the outgoing Lieutenant Governor, Henry Brockmeyer, because members of the Supreme Court didn’t show up for the ceremony until Crittenden was giving his inaugural address.                                                  —–

In 1981, an empty chair was placed on the inaugural platform next to Kenneth Rothman, who became Lieutenant Governor that day.  Rothman had it placed there as a memorial to his father, who had died the year before.

In 1977, when Joseph Teasdale was sworn in on a bitterly cold day, Senator Thomas Eagleton was sitting on the platform next to Senator Danforth.  He was so wrapped up in a shawl that Sally Danforth had given him when she went inside to get warm that a University of Missouri reporting program reporter mis-identified him as Senator Danforth’s wife.  The wind chill factor that day was 25 to 40-below, so you know why he was wrapped up so tightly.    The ceremony started in two-below-zero temperatures, (the high for the day was plus 3),  Nine inches of snow had fallen overnight, causing the cancellation of the inaugural parade.  Despite abysmal conditions—the pianist suffered frostbite on all of  her fingers–Teasdale decided to have the ceremony outside because of the large number of people who had come to Jefferson City–especially from his home town of Kansas City–to see him sworn in.   Many, if not the majority, of them stayed inside the Capitol, however, while the new governor earned for himself the nickname “Freezedale” from uncharitable critics, especially those who endured his event outdoors.Incoming Lt. Governor Ken Rothman reported later that Teasdale leaned over to him and said, “This must be my first mistake.” Senator Thomas Eagleton remarked later, “My feet damn near fell off.”

In his ten-minute speech, Teasdale said it was God’s will that he be elected governor, prompting State Treasurer Jim Spainhower—who would unsuccessfully challenge Teasdale in the 1980 primary—to tell a friend, “Don’t trust politicians with messianic complexes.” Spainhower was a minister of the Christian Church/Disciples of Christ.

The President Pro Tem of the Senate usually is the presiding officer, master of ceremonies, of the event—except in 1965 when the Speaker of the House presided.  That was the first inauguration of Warren Hearnes, who had run against the so-called “establishment” that ran the Democratic Party, and had defeated Lieutenant Governor Hillary Bush.  Former Senate leader Albert Spradling, Jr., recalled for the State Historical Society that Hearnes tried to gain control of the Senate but conservative senators stopped him by electing John W. Joynt of St.  Louis as the Pro-Tem.  Hearnes recalled in a similar interview that he had tried to get one of his campaign supporters, Senator Earl Blackwell of Hillsboro, elected President Pro Tem although Blackwell had been in the Senate only two years at the time.  The veteran senators also rejected Hearnes’ efforts to compromise by having Blackwell named Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. The resentment caused by Hearnes’ tactics—before he was even Governor—so antagonized Joynt that  he refused to preside over Hearnes’ inauguration a few days later, leaving the job to Speaker of the House Thomas Graham.

Timing of the events leading to the noon inauguration was a problem, too, in 1965, during the first Hearnes inauguration.  Speaker Tom Graham, about whom we referred earlier, recalled in an oral history interview for the State Historical Society that all of the scheduled events leading to the governor’s inauguration had been finished ten minutes early.  He said, “I introduced everybody in sight.  I introduced Governor Dalton and his wife. I introduced my wife. I introduced the members of the House. I introduced the members of the Senate, and then I introduced the taxpayers.”  That killed enough time for the swearing-in of Hearnes to take place at high noon.

Thomas Eagleton figures in a couple of other odd moments on inauguration day.  On the way to the first Hearnes inaugural in 1965, Eagleton—who was to become Lieutenant Governor that day—was seen hitchhiking, dressed in formal attire.  The car being used to chauffer him around had run out of gas a number of blocks from the Jefferson City First Baptist Church, where an inaugural worship service was held in 1965.  Another was held there in 1969.  The Hearnes family was Baptist and Betty often sang in the church choir.

The year Eagleton was sworn in as Attorney General, 1961, the man administering the oath forgot it.  Former Judge Sam Blair, who had administered the oath to his brother Jim when Jim became governor in 1957, said he had sworn-in thousands of persons before, and the oath is really simple as can be.  But he said he suffered a complete mental block, which lasted about four seconds but seemed far longer and left Judge Sam a little shaken.

The 1961 inauguration as unusual in another respect.  The Lieutenant Governor was not sworn in with the other statewide officials.  Hillary Bush was inaugurated more than two hours later in the State Senate because the Lieutenant Governor is the President of the Senate.  He told the senators he respected the Senate tradition of “orderly and courteous procedure and the most searching examination into each and every law affecting our citizens.”  He promised to support “full and open debate,” saying “Good laws are not enacted after bearing only one side of a question. Minority views are just as important as the views of the majority. Sound debate often results in a decision acceptable to both sides and thus redounds to the benefit of the state”

However, several of Bush’s friends from Kansas City missed the event.  The passenger elevators were jammed by the large crowd, so a janitor agreed to let them use a freight elevator.  Fifteen to twenty people crowded in—and the elevator stopped about five feet from the third floor.   Several minutes of door-pounding and prying open the doors finally caught the attention of someone in the hallway who got on top of the elevator car and lowered a chair to the interior.  After about five people used the chair to get out, the car rose to the third floor and stopped normally.  But it was too late for those inside to witness the event.

The scariest inauguration might have been in 1913, when Elliott Major was sworn in.   The Capitol had burned in 1911 and a temporary Capitol was erected just east of the present building.  It was made of stucco, lath and wire.  One account says “it was jammed to suffocation and the structure groaned and creaked under the weight of the crowd.”  The building was still there when Frederick Gardner was to be inaugurated but officials were afraid to use it.  The situation led to the first outdoor inauguration four years later when the new Capitol remained unfinished enough for an indoor ceremony and nobody wanted to go back into the temporary building.

Things were a little straight-laced, compared to today, in 1913.  The inauguration committee issued an edict barring “ragging” at the ball, the playing of ragtime music.  modern dances such as the “bunny hop” or the “bear cat,” or the “turkey trot,” and  “all other of the 57 varieties of the terpsichorean art where swaying of the shoulders and other unnecessary movements” are made.

There were fears in 1881 that the inauguration of John S. Marmaduke might have to be delayed because he developed a severe nose bleed in St. Louis a few days earlier.   The New York Times reported (Jan 11, 1885) that three doctors worked to solve the problem by trying to keep him “perfectly quiet and free from all excitement.”  The newspaper reported the Marmaduke was at a St. Louis hotel “up in his room nursing his well proportioned nose, which has both nostrils solidly plugged up.”

Marmaduke was a bachelor and described in the article as “quite a ladies’ man.”  A few days earlier he had a date with the Widow Bernoudy and was her escort as she called upon several mutual friends.  During the outing he complained of a pain in the back of his head but she thought he just wanted sympathy.  After the calls, the pain in his head grew much worse and he was seized with intense bleeding. She called two doctors who took him to the hotel and spent the day and night before they finally stopped the bleeding.   He did recover in time to attend his inauguration.  However he died in pneumonia  in 1887 before the end of his term.

Governor Thomas Fletcher, chosen in the first election since the start of the Civil War,  took office about three months before the final collapse of the Confederacy calling for magnanimity and “forgetful of past differences, seek only to promote the general good of the people of whole commonwealth.”

He said in part: “Henceforth Missouri shall be an asylum for all nationalities and races and peoples; the repository of wealth, and a theater for the development of the labor and enterprise of the hand and spirit of Industry; and the home of free thought, free speech and a free press, where the prejudices of caste and class have no legal embodiment or political encouragement…Let it be announced that in the new era which has come, ours is to be the first of States, with the largest freedom and the widest charities…Where a free people…guards the right of permitting the position and privileges of every man to be such as his virtues, talents, education, patriotism, enterprise, industry, courage or achievements may confer upon him.”

In 1857, Trusten Polk was being inaugurated when it was discovered there did not seem to be a Bible anyplace in the Capitol.  The ceremony was delayed for several minutes while an intense search was done.  A Bible was finally located, several blocks away, at the state penitentiary.

One newspaper said afterwards that Jefferson City would be a tremendous field for missionaries, noting, “”We fear that the work of legislation can never go on properly in a place where copies of the Good Book are so scarce, and that it will be necessary for other reasons than the high price of board, to fetch the Legislature to St. Louis where, goodness knows, there are plenty of Bibles, whether we govern our lives by the precepts contained therein or not.”

Inaugurations have not always been spectacular events.  When Missouri’s first state Governor, Alexander McNair, delivered his first message to the legislature in 1821, he did the entire thing—the swearing-in and the speaking—so quickly that a number of lawmakers in a nearby St. Charles pub missed the whole thing.  St. Charles was the temporary state capital then.   McNair refused requests to give his speech again.

Erifnus Caitnop

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I spent a few minutes with an old friend at another old friend’s funeral a few days ago and we wound up talking about his car that he affectionately calls Erifnus Caitnop.  John Drake Robinson has written some books about the adventures he and Erifnus have shared through the years.  Erifnus has 313 miles on the odometer and John told me his mechanic thinks the car can hit the half-million mile mark.

John doesn’t think he can last that long, though, but he agreed with me that Erifnus is a historical automobile that deserves to be in a museum.

John is a Jefferson City native.  He and his parents attended the same church we go to. His father, B. F. (“Buford,” John fondly calls him) Robinson was a fixture in the state education department for many years and was a beloved and friendly doorkeeper for the Senate for many ears in his retirement. So I have known the Robinsons, father and son, for more than fifty years.

I always feel strange saying something like that—knowing someone for fifty years.

Erifnus is historic because it is the only car that has traveled every mile of every highway in Missouri. 

At least, we think so.  We can’t imagine anyone else being that interested in doing something such as this.  Or maybe as crazy.

But we all have goals in our lives, some more expansive than others.  Driving on every mile of every highway in Missouri became John’s goal, especially while he was the State Tourism Director and had a reason to do all of that traveling.  I suppose he could have used a car from the state motor pool, but he chose Erifnus and, I have been told by one of those who worked with him, he did not always take the most direct route.

John is one of the most personable people you could ever hope to meet. And a lot of people had a chance to meet him in his odyssey.  His biography on Amazon notes:

He penetrated beyond the edges of civilization, peeked into the real American heartland, and lived to tell about it.

His books are “on the road” adventures blending local characters and mom-and-pop food into an archipelago of tasty stories. He dives deep into the wilderness, where the nearest neighbors are coyotes, and the bullfrogs sound like banjo strings.

When an interviewer asked if he ever “heard banjo music,” John replied, “Sure, all the time. And when I do, I grab a big bass fiddle and join in.”

Through all his travels, John shows a deep respect for history, and for the environment. As a former state director of tourism, he heard the question a lot: How can we balance tourism and the environment? His answer: “If we don’t preserve our natural heritage, and put back what we take out, these attractions won’t be worth visiting.”

Called the “King of the Road” by Missouri Life Magazine, John Robinson lives in Columbia, Missouri when he isn’t sleeping in his car. His articles and columns are regularly featured in a half dozen magazines.

This is Erifnus:

It’s a Pontiac Sunfire.  Spell it backwards.

I have been thinking a museum in Jefferson City would be a great place for Erifnus to continue telling its story, and John’s.  Unfortunately, there is no such museum.  We have two historical organizations in Jefferson City but neither has a museum that can accommodate Erifnus—or other historical city and county artifacts for that matter.  I think it’s time we have such a mseum, but that’s a separate discussion.

I’ve contacted a friend at the National Museum of Transportation in Kirkwood to see if Erifnus might find a place in its collection of automobiles, trains, and airplanes.  Jefferson City’s loss could be Kirkwood’s gain.

There’s another historic vehicle in central Missouri that HAS been saved although it’s not on display.  That’s William Least Heat Moon’s Ghost Dancing, the 1975 Ford Econoline van he used in compiling the stories in his famous Blue Highways. It’s in the storage area of the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Missouri’s Academic Support Center.

Both vehicles need to be displayed where people can appreciate them, the men who drove them, and the stories they have told that enrich us all.

John lives in Columbia so maybe Erifnus could find a home there, too.  But as a Jefferson City resident, I wish we had a place for it here because this is where John grew up and where his service as Director of the Division of Tourism did so much to create the tales of Erifnus and the stories its driver has written.

How to be a Leftist With One Word

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The word is “Democracy.”

The denigrating reference to one of the most honored words in our American existence was stunning when I read it.

“Democracy” seems to have become a bad word for some people.

The Jefferson City newspaper had an article yesterday about whether our city council elections should become partisan political elections again.  The City Charter adopted three or four decades ago made council elections non-partisan.  But in last month’s city elections, the county Republican committee sent out postcards endorsing candidates.

All of them lost.

A new political action committee established to oppose a Republican-oriented committee that killed a library tax levy increase last year had its own slate last month. All of the non-GOP candidates won, which prompted a leading member of the GOP-oriented group to comment in the paper that the new PAC, as the paper put it, “used leftist buzzwords like ‘transparency’ and ‘Democracy’ on their website.”

Friends, when things have gone so far out of whack that “Democracy” is nothing more than a “leftist buzzword,” our political system is in extremely perilous condition.   And if the same side considers “transparency” to be something that is politically repugnant, it appears that a substantial portion of our political system has abandoned one of the greatest principles of our national philosophy—-that government of the people, for the people, and by the people should not hide what it does from its citizens.

City councils are the closest governments to the people.  Elections of members of city councils should focus on the issues that most directly affect residents of wards and cities, not on whether candidates can pass party litmus tests or mouth meaningless partisan rhetoric.

The Jefferson City newspaper spent weeks publishing articles giving candidates’ opinions on the issues that confront citizens living on the quiet (and some noisy) streets of the city. Voters had ample opportunities to evaluate candidates on THEIR positions, not whether they were an R or a D.

Bluntly put, the county Republican committee did not respect the non-partisan system that has served our city well for these many decades.  And to have one of its leading characters dismiss words such as “transparency” and—especially—“Democracy” as “leftist buzzwords” is, I regret to say, a disgrace.

One Man’s Vision—8   

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We’ve shared with you in the last four weeks one man’s vision for a greater Jefferson City (well, actually two men, as we wrote about Mayor C. W. Thomas—who inspired this series—in our first entry).  Our list is far from inclusive of all good ideas nor is having a vision my exclusive domain. You have been invited to share your visions and I hope you will do that now that we are wrapping up this series.

All of this ambitious talk about places to meet, places to visit, and places to live has overlooked a lot of our people who have few or none of the opportunities to participate.  If we are to be a great city, we cannot overlook them.

At the library, we sometimes hear about our “homeless problem” and there are those who tell us they won’t visit the library or bring their children there because of “them.”  Those patrons and other critics demand we “do something” about them.  “They” make people uncomfortable.

The library does not have a homeless problem. The CITY has a homeless problem and the public library is an uncomfortable participant in it—because we have to be.

We are a public institution and whether a person owns a mansion or sleeps in a box, that person is part of “the public.”  There is no place for them to go during the day after their overnight accommodations shut down.  We are their warm place on frigid days. We are their cool place on oppressively hot days.  We are their bathrooms.

I’m sorry that some people are offended because “they” don’t dress as well as most of us…or smell as good as most of us and they hang around our building.

We do not often have any problems with these folks although there have been times when we have called police and some have been banished from our premises.  We have signs throughout our building reminding our homeless visitors not to sleep there. Our staff can’t be a dozer police, though, because of their regular duties.

But most of them are okay. We do not judge them on various criteria any more than we judge any of you. You are the public, constituents using a public place in a personal way, too.

I have not had a chance to ask our critics what their solution is.  But ignoring the issue or saying it is someone else’s problem to solve is something for the Old Jefferson City—-at a time when a BOLD Jefferson City should be our goal.

Celebrations of things such as bicentennials of becoming the state capital can work in more ways than one. We should make sure our bicentennial observance doesn’t leave “them” out.  They are people, the public, fellow citizens.  And they deserve—by their presence among us—respect.

Great cities do not become great by only catering to people who smell good.

To do any of the things I have discussed in this series to move a good city toward greatness without facing the problems of those to whom greatness is just a word is irresponsible.  As citizens of this community we are responsible to and for one another. That’s what the word “community” implies.

I can’t tell you how to make these things discussed in these entries happen. Many of you have the expertise I lack.

Leonardo daVinci made drawings of flying machines. The Wright Brothers made the machine that flew.  Humphry Davy, Warren de la Rue, and Joseph Swan made electric lights but Thomas Edison created the incandescent bulb. Carl Benz created a gasoline-powered automobile but Henry Ford showed how to manufacture them.  John Fleming invented the vacuum tube but Guglielmo Marconi created radio.

Some have ideas. Others have the expertise to realize them.

So I’m going to leave you with three statements that have motivated me most of my life and I hope they encourage you to become active in this quest.

The English playwright George Bernard Shaw wrote a lengthy play called Back to Methuselah, retelling some of the earliest stories of the Bible. He creates a conversation in which the snake convinces Eve she should want to learn, that she should eat from the tree of knowledge instead of just living mindlessly in the Garden of Eden.  The snake appeals to her curiosity by saying, “You see things, and you say ‘Why?’   I dream dreams that never were, and I say, ‘Why not?’”

I am asking today, “Why not?”

The German philosopher Johan Wolfgang von Goethe continued that thought when he advised, “Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.”

I am asking you to dream bigger dreams than we have dreamed, bigger even than a new convention center.

Goethe’s  tragic masterwork, Faust, includes this observation:

Lose this day loitering—’twill be the same story
To-morrow–and the next more dilatory;
Then indecision brings its own delays,
And days are lost lamenting o’er lost days.
Are you in earnest? seize this very minute–
What you can do, or dream you can, begin it,
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it,
Only engage, and then the mind grows heated—
Begin it, and the work will be completed!

I am asking our city to be bold.

A bicentennial’s greatest value lies not in dwelling on the past, but in building a foundation for the TRIcentennial. It still will not be good enough to be the Capital City.  What more can we be….if we lay the foundation for it now?

I want our bicentennial to be characterized by a sense of boldness that turns a “good enough” city into a great one, that discovers the genius, power, and magic in boldness.

A century ago, a mayor who had seen this city become a modern city that in his lifetime fought off two efforts to take the seat of government elsewhere—Sedalia’s 1896 statewide vote on capital removal and efforts after the 1911 fire to build a new capitol somewhere else—and who modernized our town died dreaming of a convention center.

His spirit of progress is worth recalling and becoming a motivator for becoming a greater city.

You’ve read one man’s vision for accomplishing that.  What is yours?

How can we do it?

One Man’s Vision—7 

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We recognize that not everyone wants change.  The status quo is comfortable, predictable, and requires little effort or participation. Life is good as-is.

And it’s cheaper than trying to be better.  Better equals more taxes. More taxes advocated by those who want their city to BE more are a burden to those who think they cannot afford to live in a greater city.

It’s hard for some to see the benefits that come with a desire to be better.  But the business world shows us that people want better things, will buy them, and the commerce generated with those purchases lifts both ends of economic boats.

But still, there are those who will say “no.”

Decades ago, while working at The Arcola Record-Herald, a small-town Illinois newspaper that provided my first journalism paycheck, I came across “The Knocker’s Prayer,” published in 1918.  Some of the language is dated but the sentiment is contemporary for some people.

Lord, please don’t let this town grow.  I’ve been here for thirty years, and during that time I’ve fought every public improvement.  I’ve knocked everything and everybody, no firm or individual has established a business here without my doing all I can to put them out of business.  I’ve lied about them, and would have stolen from them I had the courage.

I have done all I could to keep the town from growing and never have spoken a good word for it. I’ve knocked hard and often. I have put ashes on the children’s slide and I’ve made the Marshall stop the boys from playing ball on my vacant lot.  Whenever I saw anyone prospering or enjoying themselves, I’ve started a reform to kill the business or spoil the fun.

I don’t wany the young folks to stay in this town and I will do all I can by law, rule and ordinance to drive them away. It pains me, O Lord, to see that in spite of my knocking, it is beginning to grow, Someday, I fear I will be called upon to put down sidewalks in front of my property and who knows but what I may have to help keep up the streets that run by my premises.  This, Lord, would be more than I could bear. It would cost me money, though all I have was made right here in this town. 

Then, too, more people might come if the town begins to grow, which would cause me to lose some of my pull.  I ask, therefore, to keep this town at a standstill, that I may continue be the chief calamity howler. Amen.

But great, or even good, futures are not made by those who choose to stand pat, who argue against daring to be better.

The American Revolution was led by a bunch of rabble-rousers who found British subservience intolerable.  The frontier was expanded by those who dared to cross the Alleghenies. The Civil War was fought because the status quo that allowed one people to own other people was no longer acceptable. The Santa Fe, Oregon, and California Trails were populated by the minority who left comfort behind for greater opportunities (and, we have to admit, destroyed the status quo of the Native Americans in their way) west of Missouri.  Everything of modern society comes from those who saw beyond what-is to what can-be.

The status quo and its costs are not static. The expenses of maintaining the status quo, usable streets for example for example, increases.

The future IS expensive but so is maintaining the present. For a little more, we can reach for a little greatness. And history shows leaders always drag the “knockers” along with them.  And the “knockers” enjoy the benefits of progress, too.

There are always going to be “knockers,” the people who say, “We can’t do this” or “Why do this?”

The pioneers, the leaders, the people who still embody the American spirit of making life better for themselves and those they know and will never know, are the ones who ask, “How can we do this?” and then find the answer to their own question.

The first gubernatorial inauguration I covered as a reporter was that of Warren Hearnes, who was sworn in, in 1969 for his historic second term, and said in his inaugural speech:

To do and be better is a goal few achieve. To do it, we are required to make sacrifices—not in the sense of shedding our blood or giving of our lives or the lives of those we love, but sacrifice in the sense of giving of a part of those material things which we enjoy in abundance. A great people will sacrifice part of that with which they have been blessed in order that their children will be better educated; their less fortunate more fortunate; their health better health; their state a better state.

We must never fear as a city to ask better of ourselves, for ourselves, and for those we drag along with us.

There’s another group that risks staying behind when others reach for something better.

In our concluding post in this series, we’ll talk about those we should not overlook in our search for greatness.

One Man’s Vision—6 

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The day that the announcement of the downtown convention center was made might have been the day that Mayor Fitzwater got a letter from me congratulating him for abandoning the old prison.  MY suggestion, written in that letter, was that the city buy the Capitol Plaza Hotel, eliminating a competitor for convention business, and to overhaul the hotel as a convention center, working with the state on building a big exhibition hall and a big parking garage on the vacant state land behind the hotel.

(In truth, I have no idea whether the present owners would sell the hotel or sell it at a reasonable price.  But some time ago, I checked the owners’ webpage and it seemed to be one of the smaller and least attractive hotels in the portfolio. I also am told it needs a good freshening-up.)

I am comfortable with the city exploring the site it is exploring and I am likewise comfortable with the questions that have been asked about the long-term adequacy of the current plan. I am confident they will be answered during the long process ahead. And we should not be surprised if the final design is substantially different from the preliminary drawings we have seen. The process of completing a project this ambitious involves a lof of adjustments and evaluations.

I was the president of the State Historical Society of Missouri when we built our $37-million Center for Missouri Studies in Columbia and I know that what we built is far different from what we first thought we would build—-and it’s not on the site we originally hoped to use. But we kept asking, “How can we do this?” We were unafraid to adjust and to evolve and our finished product is still breathtaking to me five years after I helped cut the ribbon at the front door.

I imagine the city officials behind the convention center understand the finished product might be different from the early drawings we have seen.  The important thing is that the city has started moving on this project and I am confident the final result will not be hastily-drawn or carelessly-built.

As mentioned earlier—from my various viewpoints, I see this as the beginning of a series of bold moves that can make us a greater city today and be an example to the people of the next hundred years that being “good enough” is a mindset of the past.

But what happens if the planned convention center location doesn’t work out?

It’s ways good to have a Plan B. In this case, my Plan B focuses on the Capitol and Madison site.  I will leave a new convention center location to others if one is deemed more practical and advisable. The ultimate decision will be up to the mayor, the city council, and the citizens who will be asked to finance it.

But how will the city recover its Capital Avenue investment if that site ultimately proves to be less feasible than originally thought?

Here’s one man’s vision:

Downtown condominiums for middle-to-upper-middle income residents that will contribute to a broader renewal of downtown beyond improving the bar and restaurant trade.

Why middle-to-upper middle class condos?  Think of how many thousand state workers come into downtown every day to work who would like to live within walking distance of their jobs.

Those condos coupled with the Simonsen redevelopment, Capitol Avenue restoration and additional re-development of upstairs areas of downtown stores would revitalize the city core and lead to more close-in redevelopment spirit that could spread to the south side.

Of course, if people are to return to our central core, they will need services.  If I were one of the bigger grocery stores, I would be thinking of opening a satellite store downtown; there’s plenty of available spaces, and anything not available from the downtown store can be easily delivered from one of the main stores on our periphery.  And that might be just a start.

I will leave it to your thoughts about how this could revitalize a wide area of our city’s heart in several different ways.

Understand I am not hoping for the failure of the Madison and Capitol convention center concept. Right now, the proper question is being asked: “How can we do this?”

But it’s always good to think about a Plan B.

One Man’s Vision—5 

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The shift of the focus on a convention center and hotel reopens the penitentiary for more redevelopment ideas than museums.

We need a new library.

Last August, the local library board asked voters for a 15-cent levy increase to renovate, expand, and modernize our 50-year old building.  The $28-million effort was killed by a secret group of people, none of whom had ever attended a single library board meeting during which these plans were developed (and who have never attended a board meeting since), who circulated a huge lie throughout Cole County that the library board was going to increase property taxes by 75%.  We were asking for nothing of the sort and I am still waiting for someone from this group to explain to the library board why they circulated this lie and who created it.  I want to see its homework but it appears no one from this group has the courtesy or the courage to prove its case.

—Because it can’t.

What is true is that the need for 21st century library service has not changed.  We know that we will have to go to the voters again but we worry that this group so poisoned public confidence in the library system and the library board that our task of winning support for the library this city, county, and region must have for most of the rest of this century is much harder.

Nonetheless, we cannot stay in a building that no longer meets the needs of our constituents. Our efforts to maintain the services we offer has led to the rental of office space across High Street for our administrators who have been crowded out by the space we needs to meet our responsibilities. We are facing a choice of moving some of our staff back into the building and reducing some services now occupying the space they would reclaim, or leaving things as they are.

We have never had the parking we need.  When the present building was constructed, the plan was to tear down the original Carnegie building to create parking for our patrons. After the building was completed, however, those interested in historic preservation preserved the old building.

We thought in our planning for last year’s renovation election that the county would be picking up some of the Buescher vacant lots and leasing some of the space to us, but the city decided after we had set the August election date that it would be keeping all of them—although it has told us it will lease space to us once it has completed its acquisition program.

But that still does not resolve the inadequacies that have developed through fifty years since the building was new.  The county has indicated an interest in acquiring the building if we decide to sell and move, and further negotiations are warranted because we will, eventually, move.

We have no choice but to do so if we are to responsibly serve our patrons.

About twenty years ago or so, we planned to put up a new building across Lafayette Street from the original prison entrance. But the federal government decided to build the Christopher S. Bond Federal Courthouse there, leaving us in our present situation.

Moving the convention center discussion to Madison and Capital re-opens the prison as a potential site for a new library. It’s in the minds of our library board members but not yet an active discussion.

We are starting to think about asking ourselves, however, “How can we do this?”

One Man’s Vision—4 

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A state-of- the-art comprehensive Jefferson City/Cole County History Museum, at the old prison—discussed in the previous entry in this series—should be only a start.

Let’s shoot for the moon.

What really would be a giant step toward greatness would be he acquisition of another museum, one destined for a Smithsonian-quality reputation.

Six years ago we had a shot at getting the Steamboat Arabia museum to move here from Kansas City. But our planning group never got beyond talking, talking, talking and the expertise I hoped would develop when the group was formed never did develop. In effect, we decided we are good enough, as is. And one important business leader straight-out told me it wouldn’t work here.

None of the people I thought would take the practical lead did. But another smaller, more ambitious town went beyond talking and what it discovered for itself speaks volumes of what Jefferson City would have discovered had there been some initiative generated by all of that talking and should be a challenge to Jefferson City to show it wants to be more than the state capitol, more than a convention center can give us, more than we are.

City leaders in Marshall reportedly raised $150,000 for a feasibility study of a steamboat museum at I-70 and Highway 65. The initial investment would be high. The payoff will be large and long-lasting

The findings show that the payoff of this major commitment will be multiples of what was forecast for the Marshall/Sedalia/Lexington area.

I took a lot of notes at the meeting where the findings by the consulting firm of Peckham, Guyton, Albers & Viets (PGAV) were revealed three years ago.

PGAV called the museum proposal “a chance to put something iconic in Central Missouri.’  It described a state of the art museum with a national and regional strategy. It addressed continued investment that renewed the museum’s life cycle, the development of supporting amenities, the financial sustainability for generations, and the leadership the project would provide for future development.

The company looked at tourism strategies—attracting people to the area, creating support for the project, and connecting the museum to other parts of the country by defining a larger region to draw from.

They saw the museum as being a local draw and, more important, a destination attraction. PGAV calculated the trade area for the museum south of Marshall at more than 7.5 million people within a three-hour travel time.  The study forecast the operating costs would be about $2.4 million a year, based on an $18 adult admission fee, retail sales, and food and beverage income, among other things. It could be operated with 18 fulltime employees.

The first phase would be a 77,000 square foot museum (about double the present footprint, that would hold the Arabia and a second boat (we’ll discuss that later) and provide support and storage space on 3.7 acres, including parking. Estimated cost: $37 million.  That’s what we built the Center for Missouri Studies for in Columbia—a three-story, 77-thousand square feet building.  By the time the third phase of the steamboat museum would be completed, the complex would cover 8 acres, including parking

PGAV’s site analysis pointed to the great visibility of the museum from I-70 and to the great amount of open land at Marshall Junction.

The company found that museums are “economic engines” for an area—that non-profit art and culture attractions have an economic impact of more than one-billion dollars in Missouri (that’s a 2015 study).  They calculated that $1 generated by such a museum would generate $3.20 for the economy.

The study identifies several financial tools created by state law—Community Development Block Grants, Neighborhood Assistance tax credits, Community Improvement Districts, and ta exempt bonds issued by the Missouri Development Finance Board.

Additionally, PGAV calculated the national 250th anniversary celebration in 2026 will create federal funding capabilities for projects with about two-billion dollars allocated for state signature projects—and the museum, they said, would be a prime choice that a signature project (Jefferson City benefitted from the Bicentennial in 1976 by getting funding for restoration of Lohman’s Landing when it was declared a statewide bicentennial project).

In Summary, PGAV concluded that the Marshall-centered market would be enough to support a destination museum that would be an anchor for other tourism assets in the region (Arrow Rock, Sedalia and the State Fair, Santa Fe Trail sites, etc.  It would develop tourism synergies for local tourism in a three-county region (or broader), it would trigger multiple development opportunities near the Marshall Junction interchange and would create an economic development opportunity when combined with other attractions.  The study indicated the museum would draw 3.7 million visitors when phase one opens in 2026.

If that is true for Marshall, consider what it would mean for Jefferson City.

The population of Columbia, Jefferson City, and Fulton tops 182,000.  The combined populations of Marshall, Sedalia, Lexington, Boonville, and Moberly is about one-third that.

Seven state or private institutions of higher education within thirty miles of Jefferson City have more than 44,000 students. Another thirty miles, north and south, are Moberly Area Community College and the Missouri University of Science and Technology that add another 12,000 students. Sporting events and parental visits bring tens of thousands more people to those schools.

Add tto that, that Jefferson City is on the way to the Lake of the Ozarks. Lake Expo recently estimated 2.5-million people visit the Lake every year, 75% of them between May and September.

Increased tourism is only part of the benefit. The steamboat museum here could offer academic opportunities in technology, archaeology, textile preservation, museum management, American Western history, and other programs at or through those higher education institutions. The museum could benefit them and could gain benefits from them.

And think what a museum dedicated to grow in coming years or decades to capture the history of  the golden decades of Missouri River commerce and frontier development (1820-1880) could do.  The goal of the museum is to have artifacts—and maybe complete steamboats—excavated from past river channels, now farm fields from each of those decades.  Arabia museum President Dave Hawley has one of those boats located and test borings indicate the Malta might be complete enough to bring up as whole as possible. He would love to open a new museum with an 1841 steamboat in it.

Think about that.

Six years ago, we had the chance to raise about five million dollars to pay the costs of excavating the Malta and having it here, keeping the museum project highly visible while he rest of the project developed. Only one person was asking, “How do we do that?”  Nobody answered.

At the time, major fund-raising was focused on the Bicentennial Bridge or on the Missouri River Port.

I wrote at the time that I didn’t see hundreds of school buses with thousands of school children and their adult chaperones visiting a river port or taking in the view from Adrian’s Island as they would visit a steamboat museum.  To be clear, I think Adrian’s Island will be appreciated more in ten years than it was then or might be appreciated now. I can’t recall the last time I heard anything about the riverport but it’s not likely something I will take visiting relatives to see.

The Arabia museum is running out of time before it closes and the collection possibly moves to Pennsylvania, significantly, in November, 2026. Making the acquisition of that museum for our city as the official Capital City Bicentennial Project would be about a $50 million initial commitment. But it would transform our city and it would be an incredible driver to prison redevelopment as well as an incredible complement to the convention center/capitol avenue restoration and redevelopment effort.

Based on my conversations with Joe and Josephine Jeffcity, the steamboat museum would enhance chances for approval of a bond issue for the convention center, the library, and the historical museum, together or separately.

How can we make this step toward greatness happen?

Why should we do it?

Some of us are old enough to remember President Kennedy’s September 12, 1962 speech at Rice University when he set the goal of a manned moon landing within the decade:

“But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic?…We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win.”

The steamboat museum can be, should be, Jefferson City’s moonshot.

At the risk of sinking into hyperbole, bringing this museum to Jefferson City could be the greatest reach for greatness in city history since civic leaders organized the construction of our first Missouri River bridge that helped blunt Sedalia’s effort to steal the capital in 1896.

How can we organize and measure the best of our energies and skills to make it happen?

How can we do it?

 

One Man’s Vision—3 

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I am writing this series of entries—six of them in all at this point—not entirely comfortably because they are intimately personal thoughts, and suspecting that they might be perceived as self-aggrandizing and presumptuous, two characteristics I have not much appreciated in the people I covered in my long life as a political reporter.

Why am I indulging in this exercise that involves unflattering questions about whether our city is so self-satisfied as the capital city that it is reluctant or even resistant to striving to be not just good but great?

And who am I to do it?

Asking the second question is a partial answer to the first question.  Why sholdn’t we expect more from ourselves, FOR ourselves, and for those who come after us?

This city is where I have had a successful career, where I have raised my family, where I have participated in its activities, and where I long to return to regardless of what part of the world I have been in.

I have never sought or wanted to seek public office—-although I have been asked a few times if I was interested. I’m just one of forty-thousand or so citizens living on a quiet street, retired from daily job responsibilities but involved in a few church and civic activities.

I care passionately about my town and what it can be.

—-because I know what it has been and what it is.

That’s right. MY town.  I have a proprietary interest in it, as do you, or as should you. And I want it to be better.  I look around and I see ways that it could be and I wonder if it has the courage to reach for greatness.

I came to Jefferson City fifty-seven years ago to report news for a radio station that no longer has its studios here.  Fifty years ago this November, I joined with one of my best friends, Clyde Lear, to create The Missourinet.  At the time, I was the Secretary of the Jefferson City American Revolution Bicentennial Commission—-I count the successful 18-month effort to bring the American Freedom Train to the town named for the principal author of the Declaration of Independence as one of the best things I’ve ever done for my city.

I am now the president of the regional library board, a member of the Cole County America 250 Committee—a group formed to commemorate, in just two years, the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence—a life member of the Cole County Historical Society, and Past-President of the State Historical Society of Missouri.

My sixth book, all of which deal with some part of Missouri and/or Jefferson City history, is under consideration for publication with the University of Kansas Press.

It is a mistake to think that historians live in the past.  We don’t. We use the past as lessons to consider the future, and I have been thinking a lot recently about the future of my town, and yours.

A coincident combination of recent events and circumstances has triggered all of this:

—The decision to give up on the penitentiary as the site for a hotel and convention center.

—A “for sale” sign in the window of our former family pharmacy

—The defeat last August of the library’s proposed levy increase to bring our 1970s library system into the third decade of the 21st century, thanks to a secret committee that spread a giant lie to voters throughout the county.

—An ongoing effort to keep an irreplaceable historical resource from leaving the state

—A legislative refusal to fund a major restoration project filled with the lessons of history, and

—-And a citywide social problem

All of this has come together as we look the bicentennial of the City of Jefferson becoming the seat of state government on October 1, 1826, and the bicentennial of the first legislative session held here, beginning that November 20th.

So far I have heard of no plans to celebrate the city’s bicentennial as the state capital.  And I think that says something about the cultural character of my town.

I believe the celebration of the 200th anniversary of Jefferson City becoming the capital city of Missouri could change the way we see ourselves and the way others see us going forward.

Inspired by the story of Mayor Cecil Thomas, recounted in the first episode, I am offering this one man’s vision requires us to be better—no, to be GREATER—than we are.  I hope you have, or will have, your own vision.

I have formed the opinion through many years of observing my town that we have a split personality.

First, we seem to think that being the state capital is good enough.

That has never been true.

Being “good enough” is not good enough.  Great cities do not become great by being “good enough.”

I do not want to hear anyone tell me, “We can’t do this.”  Cities don’t become great because they think they cannot accomplish great things.  They become great by asking, “How can we get this done?”

Another impression I have is that we waste too much time comparing Jefferson City to Columbia.  If that is, indeed, the case, we need to get over it. And this is a good time to focus on what we can be, not what we are in comparison, or what they have that we don’t.

And third, I wonder if we are in some respects a cubicle city in which many of us go to work each day, spend the day in our own little cubicle—seldom standing to look around or to communicate with people in other cubicles—and then go to a larger cubicle that is our home. It is hard to think outside the box if you spend your life in a cubicle.

Our family drug store closed last fall. The historic soda fountain that was a landmark part of our city culture remains.  When the “for sale’ sign went into the window late last year, I began to worry about what would happen to that soda fountain under new ownership of the building—and how it needs to be saved and preserved somewhere if it is to be removed.

But Jefferson City has no place to put it, or to preserve other important artifacts from our county’s past that tell the story of how we have become what we are..

While all of this was happening, I was asked to speak at a fund-raising Tea sponsored by the ladies of the Cole County Historical Society. They wanted me to talk about the history of the society, which this year celebrates the 80th anniversary.

And the Cole County America 250 Commission was being formed about then to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

After I saw the “for sale” sign in the Whaley’s window, I sent an email to the Historic City of Jefferson and to the Cole County Historical Society suggesting it is time for the two groups to get together and start planning a meaningful county history museum.

We do not have a museum that preserves the history of our other communities in Cole County.  There are no exhibits about Wardsville or Taos or Russellville or Osage City, Elston, or others including the little communities that winked out; no exhibits about The Foot or Munichberg.  Where can we go to learn about what an international city we are?  Where will we find the stories of Steve the Tailor, Arris the Pizza-maker, Helmut the Restauanteur, Yannis the Coffee Merchant, the pioneers of Temple Beth-el, the stories of those who serve us food from Thailand, China, Japan, Vietnam, India, Mexico—and Ireland.

Where can we learn of the migration of African-Americans, northern Missouri slaves, who crossed the river to come here to escape guerilla warfare, knowing they were safe in the first state capital to be occupied by the U. S. Army in wartime?  We need to show how Lincoln University came to be and how it has transformed through many decades into an institution of higher learning that has served this community far better than we seem to acknowledge. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people of all races in our area are walking around with degrees and advanced degrees from Lincoln.

And sports—where can we learn about Pete and Ray (Adkins and Hentges), and who WAS Dwight T. Reed?  Or where can we learn about our five (at least) major league baseball players and the five, so far, Jefferson Citians with careers in professional football? Or even the story of tennis star Althea Gibson.

We have two historical organizations, neither of which tells the story of our city and county as well as many local museums I have visited—in much smaller towns—have told about their cities and counties.

We need a city/county history museum built inside the old prison that meets modern museum standards for story-telling and is a true value to the people here and to visitors—a museum within a museum. I mentioned this at the most recent meeting of the America 250 Committee as a project that would be our legacy and committee members seemed attracted to the idea.

Developing such a museum would mean a new location for the Cole County Historical Society museum, which now occupies a 150-year old building with severe limits on space with costly upkeep costs that impede expansion.  The building would be desirable to associations or entities such as those that already occupy large amounts of building space close to the Capitol. Instead of the building being a financial drain, the sale of it would provide part of the financial foundation for a truly representative center of Cole County history.

That’s not the only important public institution that needs a new home that would fit well within the renovation of the old penitentiary and be a legacy from this generation to tomorrow’s  greater city.  We’ll explore that possibility next.

(We are sharing our vision for a greater city.  We are interested in what others hope for a better city for our grandchildren’s grandchildren.  Take some time and let us know in the response box below)

One Man’s Vision—2

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Jefferson City’s hopes of turning the old penitentiary into a major redevelopment project are in danger. City officials have for many years pinned many of their hopes for a mid-city rennaiscance to the state’s preservation, restoration, and redevelopment of the prison and dozens of acres of land controlled by he city inside the old walls.

Jefferson City leaders must aggressively overturn an effort by the House of Representatives Budget  Committee to eliminate $52.3 million from the state budget that Governor Parson recommended in January and another $40 million he wants set aside for later preservation and restoration work.

It is essential if a downtown convention center is to be more than a stand-alone project that misses the chance to bring about greater transformational change for our city from Madison and Capitol for the next seven blocks to the east.

The plan has been promoted as putting the old place in shape for expanded tourism attraction.  But the issue is far more important than that.  It is only one part of a much greater future for a major part of the Capital City and, it can be argued, is part of a package of developments that is highlighted by the expansion of the Capitol itself.

The Capitol and the penitentiary are bookends of our city’s historic, cultural, economic, and ethnic past, present, and future.  In fact, the penitentiary is a major reason this city continued to exist for the first eighty-five years as the seat of state government, a development that curtailed the efforts to end the City of Jefferson’s political history before it had hardly begun.

Jefferson City was a tiny, dirty/muddy, little frontier village, the worst of the three possible locations for a permanent capital, when Governor John Miller told the legislature in 1832 it had to do something to create an economy for the city or take the government elsewhere:

If t is not to be the permanent seat of government, that fact cannot be too soon made known, while on the other hand if it is to remain as such, it is advisable that those measures which would advance its prosperity, should be taken with the least possible delay. Some of the principle streets are from the nature of tne ground impassable. It is therefore respectfully recommended that an appropriation be made for grading and otherwise improving,them. The erection of a penitentiary here, the necessity and utility which cannot be doubted, would contribute in a great degree to calm the public mind in relation to th« permanent location of the seat of government.

 The penitentiary, for many years well outside the city limits, today is the link between the water company overlooking the river on the hill west of Bolivar Street to Ellis Porter/Riverside Park and its recently-restored amphitheatre on the east. It’s an area that swells to include Dunklin Street that runs through the heart of Munichberg and continues to and past the entrance to Lincoln University before turning back toward the river at Clark Avenue.

For many years, the tall standpipe at the water company,  the capitol dome, and the smokestacks of prison industries were parts of our skyline.

That area has been, is, and will be the heart of our city.

One Budget Committee member called the restoration “the stupidest idea I’ve heard all day,” and another said it was not a place she would take her grandchildren. Another opposes the idea of making a tourist attraction out of the suffering of thousands of inmates.

It’s time for these folks to hear, loudly, from city leaders that they are flat wrong on several counts.

There’s plenty of time and ways to get that money put back into the budget but Jefferson City needs to become very aggressive in making the case that these committee members are just flat wrong. Thirty thousand people a year don’t think the prison is stupid. A lot of grandchildren have gone through it. And the suffering of inmates is an important part of the reason our national history of corrections has undergone massive change. The prison is a great example of showing how our past can guide us to the future.

Alcatraz is not too gruesome to draw 1.5-million people a year. Nor is the old Eastern State Prison in Philadelphia, which draws 350-thousand. Nor are at least a dozen restored prisons and jails throughout the nation.

Jefferson City cannot allow the short-sightedness of these representatives to prevail.

In a city where you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a lobbyist, it wouldn’t hurt if they had enough interest in their town to speak up for it voluntarily and help get that money back. And asking the governor to step in would not be improper.

Jefferson City must fight for the restoration of this funding not just because the old prison is a tourism draw but because of its potential for significant other developments that will take advantage of a large plot of available land in the heart of the city. What prison restoration can mean to Jefferson City’s core redevelopment is part of the vision of making a good city a great one.

The prison is more than an old, miserable lockup.  It is one of the most important historical structures still standing in Missouri, a massive learning experience for all who visit it, even grandchildren. Going through it is a matter of going through several eras in the history of crime, punishment, and justice in Missouri.

You want to know how bad things were?  Take a tour. You want to know how things changed?  Take a tour. The stories you hear from guides are intensely human. Calling the prison a tourist attraction, in fact, cheapens the prison as a teaching and learning experience.

We can concede that there are those who don’t think the public should see this institution that focuses on the worst of our society.  But ignoring the worst does not make us better.  Crime is here.  Prisons are here.  Refusing to acknowledge their presence, their purposes, or the changing standards that they represent in our history is unrealistic.

Thousands of men and women went into that “bloodiest 47 acres in America” and came out to live peaceful lives. Understanding the world where they were sent and from which they emerged is important.  Making a tourist attraction out of the suffering of thousands of inmates?  It’s much more than that.

The decision by our city leaders to abandon the old penitentiary as the potential site for a convention center and hotel is a welcome, solid, decision. The plan to put the hotel/center in the prison seemed to be a good idea about a decade ago but nothing developed other than a few lines on paper. It was correct for the previous city administration to bring this long-ignored opportunity back to the public mind and to keep it there. But it is not unusual for first concepts to fall by the wayside as time shows their weaknesses.

I was the President of the State Historical Society of Missouri when we opened our $37-million Center for Missouri Studies about five years ago. It is far beyond what we imagined it would be in the first stages of our planning and it is not on our first choice of location.  But the leaders of our society never once conceded that we could not do what we wanted to do. Our only question was, “How do we do this?”

That characteristic, when applied to cities, is what elevates good cities to great cities.  Do not tell me we can’t do something; explain to me how we can.

What happens with the penitentiary now that it is available for new development is a major factor in Jefferson City’s move from a good city to a great city.  As we explore one man’s vision in this series, details will emerge.

We’ll talk about our vision for the penitentiary later. But for now, the priority must be action that will preserve the penitentiary for its own value to the public while creating an improved opportunity for the city to take steps toward greatness within it.

(photo credit: Missouri American Water Company)