A couple more comments about Kansas City (on both sides of the border):
At the time of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, many of the nonnative inhabitants of the Missouri region were French or Spanish speakers or their immediate descendants. In Case Park in Kansas City, some of the interpretive signs are in French, erected by the Chouteau Society, described in a web site as “a group dedicated to marking sites of French history in the Kansas City area.”
In Case Park, I was startled to discover interpretive signs in French! The English version is on the opposite side.
From Case Park, one can look down upon the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas Rivers, but also upon interstate freeways and industrial development, obviously not something that Lewis and Clark would have seen or even imagined.
View from Case Park of the confluence of the Missouri and the Kansas, looking northwest.
There are interpretive sites on the Kansas City, KS, side of town, as well. As with most of the L&C sites in this area, one must drive past warehouses and through industrial properties to get to the public lands now developed as parks and overviews. Kaw Point in KC, Kansas, is tucked up against a cement plant and a parking lot filled with commercial vehicles! But I just followed the signs and managed to find the site.
View from Kaw Point on the Kansas side at the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas Rivers, looking southeast back toward Case Park and Kansas City, MO.
Next stop: some smaller river towns and the capital, Jefferson City.
[All photos by K. Dahl, copyright 2005.]
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