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| The "Scout" forever watches over Kansas City, Missouri |
If you visit Kansas City, Missouri I recommend that you find
your way to Penn Valley Park located across the street from Union Station.
After you have explored the imposing and educational National World War I
Memorial, make your way over to Penn Valley Drive and follow it south to West
31st Street. Hang a right on W 31st and then another right on Pennsylvania
Avenue. This road winds its way around a grassy lawn and some tennis courts in
a questionable part of the city. At the north end of this loop there is a short
foot path to a somewhat forgotten old statue. It is sad that this place has
fallen into the disrepair that is has because from this point you have the
finest viewT of the Kansas City Skyline in the State of Missouri. The Statue
located on the cusp of a tall, steep hill overlooking the city is that of a
Sioux Warrior and it is called the Scout. The 10 foot bronze statue of an
Indian warrior on his steed stands atop a white pedestal of pieced together
slabs of white Ozark limestone. The pedestal is 8 feet, 8 inches high and it is
somewhat tapered as it is thinner on the bottom than it is on top. The “Scout”
shades his eyes against the sun and looks out over the city. The feeling I got
when I was there was that this Scout was looking over his old hunting grounds
and filled with sadness and disbelief at how much the plains, river and forests
had changed since the arrival of the white man. I scrawled a few notes in my
notebook while sitting up there and here they are “Sunny and bright morning
with a pretty stiff breeze. I’m sitting at the base of the Scout statue in Penn
Valley Park looking North West out over Interstate 35 and the downtown Kansas
City, Missouri skyline. It is very green and humid. The Scout stands upon piled
blocks of limestone and he is mounted on his fearsome steed. This Indian
Warrior is inspiring yet sad at the same time. I think of him as wondering
where all of his villages and people are. Where are all the Buffalo? what is
all the development below – concrete, noise, traffic, train yards, barges and
skyscrapers. I imagine a tear trickling down the Sioux Warriors face as he
shields his eyes against the sun. Knowing that his people are gone, and their
way of life is gone forever and all but forgotten. Just watched a fisherman pull
a catfish out of the lake that is far below and I saw the catfish writher and
heard the fishermans’ screams of joy. Funny how I could hear that from way up
here”. The Scout was made by artist Cyrus E. Dallin in the early 1900s. It was
supposed to be only temporarily located in Penn Valley Park but in 1915 school
children of Kansas City raised $15,000 in nickels and dimes to pay for the
statue to remain in Kansas City permanently. Mr. Dallin was a very famous
artist in the early 1900s and today you can see his works in a museum named for
the man in Arlington, Massachusetts only 6 miles from Boston. Some of his more
famous works are bronze statues of Sacajawea, General Sherman and Paul Revere.
The “Scout” and it’s perch are a great place from which to observe the skyscrapers
of Kansas City and ponder the past and the future but make sure that you do so
before dark as this part of town is questionable after dark. I know from
personal experience as my son and I visited it in the dark after a Chiefs
game. Just a little bit creepy with some shady individuals hanging around. It
is important to remember the “Scout” as he is a permanent reminder to the
citizens of Kansas City and to us all of our Native American Heritage. These
proud peoples and brave warriors are gone forever but their ancestors live on.
Their stories can be retold, their customs and way of life studied and
respected, and reverence should be shown when visiting sites such as the Sioux
Warrior “Scout” in Kansas City, Missouri.
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| Close up view of the "Scout" - Kansas City, Missouri |
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