SLOVENIAN HISTORY, CULTURE, RELIGION AND HERITAGE Part 4

 

The 1951 Flood

            On July 13, 1951, following months of relentless torrential rain across the Kansas River basin, the Kaw River completely overwhelmed and breached the protective urban levees. The result was an unprecedented wall of water that swallowed the industrial core of the city.

            The 1951 Black Friday Flood was the single most devastating economic blow to Kansas City’s meatpacking district, functioning as the catalyst that permanently broke the city’s status as a top-tier national agricultural powerhouse.

Submersion of the Stockyards

            The floodwaters moved so rapidly that workers who arrived that morning under the assumption the levees would hold were caught completely off guard. Water rushed into the low-lying Central Industrial District (West Bottoms) and neighboring Armourdale, rising nearly 20 feet deep in some areas.

The Livestock Exchange Building, the towering visual anchor of the stockyards, had its entire first floor submerged, with water line marks reaching deep into the second story.  Thousands of cattle and hogs trapped in the stockyard pens drowned or were swept away by the current. The catastrophe worsened when massive fuel and oil storage tanks along Southwest Boulevard broke loose, ruptured, and ignited, sending floating blankets of fire roaring across the water for three days while preventing fire trucks from accessing the area.

Immediate and Long-Term Economic Devastation

            President Harry S. Truman described the disaster as "the greatest loss by water in this nation's history," with total damages exceeding $12 billion in today's money.

            While the packing plants and rail lines eventually scraped away the mud and tried to resume operations, the structural damage to the older, multi-story infrastructure was insurmountable.  The meatpacking giants were already considering leaving aging urban environments due to the rising costs of union labor and the advent of refrigerated trucking. The 1951 flood forced their hand.  Rather than spending millions of dollars to clean and rebuild massive processing plants on an active, hazardous floodplain, companies like Swift, Cudahy, and Armour chose to close down their local facilities entirely over the following years.

            Smaller, localized meat processing operations went under immediately, while the major conglomerates aggressively shifted their operations out to rural, single-story decentralized plants in the Great Plains, closer to the actual cattle feedlots. The Kansas City stockyards never recovered, embarking on a long, slow decline until their official closure in 1991.

Permanent Demographic Scarring

            The damage extended far beyond the economy; the flood permanently erased the working-class neighborhoods built around the plants. In Armourdale and Argentine, houses were ripped clean off their foundations or crushed into piles of debris.

            Tens of thousands of working-class families were permanently displaced. Because the packing houses and adjacent rail yards did not bring back their previous pre-flood employment capacity, a massive percentage of the immigrant and African American labor force never returned to the area. The historic, vibrant ethnic communities that had defined the geography of the West Bottoms for nearly a century were permanently scattered.

Slovenian Catholic Church Life in Kansas City, Kansas

        Catholic Beginnings in Wyandotte

Written by Sister Wilhelmina Berger in Omaha, Nebraska 1934 as her Master’s thesis submitted to The Creighton University for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Department of History.

            The organization of the Catholic Church in Kansas antedates by three years the organization of the territory. On March 25, 1851, the vicariate apostolic of Kansas was formally established by the consecration of Right Reverend John Baptist Miege, S.J. Prior to this event, there were flourishing Catholic missions at St. Mary’s, Kansas, and at Leavenworth. Though no permanent pastor had as yet been assigned to the settlement at the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers, the few Catholics scattered through the district had not been utterly neglected. These were for the most part fur-traders, French or French-Canadian in lineage.

            In 1828 and 1829 the famous Choteau brothers "built some trading houses four or five miles above Wyandotte, on the north side of the river." A few among the Delaware, Shawnee and Wyandotte Indians were Catholic and still practiced their religion. These depended on the occasional ministrations of a priest from Leavenworth or from Independence, Missouri, for the pioneer missionary did not regard territorial limits as impassable barriers. According to his biographer, Father Bernard Donnelly made at least three extended pastoral visits to the Kansas settlement, and the early baptismal records corroborate his statement. A contemporary historian has left us an interesting sketch of this hardy pioneer priest astride his strong-jawed Indian pony, a tall stovepipe hat surmounting his ruddy face, plunging precipitately toward the Kansas frontier, and calling out a wager to the bystanders that his mount would not dislodge the high hat.

            The results, however, of his apostolic labors were not commensurate with the hardships they entailed, for Father Donnelly paints in dark colors the spiritual destitution existing on the Kansas border. The few Catholics he found were almost without exception, cold in their faith and negligent in the practice of their religious duties. Some had married non-Catholics and had joined a Protestant sect. In 1858, Bishop Miege sent his vicar general, Father Theodore Heimann, to the scattered flock at Wyandotte. "He stayed during the month of January,” according to Father Kuhls, "holding services in private houses, principally that of Mother Warren, (now) 412 Minnesota Avenue.” However, the Catholic Directory for 1858 gives "Wyandotte church building attended monthly from Leavenworth.

(Father Theodore Heimann had, in 1864, after a year's labor in the vicariate of Kansas, joined the Carmelites. He was the first novice received into the order in the United States, as well as the first secular priest ordained for the whole state of Kansas.) 

            A little later, March, 1858, Father William Fisch was appointed pastor of Wyandotte. The Catholic Directory of 1859 states that, "Wyandotte, Leavenworth County, is attended by Rev. W. Fisch who also attends Quindaro." The struggling little flock, in the same year that the town of Wyandotte was incorporated, 1858, cleared a small plot of land which bad been donated by Mr. Hiram Northrup, and built a small brick church, 20’ x 40’, on what later became the southwest corner of Ninth Street and Ann Avenue. The parish population increased at a very slow rate and even when Wyandotte attained city rank in January, 1859, only a scant dozen or so of its 1,258 inhabitants professed the Catholic faith. A slightly larger number of parishioners lived at Muncie, a farming community six miles distant. Unbridged ravines, thickly wooded tracts and dense growth of brush and weeds rendered the church almost inaccessible to this portion of the congregation, especially in rainy weather.

            The extreme poverty of the settlers, the scant crops yielded by the virgin soil, and the low prices paid for farm products made it impossible for the parish to support its pastor, hence, toward the end of July, 1858, Father Fisch was transferred to St. Joseph's Church in Leavenworth. He was succeeded by Reverend James McGee, but, unable to secure living expenses he, too, left Wyandotte and returned to his native country, Ireland. Reverend Casper Mueller was the next pastor of St. Mary's. The wild, lawless element of the frontier paid little deference to any authority, civil or spiritual, and Father Mueller, meeting with opposition and even mal-treatment at the hands of a few boisterous parishioners left Wyandotte in disgust and returned east.

            For the next three years the little flock was shepherdless. Father Donnelly, of Independence, occasionally said Mass and administered the sacraments. In May, 1864, Father Heimann before leaving the diocese, came from Leavenworth to minister for the last time to the little group of parishioners he had collected with such care, six years previously. Sorrowfully they bade him farewell with a feeling that months would perhaps elapse before a priest would again stand in their midst. It was not until the following September that Catholic services were again held in the little church but this time the celebrant was a permanent pastor whose tenure would extend beyond the life span of most of the parishioners then in attendance.

Father Anton Kuhls' Arrival

            In September, 1864, the Kansas frontier was threatened with an Indian uprising. General Curtis, with as numerous a detachment as the border could spare, was sent to subdue it. Leaving his troops there in charge of General Blunt, Curtis returned to Fort Leavenworth on the seventeenth of September and learned that General Sterling Price with a Confederate force was marching westward through Missouri. Realizing the danger to Kansas, Curtis recalled Blunt and induced Governor Carney to order out the militia. The governor, alarmed at the threatened invasion and fearful that the national and state elections then in progress might prevent the militia from responding immediately, issued an order on October tenth, placing the state under martial law.

            Just at this time the Carmelite Fathers had taken over the care of St. Joseph's parish in Leavenworth, and its former pastor, Father Anton Kuhls, had been assigned to Wyandotte. Arriving by stage he was unable to see the little building on the southwest corner of Ninth and Ann Streets, hidden as it was in a grove of tall trees. Too impatient to investigate, the driver deposited the passenger with his baggage on the roadside and with an oath expressive of his annoyance, drove on. A kind neighbor, Mrs. Hennessey, helped Father carry his trunk into the little sacristy of the church which was to be his living quarters. Even this had seen no care since the departure of its last occupant three years previous. With maternal solicitude, Mrs. Hennessey lent her new pastor a broom with which to sweep the rectory and church and noticing the utter lack of bedding contributed also a blanket.

            Not all his fellow citizens were so kindly disposed toward the young priest. One, an Englishman, John Kane, reported the recent arrival to the military authorities and Father KuhIs was ordered to report for army service on the following morning. A visit to the Provost Marshal, Charles Click, procured for Father an appointment as camp chaplain, with a passport to visit the lines whenever he desired.

            The next day the new pastor was called to the bedside of a sick parishioner, Mrs. Bright, who lived at the old Shawnee Mission, six miles west of town. The trip had to be made on foot as there was neither horse nor conveyance provided by the parish. Challenged by a band of militia under Captain Hall, Father was detained for questioning but was released on the identification of Mr. James Collins who convinced the captain that the clerical garb was not a disguise assumed by a Confederate spy.

            The little town of Wyandotte had at this time about three hundred families, the greater number of whom were Wyandotte Indians. The few whites scattered throughout the county, about six hundred in number, were even more debauched than their red brothers. The majority of St. Mary's congregation--about thirty families--lived at Muncie; the remainder, about seven families dwelt at Wyandotte. During the first year of Father Kuhls' pastorate six of his parishioners died in drunken brawls and many suffered broken bones in stormy altercations induced by intoxicants.  Moral conditions were such that Father Kuhls declared: "I could find no parallel in Gury, Lehmkuhl or Sabetti" . . . Some could not be put on paper . . . There were cases that would have baffled a Roman doctor." Father Kuhls' sermons in those days were mainly on the evils of intemperance, dancing and card playing; the latter term commonly implied gambling.

            The little congregation had not increased in wealth since the times of Fathers Fisch and McGee, hence Father Kuhls for two years continued to reside in the sacristy, managing his own household and living as he himself said, "on a simple diet of bread and coffee.”  After his second Mass on Sunday, he used to ride to the home of Martin Stewart, a gardener, who lived at what is now the corner of Tenth and Quindaro Boulevard. Good motherly Mrs. Stewart insisted on his having a substantial Sunday dinner.

            The town was expanding to the west and north, tending to leave the little church isolated in its wooded surroundings. There were scarcely any streets, only footpaths and trails, and these over virgin prairie became impassable after heavy rains. Ravines were unbridged and travelers scrambled through them as "best they could. To traverse them by night was a dangerous feat, and a nocturnal sick call involved much hazard. Desiring a new location nearer the center of the parish settlement and in a cleared section, Father Kuhls sought and obtained from Mr. Hiram Northup, donor of the church site, permission to dispose of it. An exchange was made with Mr. James Hennessey for a lot on Walnut Street in Kansas City, Missouri.

            Later the sale of this lot for seventeen hundred dollars provided a substantial fund for a new church. In 1865 a three-acre tract was purchased for eight hundred dollars in gold, the first land sold of the allotment of Mathias Splitlog, a Catholic and a native of a Canadian tribe, but a Wyandotte by adoption. This tract extended north and west from what is now the corner of Fifth and Ann, the present site of St. Mary's Church. To secure funds for the building the pastor traveled through the East collecting in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Seventeen hundred dollars was raised by this means.  A year later an acre was sold from the parish site for $1,400. The new church was begun.

The contract was given to Mr. Isaiah Walker, a brother of the first governor of Kansas Territory. The brick was burned on the church grounds. During the construction of the church a thief entered the rectory and took $1,700, the proceeds of the eastern trip. The loss of this sum was a staggering blow to Father Kuhls but when he announced the bad news to his congregation on the Sunday following, a subscription list was immediately started which pledged eight hundred dollars toward the building fund. At the head of the list stood the name of Patrick Doran, who gave a twenty-dollar gold piece, his month’s wage and all the money he had at that time.  A picnic held in the wood where the Fowler Packing Plant now stands netted a thousand dollars and enabled the structure to be completed.

            In September, 1866 the new St. Mary's was dedicated by the Vicar Apostolic, John Baptist Miege, S.J.

The Formation of New Parishes

            The Catholic population was increasing rapidly. Many Germans from older settlements in Pennsylvania and Kentucky were induced by Father Kuhls to make their home in Wyandotte. Irish immigrants, too, began to arrive. Some of the new comers took up homesteads in the more remote districts of the county; others swelled the population of the little town. Veterans of the Civil War migrated to Kansas in numbers from both eastern and southern states. Many among the new comers were Catholic and soon other parishes had to be formed. In 1869 the Catholics of Shawnee built a little church and were given a resident pastor. Father John Pichler.  In the same year Olathe was detached from St. Mary's and added to Shawnee, or Shawneetown, as it was then commonly called.

            In 1878 Father Joseph Wichman organized the twenty-five Catholic families of the section later forming the city of Rosedale, into Holy Name Parish. There being no suitable public building in the locality large enough to hold the congregation, services were at first held at the John Fitzgerald home, and at infrequent intervals. No resident pastor was assigned and the parish was left under the care of the pastors of Shawnee until 1899.  A small frame building had been erected near Turkey Creek in 1880 but it was destroyed by fire in 1881. However, the present stone structure on Kansas Avenue had already at that time been completed and was ready for use.

            In 1879 with but '’five poor families living in the woods,” Father Francis Hayden began to hold services regularly in the old Council Chamber on James Street.  The opening of the Fowler Packing Plant in 1881 effected a rapid increase of population in this district and on March 21, 1881 the foundation of St. Brigid’s Church was begun.  Upon this was erected a two-story frame building, the upper portion of which was to serve as a church, the lower as parish school and living quarters for the pastor.  The new parish included within its boundaries Horaniff, Argentine, and Armourdale.

            The Armourdale district grew rapidly after the establishment of the Armour Packing Plant in 1881 the number of Catholics in that section warranted the formation of the St. Thomas Parish. Services were conducted by Reverend Thomas Moore, D.D. in the John Beaton building at the southeast corner of Third Street and Kansas Avenue. Shortly after the city of Armourdale was platted in 1883, Father Moore purchased of the townsite company, nine lots located at the corner of Shawnee Avenue and old Fourteenth Street facing Shawnee Park. Soon after its organization the parish center was removed to Pyle Street and Shawnee Avenue, its present location.  A combination church and school building was built, a small two-story wooden structure, 33' x 66', which met all the requirements of St. Thomas' thirty families.

            In 1884 the Sisters of St. Joseph, whose mother house was then at Abilene, opened school with thirty-five pupils. In 1894 the attendance had risen to 180, necessitating the remodeling of the old church building for classrooms. 

            The establishment of the silver smelters led to the formation of the Argentine City and the location of the shops and yards of the Santa Fe Railroad increased the population.  Previous to these events there were but a few Catholic families in this locality and the nearest church where services were held with any degree of regularity was Shawneetown, in Johnson County. In 1882 Rev. Francis M. Hayden, then stationed at St. Brigid's began to make regular visits to Argentine. The first Mass in that district was celebrated at the home of Charles Danzenroth, a modest log cabin west of the present town.  The residences of Minty Enright and John Fitzgerald and the public school building were also used as occasion demanded. When Very Rev. Thomas Moore, D.D., established the parish of St. Thomas in Armourdale, the care of the little flock at Argentine was placed in his hands.

            Ground for the erection of a church was generously donated by Mr. John Connors and on it Father Moore in 1884 built the first church and, as a compliment to its benefactor, called it St. John the Evangelist.  It was an unpretentious frame structure, 28' x 50', one-story high, costing $1,000. The rapid growth of his own parish multiplied Father Moore's duties and Father Joseph Hardis of Eudora took charge of the Argentine congregation, visiting it on Sundays of the month. It was not until July 1886 that St. John's had a resident pastor.  At that time Rev. Robert Loehrer was appointed. During the three years of his pastorate the parish population increased from eighty to a hundred twenty families, necessitating increased church facilities. The foundation of the new edifice of stone 52' x 110' in dimensions was begun in 1890. The older structure, which during Father Loehrer's time had been lengthened thirty feet, was then used for a parish school under the tutelage of the Sisters of St. Joseph.

Catholic Schools

            If the youth of Wyandotte were to be preserved from the moral depravity of the frontier they had to be brought under religious influence and safeguarded from evil environment, hence Father Kuhls urged the necessity of a Catholic school. In October 1866, just a week after its dedication, the new church became also a classroom.  A board partition placed behind the altar changed the little sacristy into the first Catholic school in the county.  Thirty-five pupils, some of whom were Catholics, were enrolled. Miss Kate Dietz, who had recently come from Fryburg, Pennsylvania, was the first teacher, and for three years she continued her work at St. Mary's School.  In September, 1870, three Sisters of Charity from Leavenworth took up her task and the school entered upon a period of rapid development. A new school building west of the Church was erected and the newly built parochial residence was used as living quarters for the Sisters. The pastor moved into the little room previously used for school purposes which adjoined the church on the south.

            From its inception Catholic education has been popular with the people of Wyandotte. Each parish was eager to maintain a school and gladly took upon itself the burden of erecting additional buildings for school and Sisters’ residences, often at great sacrifices. From humble beginnings the work took on greater proportions and became better organized. In 1887 a diocesan school board was appointed to bring about greater uniformity in text-books, curricula, examination and certification of teachers. Annual examinations in all grades took place in Wyandotte as in all other parts of the diocese.

            For many years the pupils who completed the grades in the parish schools were obliged to enter the public high school if they wished to continue their studies. Children, whose parents could not afford to send them to the Catholic boarding schools were deprived of higher Catholic education.

            To remedy this condition, a ninth grade was opened at St. Peter's School in 1908 with an enrollment of 34 and each year thereafter a higher grade was added until in 1911 a full high school course, academic and commercial, was in operation.  The quarters at St. Peter's had, however, become inadequate and in 1912 a new building was erected on Sandusky between Twelfth and Thirteenth Streets.

            The attendance increased rapidly and for several years prior to 1927 such crowded conditions existed that many students had to be refused admittance.  In 1927 ground was broken at Eighteenth and Ann for a new high school and in November, 1930 the Ward High School opened its doors.  Fully accredited to the State University, it meets also the requirements of the North Central Association.  From 8 graduates in 1912 to 93 in 1933 and from a student body of 34 in 1908 to 563 in 1933 is an epitome of the history of the Catholic High School.

            Not all our Catholic children, however attend our parish schools. Despite the best efforts of the pastors and Sisters, a considerable number of Catholic children, especially those of foreign parentage, attend the public school.

            In 1924 the Catholic Women's Social Welfare Club, an organization now affiliated with the National Council of Catholic Women, undertook the task of giving religious instruction to the Catholic children not attending the parish schools.

            Besides this educational work for the children, the Catholic Social Welfare Club clothes and feeds many destitute families, secures medical attention when it is needed, distributes Catholic literature and looks after orphans and delinquent children. Vocation schools, too, are conducted in which not only Christian Doctrine is taught but sewing and housekeeping classes are held for the girls and wood carving and tool work for the boys.  Both vacation schools and weekday religious classes have increased in number and enrollment with each advancing year.

Foreign Language Parishes

            During the last quarter of the nineteenth century many Germans established themselves in Kansas City. Until 1886 these attended St. Mary's Church but in 1886 they petitioned Rt. Rev. Louis M. Fink, O.S.B., Bishop of Leavenworth, to allow them to form a parish of their own in which the German language would be spoken.  The bishop granted their request and entrusted to the Franciscan Fathers of the Cincinnati Province, the formation of the new parish.

            In April, 1886 a site was purchased on the southeast corner of Seventh Street and Barnett Avenue.  On July 6, Rev. Father Guido Stallo, O.F.M., the first pastor, arrived. Excavations for the new church began immediately and the work of building was carried on rapidly. In November, the new edifice was ready for occupancy. It was a two-story structure, the upper portion serving as chapel, the lower as school and pastoral residence.  The new parish was dedicated to St. Anthony of Padua.

            The congregation rapidly outgrew these quarters and in 1889 the foundation of a larger edifice was begun.  The business depression of 1890, however, caused building operations to cease and for sixteen years the congregation used the basement for divine worship. On July 3, 1904 the cornerstone of the new church was laid and on October 7, 1906 it was solemnly dedicated and ready for use.

            The old structure then served for a parish school. The Benedictine Sisters conducted classes since September 8, 1886 in a small building near the church until in 1895 the spacious school building on Tauromee was erected.    

            In 1887 the Polish Catholics were sufficiently numerous to form a separate congregation. Accordingly, Rev. Peter Klos organized the thirty-five families into St. Joseph's Parish.  A small frame church was erected in 1888 at 809 Vermont.  About fifty-five students enrolled under the tutelage of Mr. Cyprelski.

            While primarily a church for Polish people, St. Joseph's was attended by Croatians, Lithuanians and various other Slavic peoples. Racial jealousies ran high at times and culminated on March 19, 1902 with the burning of St. Joseph's. Out of this event grew a series of national churches.

            In 1902 the Croatians asked for a priest of their own nationality. They had two years previously organized their own racial group into a district parish unit. Bishop Pink wrote, therefore, to Bishop Senj, in Croatia, and asked for a pastor to care for the parish of St. John the Baptist. Bishop Senj recommended a young and progress priest who had been educated at Innsbruck and who had had a successful pastorate of ten years in Croatia. The young priest chosen for this task was Father Martin Davorin Krmpotic who was to be a tower of strength to the Church in Kansas City and whose influence among the foreign language parishes was to parallel that of Father Kuhls among the English-speaking Catholics. In 1906 he opened a parish school, but that did not solve the problem of caring for the orphans and children whose mothers were employed during the day.  In 1919 Father Krmpotic built an orphanage on the parish property, and organized a religious community to care for both institutions. A day nursery was added to accommodate the large number of mothers whom necessity compelled to labor in the packing houses.  His community was later affiliated with the Sisters of St. Francis of the Third Order, a Croatian community whose motherhouse is in Lamont, Illinois. Twenty of these sisters now staff St. John the Baptist School, the largest in the city, and the orphanage which cares for seventy-five children.

            Father Krmpotic was not only a zealous pastor but a pioneer in social service and Americanization work and an enthusiastic promoter of any project that would contribute to the physical wellbeing of his parishioners. In 1925 he built a parish hall in which the young members of St. John's might conduct their recreational, social and athletic functions amid wholesome surroundings. So well did he succeed in holding his young people within parish boundaries that a new school had to be built in 1928 which now boasts an enrollment of 650.

            Realizing that good citizenship goes hand-in-hand with religion Father Krmpotic—he had been made Monsignor by the Holy Father in 1919 and a little later protonotary apostolic—urged his people to become citizens of their adopted country, and he, himself for many years conducted citizenship classes. To further this work he translated into Croatian, James Bryce's "American Commonwealth."

            Another group from southern Europe had arrived in Kansas City in 1895. About forty families of Slovenes had migrated from Carniola, a province of the old Austro-Hungarian empire.  Frugal and industrious, they soon accumulated from their wages at the packing houses enough to purchase homes. These were not so far from the neighboring churches of St. Anthony, St. Joseph and St. John the Baptist, and the little group attended Mass at any one of these three parishes.  Only occasionally did a Slavonian priest visit Kansas City and afford them an opportunity to go to confession and hear a sermon in their own tongue.  

(This is the end of the extract from Sister Wilhelmina Berger’s thesis)