The Oldest Fountain in The City of Fountains

As someone who often rambles on and on about KC’s fountains, I have often been asked, “What or where is the oldest fountain in Kansas City?” That is a great question, and one that is subject to some debate. I’ll discuss a few of them and you will see what I mean.

If you have never visited the Nelson-Atkins Museum this is your excuse. Similar to the KC street car it's always free while there make sure you go by the Rozelle Court. They have a nice little café there that has great key lime pie and lots of other delightful food and drink. In the courtyard, while you enjoy a treat, you will hear and see a large marble pedestal type fountain. The enormous eight-foot marble bowl weighs in at almost four tons and was brought from Italy in 1930. The bowl, which has been dated back to 220 AD, is around 1800 years old and is said to have come from one of the Imperial Baths in Rome. Probably the Baths of Caracalla or perhaps the Baths of Diocletian and would have been used to cleanse the athletes of the arena. The bowl was brought to Kansas City and a fountain was designed by Thomas Wight of Wight & Wight, the designers of the Nelson Atkins Museum and many other historic KC buildings. The fountain was installed in 1933 in the grassy open-air Rozelle Courtyard in time for the opening of the museum. This could be considered the oldest, but it's not really a "Kansas City" fountain.

Kansas City in the 1880’s was a dusty town full of people, horses and dogs. People began to realize the animals need fresh clean water and utilitarian fountains began appearing to provide flowing water for them. Most of these fountains have long since disappeared. Kansas City’s first fountain, erected by the parks department, was located at 15th and The Paseo. Turned on June 14, 1899 the five basin fountain was plagued by gremlins from the start. Instead of a plume of water gushing up majestically the water simply flowed over the different basins in a lazy sort of way creating a less than impressive display. Several repairs and fixes over the next few years failed to make things better. By 1903 the fountain was turned off and sat completely dry until 1908. The Parks Department remodeled the fountain, removing the upper basins and installing new spray pipes which made continual operation of the fountain possible again. After a partial collapse the fountain was finally razed by 1942 and has now been replaced with several tons of soil and a beautiful flower bed.

So where is the oldest working fountain in Kansas City, Missouri? If you head down to Ninth and The Paseo, you’ll see the second fountain built by the KC Parks Dept. This fountain, originally known as the Ninth Street Fountain, was designed by John Van Brunt & George Kessler and also installed in 1899. By the 1950’s it had gone idle due to disuse. Partially restored in 1970 the fountain began operating again. In 1989 The Central Exchange of Kansas City, a social services organization, raised funds to continue with the restoration and changed the name of the fountain to The Women's Leadership Fountain. Finally in 2003 the long-awaited restoration was completed.

The Ninth Street fountain was there at the birth of George Kessler’s beautiful Parks and Boulevard system and at the beginning of Kansas City’s obsession with beautiful decorative fountains. While not the first, it is the earliest remaining fountain in the city making it, in my humble opinion, Kansas City’s oldest fountain.