The College Hill Commoner, March 2010

5 Parkstone for

4 Cafe to convert

parking lot to rent? Developer Sunday farm & art mulls options for empty townhouses. market. Seeks local vendors.

6 All That Jazz:

A lounge in Clifton Square that seems anything but, well, square.

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER Vol. 3 No. 4

COLLEGE HILL

• CROWN HEIGHTS • UPTOWN • SLEEPY HOLLOW

MARCH 2010

YOU KIDS GET OFF MY LAWN!

THE UNLIKELY BUT ENDURING LEGACY OF OLD MAN MCKNIGHT — THE NEIGHBORHOOD’S ORIGINAL CURMUDGEON. PAGE

8

Archly conservative or just contrary, Joseph Hudson McKnight battled with the city for decades. He fought the paving of Douglas Avenue, the opening of Grove Street, and sued over the dredging of the canal. Once, following a near miss, McKnight amended his will, directing that in the event that he should be hit and killed by a motorist, $1,000 from his estate be used to prosecute the driver. Though not a beloved civic figure, he has a redeeming legacy, including a statue, an art center and an entire neighborhood named for him.

WICHITA-SEDGWICK COUNTY HISTORICAL MUSEUM

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LETTERS

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ MARCH 2010

GONE TO SEED A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

I The People’s Coffee Once upon a time there lived a people who

enjoyed coffee. As a matter of fact they would drink it every morning, throughout the day and even into the night.

Scoundrels appeared who wanted to profit from the peoples love of this dark beverage. They introduced themselves to the unsuspecting coffee-loving people with a scheme in mind.

“We know what excellent coffee is and after many years of research we have developed an extraordinary coffee that we will sell to you. As a matter of fact, only those with unsophisticated palates will fail to appreciate this fine coffee.”

Money was exchanged and coffee was consumed. No one wanted to be accused of having an unsophisticated palate so everyone agreed that this was indeed, marvelous coffee. The scoundrels rubbed their hands gleefully. One day a young man partook of this beverage. He was of plain taste and could only decipher what his olfactory sense and taste buds told him.

“This coffee is terrible,” he remarked with a grimace on his face. The remark, which had been heard by bystanders, was repeated over and over again until many people cried: “The man is right! This coffee is terrible! It’s true!”

This man, who had a love of fine coffee and a compassionate heart for the duped public began to roast his own coffee and opened the Fresh Roast Coffee Company at the NE corner of Douglas & Clifton streets in College Hill. Finally, excellent coffee at an affordable price!

Many of the coffee loving people agreed, but they could not admit it. They thought it better to continue drinking the bitter brew under the illusion that their palates were highly sophisticated, but to those in the know, the Fresh Roast Coffee Company quickly became their source for fine coffee and the man became a trusted friend.

Moral of the story: Don’t be a dolt! By a volt and get a jolt.

f we were any kind of people, we would be planning our garden right about now. Things seem to be finally trending up, temperature-wise, and if we were the sort to think about such things, we would probably be thinking ahead: tomatoes over here, herbs over there, maybe some strawberries along that side. And if this were any sort of climate, we would probably think about a lemon tree, too, for squeezing into our water glasses in the summer. But this is not the climate and we’re not that sort of people. We’re city folk with a backyard.

So we’re heartened to learn that this summer the neighborhood may finally get a farmers’ market [see story, page 4] that can provide all those fresh fruits and locally grown vegetables that we are simply too citified to produce on our own. That we can skip over there carrying our NPR tote bags is a bonus.

In the meantime, we’ll try to make the best of that patch of land behind our house. We find it’s a good spot for the recycling bins and bicycles. The dog seems to like it when he visits two or three times a day. It also works nicely as an exercise yard for our otherwise pent up young ones. But a quiet oasis within the seething city it is not. It’s more like a dirt extension of our back porch. The back porch is more like an open air extension of our cluttered office. There’s even a file cabinet parked out there.

I suppose once sunny afternoons settle in for good around here, I’ll get out there and pick things up a bit.

It’s remarkable what surfaced in the mud once the snow melted: waterlogged NERF balls, half-eaten candy canes, a long-missing left sneaker. All those things should be picked up and put back where they belong — in the shed. We don’t have much use for that either.

BARRY OWENS EDITOR

WRITE THE EDITOR:

We welcome your letters. No subject is out of bounds, so long as it is local. Letters should not exceed 300 words and may be edited for clarity and length.

E-MAIL US: editor@collegehillcommoner.com WRITE US: 337 N. Holyoke, Wichita, KS, 67208 CALL US: 689-8474 ADVERTISE: jessica@collegehillcommoner.com, or 689-8474 THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER VOLUME 4 ISSUE 3 MARCH 2010

Coffee roasted on-site Now open ‘till 5:30 NE corner of Clifton at Douglas freshroastcoffeecompany.com

PUBLISHER

J ESSICA F REY O WENS

EDITOR

B ARRY

OWENS

CONTRIBUTORS

D AVE K NADLER , J EFF R OTH ,

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER

Published monthly by The College Hill Commoner 337 N. Holyoke Wichita, K.S. 67208 316-689-8474 editor@collegehillcommoner.com www.collegehillcommoner.com

OP-ED

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ MARCH 2010

3

There’s a chore over there, and it’s calling

I

n the spring, as Tennyson observed, a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

An older man’s fancy, on the other hand, heavily turns to thoughts of home maintenance. And whether, in the end, it makes a lot of sense to own one’s home.

I go through this phase every spring. It gets warm enough to venture outside, and suddenly all shortcomings DAVE KNADLER the of my house, all the deferred maintenance, all the cracks and quirks and peeling paint, all of it conspires to make me dream of life as a gypsy, traveling from town to town, making a nice living pilfering items from yard sales. Living out of a motor home that looks like a rolling meth lab. No worries, no obligations. And certainly no gutters to clean.

Gutters. That’s the true curse of middle age. Spring or not, this is probably the least-best time in a man’s life to be ascending a shaky ladder for the purpose of mucking out gutters with his bare hands. But somehow it’s the time when such a job begins to seem

But not forever. If I’ve learned important. Part of it is peer pressure.

Around here, you know your neigh- anything in a lifetime of home ownerbors. They can see the detritus mound- ship, it’s that small problems do not ing over the tops of the gutters as well disappear with time. At least I don’t as you can, and it’s somehow worse think they do; I’m still testing the hypothesis here and that they don’t say there. Generally, though, anything.

I walk these Gutters. That’s the I find that small problems neighborhoods every true curse of middle actually tend to get bigday, towed by a timid age. Spring or not, ger, and exponentially pit bull who always this is probably the more expensive to repair.

And if I’ve learned seems to be seeing least-best time in a anything else in a lifethem for the first man’s life to be time of home ownership, time. In the spring, I ascending a shaky it’s this: Every house you look for crocus and move into, you will evenlisten for songbirds, ladder for the but I’m also looking purpose of mucking tually move out of, closely for signs that out gutters with his despite all your earnest intentions. That means certain neighbors bare hands. But you’ll be selling it at have it worse than I somehow it’s the some point. And when do in the home-maintenance arena. I look time when such a you go to sell a house, it’s for gutters that are not job begins to seem always disconcerting to discover how many of just clogged, but bent important. those little undone odd and succumbing to jobs have morphed into gravity. I look for full-scale deal-breakers. cracks in brick walls big enough to fit a fist into. I look for Today’s buyers are picky, insisting on rotting boards and leprous paint. niceties like unwarped doors and winSomehow, these things always make dows that some idiot hasn’t painted my step a little lighter on the way shut. So whether you’re planning a home. Hey, if that Frank Lloyd Wright move or not, you should always be house on Roosevelt still needs a little aware that you will either fix it now or work, I figure I can put off my own fix it later.

Or, too often, pay somebody else to chores awhile longer.

fix it for you. I’ve always felt that along with mortgage insurance, firsttime home buyers should be required to have a license in home repair. Such a system might have kept me from buying a house in the first place, in which case I might now be writing about love instead of home maintenance. Or, if I’d been forced to study for a license, maybe I would have learned how to do things right the first time, instead of through the emotional and expensive method of trial-anderror.

Heed my words, neophyte home buyers: No job is as easy as it looks.

Exterior painting usually requires some scraping and sanding. Fixing a leaky faucet will require at least three trips to the hardware store. When you’re drilling holes in the wall, there will probably be an electrical wire there. When you’re installing a switch, it’s important what wire goes where.

And no matter what the job, a cheap pair of pliers and a crescent wrench will not suffice.

OK? Take it some somebody who’s been there. And now if you’ll excuse me, some clogged gutters are calling my name. If I’m not back next month, somebody call 911.

Writer Dave Knadler lives in Crown Heights.

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THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ MARCH 2010

Cafe to Offer Farm & Art Market in College Hill The deep parking lot behind Dolci & Joes, 3425 E. Douglas, this summer will host a farm and art market on Sundays, says owner Joshua Crowe, below. “We want to start a local farm and art market to kind of support the urban lifestyle, the walking lifestyle that goes on around here,” Crowe says. “We feel it’s a good fit.”

Cafe owner to convert lot to farmers’ market.

Local vendors sought.

BY BARRY OWENS Ask anyone whose ever lived in a major city and moved to a mid-sized one, like Wichita, and they are likely to tell you that it’s not the sprawling metropolis that they miss—it’s the village.

Joshua Crowe, owner of Dolci & Joes, a gourmet sandwich and coffee shop at 3425 E. Douglas, knows a little something about this. He’s from Chicago, which is pretty big. But it’s also small, in the way that urban residents tend to lead their day-to-day lives within a few pedestrian friendly blocks of their home.

For many residents, that’s the attraction of College Hill and Wichita’s inner city as a whole — it still seems possible to live an urban lifestyle within it; the place has not yet been overrun with parking lots.

So it is that Crowe is convinced that College Hill is ready for a weekly openair market, of the sort that you stroll through on a Sunday in the city in search of fresh vegetables, jam or jewelry, or a piece of art that you didn’t know you needed until you saw it.

Late this spring, Crowe says he will open a weekly farm and art market in his parking lot, hosting regional farmers and local vendors. The market will feature locally grown produce, baked goods from Delano Bakery, as well as vendors peddling furniture, art and other items.

Crowe said he welcomes locals interested in a booth to stop in or call the store for more information (613-3515).

“We really want it to be community related,” he said.

Crowe said he can envision 15 to 25 vendors in the parking lot each Sunday,

even if that does mean closing it off to cars.

“We really want to utilize the walking factor,” he said.

The market will be open on Sundays, from about 1 p.m. to dusk, he said. No date has been set, but Crowe said he hopes to start about the time the local schools break for the summer.

The cafe opened last summer and Crowe said he feels welcome in College Hill and wants to give something back

[see the thank you note on the next page].

“We are willing to give up our parking lot as a place to gather as a community for a few hours on Sundays,” he said. “We understand that it is kind of trading off our business on Sundays, but for us to have the opportunity to be involved with our community is much more attractive.”

5

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ MARCH 2010

For Rent? Parkstone Developer Mulls Options

BY BARRY OWENS The area of Douglas and Rutan is hardly the derelict expanse that it once was. But it remains just as desolate.

The old office building is gone, the weedy and empty parking lot behind it removed. In its place, nine colorful new townhouses stand — model homes, unlike any others in the city. They went up almost a year ago. There is new landscaping. A fountain. New streets. Fancy street lights. Sculpture. That section of the old neighborhood hasn’t looked this good in decades. But not a soul lives there, still.

While the concept seems promising at the location — an urban village of townhouses, commercial space, and a residential tower — the development is struggling.

“Parkstone, like other recent residential developments, suffered from the economic downturn through reduced interest in new home buying along with delays in obtaining cash on hand,” developer Mike Loveland said in a statement late last month. “Despite these delays, private funds have now been made available and are being invested in the project.”

Loveland said that more than $1

BARRY OWENS

Completed but empty, a row of townhouses in the Parkstone development await buyers.

Developer Mike Loveland is mulling options, including a rent-to-buy option, to fill the vacancies.

million in new, private financing has been secured for the project which will provide working capital, but also resolve liens on the property.

“We want to assure the community of the health of the development,” Loveland said.

While interest in the condominiums was high, especially last summer as three of the homes were host to the Symphony Showhouse, none of the units, which start at $400,000,

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has sold.

The developer said that he is considering other options to find tenants, including offering shortterm corporate rentals, renting with an option to buy and lower prices for the units that have yet to be built.

He is also bringing on a new sales staff this month and will boost marketing efforts. The sales office is open Thursday through Monday, 15pm.

Originally, Loveland had plans to build about 50 townhouses surrounding a 14-story residential tower. The development would also feature retail and commercial space, including on Douglas.

But that was before the economy went south. Loveland said there are likely to be some changes in the development, though significant changes would have to be approved by the city. He launched the project using $5 million in tax increment financing bonds, which is to be paid back to the city through property taxes generated by the new housing.

In the statement, Loveland sought to assure nearby residents that the development is now on firmer footing, and pointed to improvements that the project has already made to the area.

“Not only is the project stable, but I am especially proud of the immediate impact Parkstone has had on the College Hill neighborhood.

The area, once blighted, has benefited from the removal of blighted houses and the old medical facility in the area, the new lighting, artwork, streets and pocket park in the development, and the renovation of nearby buildings on Douglas as well as Hillside.”

6

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ MARCH 2010

Bass player Steve Sifuentez, left, and guitarist Henry Walker perform last month at Clifton Wine & Jazz. The lounge in Clifton Square is unique in the neighborhood, and the city.

“It’s got a good feel,” says Sifuentez. “And people come in here and they listen. How often does that happen?”

PHOTOS: BARRY OWENS

All That Jazz Clifton Wine & Jazz is no smoky jazz club (until you order the cosmopolitan).

BY BARRY OWENS The charm of Clifton Square is in its unique sense of place. No matter which shop you drop into, or how long you absentmindedly browse, you know you are in the Square.

Expect maybe when you are in this place.

The other night at Clifton Wine & Jazz, the duo in the corner had just struck up “The Girl from Ipanema,” the couple at the next table, well dressed and of a certain age, bopped along. Meanwhile, there was a table full of 20-somethings, not a single one staring into a cell phone, paying rapt attention to the band. The bartender dropped something into a cos-

mopolitan (“magic,” she called it) that made it fizz a little and smoke a lot, and suddenly things were starting to seem right with the world—except that they were happening in the wrong place.

Jazz? Cocktail dresses? Dry ice in the martinis? The old and the young drinking together? Jazz? In Clifton Square? In Wichita, even?

“It’s a real good cultural exercise,” said musician Steve Sifuentez, a bass player. “Wichita needs a place like this. I mean, to have a place that is totally dedicated to jazz ... when was the last time Wichita had that?”

Henry Walker, his guitar accompanist for the night, couldn’t say.

A private lounge in the basement of the club, for VIP members only, features atmospheric lighting, fine furniture and art. The bar offers club memberships.

“25 years, maybe?”

Clifton Square owner Jo Zakas opened the place last summer in hopes of providing such a venue. She was out of town late last month and unavailable for comment, but the bar sort of speaks for itself.

Original art hangs on the wall, there are votive candles on the tables, fresh flowers on the piano in the corner, and jazz three nights a week (it is open Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights).

“I didn’t even know I liked jazz until I started working here,” said head chef Lindsey Barnes. The bar serves appetizers, mostly.

Older patrons Matt Mastroly and Nancy Milner are regulars.

“She’s more of the jazz fan, really,” Mastroly said. “I don’t dislike it.”

“Music is not a big part of our lives,” Milner offered. “We are nightclub people.”

“We’re bar people,” Mastroly said.

“We’re VIP members” said Milner.

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ MARCH 2010

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HISTORY

8

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ MARCH 2010

Aerial view of theMcKnight spread, a once 123 acre tract between College Hill and downtown. McKnight’s battles with the city to keep it intact were legendary.

WICHITA PUBLIC LIBRARY

YOU KIDS GET OFF MY LAWN! The enduring legacy of J. Hudson McKnight, the neighborhood’s original curmugdeon.

BY JEFF A. ROTH

O

wning real estate brings with it a sense of accomplishment and pride; it also brings along the government. So it was for J. Hudson McKnight, the owner of a 123 acre tract between College Hill and downtown on Douglas Avenue. It was there near the winding, wooded Chisholm Creek, that he built a two story limestone home with its castle-like turret and massive porch. He named it “Willowdale Place” for the idyllic scene it occupied. But over time his wealth and private nature aroused jealousy and growing hostility from those, both in the government and the private sector, who wanted a piece of his land for their own purposes. After a quarter century of resistance against annexation, taxation, creek dredging, road pavings and land takings, McKnight would finally succumb to a most unlikely foe, followed by a surprising legacy.

J. Hudson McKnight, originally from Philadelphia, had heard of the

booming success of Wichita in the 1880s. With his father’s blessing he set out to make his fortune in the young town. He created a wholesale cutlery business and proudly imprinted every knife with the words “Wichita, Kansas.”

His venture was successful and he saved and invested wisely. When the ensuing real estate bust left many without savings or cash, McKnight had the wherewithal to buy a well known farm on Douglas east of Hydraulic, the Robert Black farm. Established in 1880, the farm was a landmark in the valley, its large farmhouse visible from the crest of College Hill. However, to settle the debts and estate taxes following Mr. Black’s death the farm had to be auctioned. As a result of the lingering economic recession McKnight was able to buy the farm in 1896 for about a third of its value. His father, having previously learned his own lessons about selling out too cheap, advised his son that success in real estate would come to those who would “stick” with their investment for the long term gain.

J. Hudson married Eva Giltner of Anthony, a gentle woman educated at

The Women’s College of Jacksonville, Illinois. She loved music and the arts.

They had a son George who was born developmentally impaired. George grew up enjoying Willowdale, especially the glass greenhouse full of plants and flowers east of the house and the creek to its south. His yard, surrounded

by Eva’s irises and his father’s elm trees, was to him the loveliest place on earth, as seen through the eyes of a young man perpetually ten years old.

As the new century progressed McKnight watched the growth of the city hop past his farm. In his mind it wasn’t yet time to put it on the market.

Eastward beyond McKnight’s alfalfa fields, real estate was once again booming on College Hill, even growing back westward towards town. Developers complained and groused when McKnight wouldn’t sell any of his land in the gap. A 1910 issue of the Eagle, touting 40 years of growth and progress in Wichita, ran a photo of the then “famous” 123 acre alfalfa farm, stating “many persons” wanted it divided into home sites, inferring such would be appropriate for the sake of “Progress.”

But McKnight continued to stick. That same year he wryly mentioned to a Beacon reporter, perhaps for community shock value, that he had spoken to Booker T. Washington about selling the land for a “Negro college.”

In his own conservative way, McKnight quietly and prudently invested in downtown real estate, stocks and bonds. Shunning modernity he chose not to own a car and refused to wire Willowdale with electricity. Gas lamps were sufficient for reading the stock market reports in front of the fireplace in the den. Although he avoided publicity, he was destined to become a public figure against his will.

His struggles with government began with the proposed paving of Douglas Avenue to College Hill -- high stakes for McKnight as an owner of 1,195 feet of property fronting the avenue. Feeling railroaded he argued that many of the petitioners for the improvement owned no property on Douglas and had no stake in its cost.

This was to become a four year running CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER â?š MARCH 2010

HISTORY

9

YOU KIDS GET OFF MY LAWN! CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

battle with the City of Wichita over procedure, petitions, assessments, injunctions and other attorney fodder. His next trip to court involved a two acre strip of his land that was taken from his eastern border through eminent domain for the opening of Grove Street. On this occasion he sued the City arguing inadequate compensation.

When Chisholm Creek Canal was dredged through the center of his farm the City paid for the right of way but ignored the loss in value caused by cutting one’s farm in two. Again McKnight took the government to court. The jury took the amount the City had initially paid to McKnight and more than doubled it.

The new canal was inadequately draining at its southern end. During the 1907 dredging project Sedgwick County had refused to help the City of Wichita dredge the canal past the city limit, so for a time the new canal was reconnected to the old narrow creek instead of dumping into the larger Arkansas River. It overflowed in 1911 and flooded McKnight’s crops.

McKnight billed the City $1,000 for his crop loss. Soon thereafter bids were taken to extend the canal to the river. He also took on the City for hauling off the dirt piles left over from the canal excavation instead of helping him fill in the former Chisholm Creek. The commissioner of streets replied that the City now owned the right of way, and its spoils.

The City next tried to annex his land into its city limits and tax it as residential property, ignoring his actual use of the land — growing alfalfa. The Kansas Supreme Court had ruled that Wichita could not arbitrarily annex land into its corporate limits where the property hadn’t been platted for residential development. McKnight’s 123 acres was still farm land, absent of homes. Feisty McKnight won another one.

In all these struggles, however, the press was critical of McKnight’s apparent un-civic attitude, running headlines like “Sues to Get out of City� or “Locks Horns with City.� Eagle January 23,

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WICHITA-SEDGWICK COUNTY HISTORICAL MUSEUM

J. Hudson McKnight, whom life-long friend Victor Murdock eulogized with words like nonconformist, concentrated and solitary, â&#x20AC;&#x153;single in interest and single in plan and purpose.â&#x20AC;?

1913, December 22, 1914. Public sentiment would soon turn against McKnight. In an arrangement with honest broker A.A. Hyde, McKnight agreed to sell a large portion of his land east of the new canal to the city for use as a public park. A.A. Hyde wrote a long letter to the Beacon about the value of public parks and argued in favor of the proposition, characterizing it as an opportunity not to be lost. In a colloquial manner of speech Hyde playfully made an analogy to a popular dinner desert, â&#x20AC;&#x153;De time to get tarts is when dere passin.â&#x20AC;? Beacon February 15, 1915. The City Commissioners, rather than agreeing to issue bonds on their own, put the question to a public referendum. On March 29, 1915 the townsfolk spoke loudly: 1113 yea, 8514 nay! The pro-

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posal was thereafter officially declared â&#x20AC;&#x153;lost.â&#x20AC;?

McKnightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s apparent unfriendliness was directed against Wichitaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s citizens, or more specifically, the bad motorcar drivers in town. After almost being run over by a â&#x20AC;&#x153;touring carâ&#x20AC;? at the intersection of Douglas and Topeka, McKnight went to his lawyerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s office and directed that a codicil to his will be drawn up. As drafted it provided that in the event J. Hudson McKnight was ever run down and killed by a motorist, $1,000 was to be spent out of his estate for prosecution of the driver. The February 16, 1917 Beacon declared, â&#x20AC;&#x153;He Warns Motorists in Will.â&#x20AC;?

By 1918 there were folks in the city who were agitated by the events of World War I. They took their patriotism

to an extreme and searched for disloyalty or treason in others. In a regrettable episode in Wichitaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s history a 1,500 person mob was incited to attack Polish Jewish immigrant David Schwartzman who ran a popcorn stand at Douglas and Lawrence (Broadway). Earlier he had refused to buy Liberty Bonds to support the war effort. The Liberty Bond drive was a not-so-voluntary means to â&#x20AC;&#x153;loanâ&#x20AC;? the federal government money for the war. It was administered by local organizations such as the Red Cross and popularized by colorful posters. For Schwartzman it didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t help matters that his name sounded suspiciously German.

He also stood guilty in the mobâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mind for failing to fly an American flag from his popcorn stand. The stand was wrested from him and burned to the ground.

The mob mentality lasted well into the night as they wandered the streets of Wichita. One of the places they visited was J. Hudson McKnightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s.

The following morning Mr. McKnight went to the police station to ask for protection. In lieu of real assistance, McKnight was given a police badge, or so he later reported. He already owned a revolver. In his mind he was either deputized or at least authorized to conceal and carry, 1918style. The following month two â&#x20AC;&#x153;United Commercial Travelersâ&#x20AC;? (insurance salesmen working on commission) called on McKnight at Willowdale.

Their purpose was to secure his commitment to buy Red Cross Liberty Bonds. He was already known to them to be a wealthy financier, and they expected his patriotism to be appropriately demonstrated. When he refused to make as large a â&#x20AC;&#x153;contributionâ&#x20AC;? as they had suggested, things got ugly and he drew his revolver. He was quoted as saying heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d use it â&#x20AC;&#x153;in case of any mob violence.â&#x20AC;? It was all sorted out back at the police station but McKnight ended up in the papers being the wealthy citizen who drew a revolver on Red Cross volunteers. â&#x20AC;&#x153;J. Hudson McKnight Arrested.â&#x20AC;? The next morningâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Eagle read.

There was no sympathy for Mr. CONTINUED ON PAGE 11

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THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ MARCH 2010

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THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ MARCH 2010

YOU KIDS GET OFF MY LAWN! CONTINUED FROM PAGE 9

McKnight the following year when members of the Wichita Board of Education let it be known that they had been quietly eyeing the McKnight tract for a new school. They thought it would make a perfect site for an intermediate school for the east side. The newspaper sarcastically called it “unoccupied except for a good stand of alfalfa.”

Negotiations with McKnight were never given a chance. In the course of a single Board meeting McKnight’s “communication to the Board” was “received and placed on file” and the Board’s attorney was thereafter instructed to draw up a “Resolution for the Condemnation of the McKnight Tract.”

McKnight, having stuck with his property for 23 years, nonetheless indicated he was willing to sell voluntarily.

He let it be known that he felt the land had a value in the range of $300,000.

However, the Board only wanted the 68 acres east of the canal. It proceeded with plans to “appropriate” it, with the District Court’s help. Three appraisers were appointed: a realtor, a shoemaker and an insurance salesman. They determined the tract had a value of $126,070 which the BOE promptly paid into the County Treasury. Legal wrangling over the appraised value would continue into winter but in the meantime the BOE assumed ownership and control over the tract. In a peculiar move they leased a strip of the alfalfa field to the Wichita Aeroplane Service for use as a landing strip for airplane rides. The Board’s attorney was directed to draft an appropriate indemnity agreement protecting the Board from liability – a prescient move after retired army aviator Leslie Petticord developed carburetor trouble on one of his take-offs. A quick banking u-turn above the homes north of Douglas allowed Petticord to crash land his plane back in the school board’s alfalfa field. No injuries were reported.

In a surprise move McKnight finally compromised with the BOE to sell the tract for $150,250, citing physical indisposition on his part. He agreed to drop his litigation against the condemnation action and draw up a deed to the land. After nearly a quarter century of protecting his property…McKnight gave up the fight. Plans for the new school were drawn up by architect Lorentz Schmidt. A name was chosen for the new school: the Theodore Roosevelt Intermediate School. The paper crowed, “The McKnight alfalfa tract is probably the most valuable piece of vacant ground of its size in Wichita today.”

In an interview in 1923 J. Hudson McKnight looked back on his ownership of the old Robert Black farm and conceded that it might have been more prudent to have invested the same value elsewhere, rather than paying ever increasing taxes on the property and having to wait till the end to reap the

JEFF ROTH

Above: A postcard depicting the McKnight Memorial in its original location, between Roosevelt Intermediate School and East High. It was moved in the 1970s to its current location closer to Douglas, as shown at left.

BARRY OWENS

benefit of appreciation. In the interview he echoed, however, the advice that had been given to him years earlier, “…if a young man be industrious and frugal and stick to his real estate and attend strictly to his business he will achieve success within a reasonable time.”

McKnight died two years later. At his service at Willowdale his life-long friend Victor Murdock eulogized him with words like nonconformist, concentrated and solitary, “single in interest and single in plan and purpose.” Eagle August 23, 1925. To give McKnight’s contrary reputation a softer, gentler rendition (after wiring her house for elec-

tricity and buying a REO “Flying Cloud” 5-passenger sedan) Widow Eva McKnight made plans to commemorate her late husband. Her last will and testament made provision first, to provide a trust fund for her son George’s care; second, to commission a statue from a prominent American sculptor commemorating J. Hudson’s memory, to be erected on the school grounds of the former McKnight tract; and third, to leave the remaining McKnight estate to, ironically, J. Hudson’s old nemesis, the City of Wichita, for the building of a fine arts center at its city university, the Municipal University of the City of

Wichita.

These things came to pass after her death in 1928. Following one last grab by the government (the Inheritance Tax Commission in Topeka), the trustees for Eva’s trusts began the final disposition of J. Hudson McKnight’s life’s efforts.

For the statue they picked renowned sculptor A. Phimister Proctor, famous for depicting scenes of the American West, to cast in bronze the scene of a frontier scout and kneeling Indian, causing some to wonder in later years why East High students are the Aces and not the Pioneers, or the Indians. In any event it was named the McKnight Memorial Fountain and dedicated in September of 1931. Adult son George McKnight lived comfortably at Willowdale until his death in 1967.

Thereafter the balance of the McKnight fortune, worth $6 million in today’s dollars, went to build the McKnight Art Center at today’s Wichita State University.

The balance of the McKnight real estate, from the canal to Hydraulic, was platted and populated with single family and multi-family brick homes. The 1890’s Willowdale home, surrounded by its unattended irises, lilies, roses, and dandelions was razed for commercial development in 1969. Old Chisholm Creek, where young George played, is still visible in the gentle swale of McKnight Park, embraced on either side by McKnight Drive and Giltner Circle. Today the three McKnights enjoy eternal rest on the hill at Maple Grove Cemetery, overlooking the town they tussled with starting about a century ago.