Terry Asplund is a longtime resident of Kansas City, and he spoke with the Missouri on Mic team at the Central Missouri Renaissance Festival in October.
He spoke about the history of Kansas City, and about why he hopes younger generations learn that history and keep the city’s legacy alive.
Missouri on Mic is an oral history and journalism project documenting stories from around the state in its 200th year.
Terry Asplund: My grandfather Asplund moved here in 1906 in a covered wagon from Quincy, Illinois – where my dad was born in 1903. He was the youngest son out of 15 boys and two girls. My grandfather, if he was alive today, would be 165, I believe. Dad would be 119 right now, and I'm the baby of his family.
So, we've been around for a while in Missouri – mainly Kansas City, and as far as Kansas City, it's kind of a neat place to live, I mean, you can get anything you want in Kansas City as far as living style.
If you want a waterfront, okay, there's lakes around. You want to go snow skiing, oh! Western Missouri, has snow skiing, and you want to go to the beach? Okay, we have beaches. We just don't have ocean. We also don't have hurricanes, though. We got tornadoes, okay, but the nearest tornado to Kansas City has been at least 15 miles away. So, yeah…
I hated history in high school for some reason. As I got older, it just kind of clicked in and went, “Oh, okay. This is something maybe I should know or should learn.”
"We also were the scene of the eighth largest battle of the Civil War, better known as the “Battle of the West” or “Battle of Westport.” On the battlefield, and the four battles that led up to it, 44,000 men died the month of October 1864."
We were middle of the country. We had the second largest stock yard in the country. So, there's that going for us. Westport, which was the last civilization before you went out on the three trails.
A lot of people don't realize it was the oldest part of Kansas City and the oldest standing building, better known as Kelly's bar, originally, it was Arthur G. Boone, son of Daniel Boone’s, trading post built in 1836. It's the oldest standing building. It burnt down in 1849. Rebuilt 1850.
Westport Road is the three trails of Santa Fe, California, Oregon trails. That's why it runs perpendicular to anything else in Kansas City.
We also were the scene of the eighth largest battle of the Civil War, better known as the “Battle of the West” or “Battle of Westport.” On the battlefield, and the four battles that led up to it, 44,000 men died the month of October 1864.
And from what I've gathered, that isn't even hardly taught anymore. It was the eighth largest battle, and the largest one this side of the Mississippi.
So yeah, I would hope that people are proud of their state and help preserve the history because too much of it is getting bulldozed. Too much of it is getting forgotten, like the Battle of Westport. It's already out of the history books.
And that shouldn't be, because, as General Patton put it, “if we do not learn from history, we're doomed to repeat it,” and I see that kind of happening on some levels, and it's like, we need to stop that.
Start learning your history. Keep it alive because it's what makes you. If you don't have your history, you have nothing.
