History Abounds in Shawnee

As longtime Shawnee Parks and Recreation director Neil Holman sees it, a city knows it has a rich and storied history when it’s a “history worth talking about.”

That explains why visitors to Shawnee, as well as residents, can gaze upon an abundance of statues and historical markers throughout the city, in particular when they head in from the east on Shawnee Mission Parkway and travel north on Nieman Road between the parkway and Johnson Drive.

“Shawnee’s the oldest city in Johnson County and the first capital of the Kansas Territory,” Holman says. “The city’s history is something to be proud of.”

Indeed, while the history of Shawnee began in the early 18th century, it was during the late 19th and early 20th centuries when the town grew to importance as a stop-over and popular restocking location for pioneers headed west. More than 600 wagons a week rolled through the area, many headed to Santa Fe, New Mexico, on the Santa Fe Trail, one of four major trails that intersected in the area (including the Oregon Trail, California Road, and the Leavenworth Military Road).

The natural springs in Shawnee made it a good stop for travelers to water horses and led to the original naming of the town as Gum Springs in 1856. Soon after, the town’s name was changed to Shawneetown and later shortened to Shawnee, in reference to the Shawnee American Indian tribe.

By the 1920s, Shawnee became known as a center for truck farmers, who distributed goods from Kansas throughout the country.

“That enabled Shawnee to weather the Great Depression,” says Charles Pautler, museum director at Shawnee Town 1929.

Much of the town’s history is recorded on plaques, landmarks, tombstones, buildings, and statues. Many of these displays can be observed with just a couple of turns—entering Shawnee from Merriam, heading west on Shawnee Mission Parkway, turning right onto Nieman, and taking a left onto Johnson Drive—and driving past City Hall and toward Shawnee Town 1929.

Here’s some of what visitors can see, starting from the eastern entrance to town.

The centerpiece of the park comprises two large sculptures designed by local artist Charles Goslin, who’s responsible for much of the artwork throughout Shawnee. The first is a high-relief sculpture—60 feet long, 12 feet high, and 8 feet deep and molded in concrete and bronze—of a wagon train led by two bronze oxen and a pioneer woman walking alongside. The other is a limestone and bronze statue of Dick Williams, a Shawnee wagon master who led freight trains along the Santa Fe Trail. Just to the west of the wagon train mural are five signs—a trail map, and information about Williams and the four trails that converged at the crossing. The park was dedicated in September 2007 to commemorate the Shawnee Sesquicentennial in 2006.

Scheduled to be erected later this year, about a quarter mile west of Pioneer Crossing Park, is a statue of legendary frontiersman Wild Bill Hickok, who owned land in the mid-19th century in what now is western Shawnee. The Hickok statue will symbolize the pioneers moving west from Pioneer Crossing. The display will also include informational landmark signs about Hickok and for the Star Blacksmith Shop and Williams’ old house, which was located at Shawnee Mission Parkway and Nieman before being demolished in 1959.

A right turn quickly takes you to a landmark placard for Star Blacksmith Shop, at 6134 Nieman. Jeremiah King operated the shop on a branch of the Santa Fe Trail and served military freighters, immigrants, soldiers, Native Americans, and townspeople, shoeing horses and oxen and repairing wagons and farm equipment.

A couple blocks north and east on Nieman takes you to the territorial governor’s mansion. When the Kansas territory opened for settlement in 1854, Shawnee became its first capital. Andrew H. Reeder was the first governor.

One block north of that sits what’s left of the Shawnee Indian Cemetery. Today, there is just one-half acre with a few gravestones remaining. But a prominent one sits in the back corner—a five-foot-tall gravestone of Chief Joseph Parks, the first elected chief of the Shawnee. The cemetery also is known as Bluejacket Cemetery, named after Chief Charles Bluejacket, the last great Shawnee chief and a Methodist minister.

A half block north of the cemetery site sits the Gum Springs Historical Marker, which indicates the location of the spring that provided water for early settlers. Legend has it that the area was so swampy from spring waters that logs of gum trees were laid to facilitate the approach to the spring, and those logs were said to sweeten the water.

Heading west and crossing in front of City Hall on Johnson Drive, you’ll find a historical marker, which commemorates the October 17, 1862, raid on Shawnee by Quantrill’s Raiders in which 13 buildings were burned to the ground and two men were killed. This raid occurred just six weeks after Quantrill’s raid on Olathe and a few months before Lawrence was raided and burned.

A couple blocks west take you to Herman Laird Park, Shawnee Town 1929, and the “Taking Time” tribute statue to Chief Charles Bluejacket, also created by Goslin. Chief Bluejacket, who moved to Shawnee from Ohio in 1832, enriched the area as a farmer, Shawnee tribal chief, military captain, and minister. He was also a respected father, and the large bronze statue shows him holding two small children.

Inside the visitors’ center at Shawnee Town 1929 is a statue and plaque commemorating “The Vanishing Farmer.”

Yet another Goslin creation is the Blackfish Monument, a medicine wheel-shaped stone structure that celebrates Blackfish, a Shawnee chief who owned much of the land in the western part of town. It sits at the intersection of Blackfish Parkway and Pflumm Road.

Finally, we mustn’t forget the Hands of Freedom monument in Veterans Tribute Park, at Johnson Drive and Pflumm. Twin granite obelisks reach upward and hold a bronze globe symbolizing American military efforts to preserve freedom. The monument is surrounded by granite benches dedicated to fallen military heroes.

“Shawnee has such a rich history,” Pautler says. “We don’t know where we’re going until we study the past. It’s not just black and white, but a lot of different colors. It’s important to take stock of who we are.

“These recent times have been challenging times. But history is always there.”

13817 Johnson Drive

913-631-5200

CityOfShawnee.org/departments/parks_recreation

11501 W. 57th St.

913-248-2360

ShawneeTown.org