A Statue of Liberty in KC? See the Other Proposed Designs for Now Iconic Liberty Memorial

Even before hostilities ended in Europe, the idea of a memorial for the soldiers who fought and died in World War I was popular in Kansas City. As early as Nov. 6, 1918, well-known civic booster Joseph Meinrath penned a letter to The Kansas City Journal titled “Kansas City After the War: What Should Be Done Next?”

On his laundry list of new civic buildings and public amenities delayed by the war, Meinrath included a new art museum, city hall, public drinking fountains, rest places, and “monuments or memorial halls dedicated to the men who have fought and are fighting the battles of the world for us, with appropriate and ample provisions for the relics of these times, to perpetuate their details and ideals.”

The Journal agreed, adding on Nov. 9 that a memorial “must be beautiful and imposing enough not to allow its intrinsic beauty to fall below the cause for which it is meant and to fit into so beautiful a city.”

In the weeks after the Nov. 11 Armistice, local business leaders and prominent citizens formed the Liberty Memorial Association to coordinate fundraising and planning. On the question of what form a memorial should take, opinions were generally divided between an imposing monument and a public “utilitarian” building.

Read the rest of the story at KCHistory.org or on The Kansas City Star website. Plus, access The Kansas City Star articles, both past and present, on the Library website with a Library card.