Visitors can storm the fort

at Leavenworth

but not the prison

by Tom Uhlenbrock, St. Louis Post-Dispatch Date: 8/5/01
This story was published in Travel & Leisure on Sunday, August 5, 2001.
 

U.S. Penitentiary (left) and U.S. Disciplinary Barracks (right)

The Bird Man of Leavenworth?  The U.S. Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas has had its share of infamous residents, including Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly and Robert Stroud. In fact, Stroud first started working with birds while at Leavenworth but got his nickname as the Bird Man after he was caught making prison hooch and was shipped to Alcatraz.

The prison is closed to tourists; "You must be indicted to be invited" is the motto. But if you're traveling to Weston, Mo., side trips to neighboring Parkville and across the river to Leavenworth, the oldest town in Kansas, are worth the time.

Parkville is 20 miles south of Weston on a bend of the Missouri River just northwest of Kansas City. The town is named for Col. George S. Park, who founded it in 1838 and who also is the namesake for Park College. The college's stately Mackay Hall towers over the trees on a hillside overlooking the restored historic district.

Unlike Weston, the Missouri River did not abandon Parkville. The town has several miles of recreational trail amid century-old cottonwood and oak trees at English Landing, a riverside park.

Because it is a Kansas City suburb, Parkville's eclectic mix of shops and restaurants makes it a popular destination for city residents. One of the metropolitan area's hottest new spots is Piropos, an Argentinean restaurant perched on a vantage point above Parkville.

The town of Leavenworth is a short drive across the river. Tourists are welcomed at another federal institution, Fort Leavenworth. The fort was founded in 1827 by Col.  Henry Leavenworth, who had been sent from Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis to establish a fort on the western frontier to escort wagon trains on the Oregon and Santa Fe trails.

The fort always has been a training ground for the Army's officers. Generals George Custer, William Sherman and Robert E. Lee were stationed at Fort Leavenworth, as were Douglas MacArthur, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar Bradley and Colin Powell.

While he was at Leavenworth, Powell helped establish a monument to the Buffalo Soldiers, the black members of the 9th and 10th Cavalry regiments. Push the button on the display next to the monument, and it is Powell's voice explaining its story.

The Frontier Army Museum on the grounds is free and full of sabers, carbines, howitzers, Gatling guns and other military paraphernalia. You can touch a gun that Ulysses S. Grant carried and a carriage used by an Illinois politician named Abraham Lincoln.

The fort also is full of architectural treasures, with buildings dating to the 1830s lining its landscaped drives. Memorial Chapel was built in 1878, and its interior walls are hung with plaques commemorating military men who served at the fort and died in action, from the Battle of the Little Big Horn to Vietnam.

The fort has a military cemetery, with markers covering the rolling hills. The graves are for soldiers who served in America's battles, from the War of 1812 through Desert Storm.

There also is a cemetery for soldiers who died at the fort while in the  U.S. Disciplinary Barracks, an ominous-looking rock structure built in 1875. At the rear of the graveyard for the dishonored are markers for seven German submariners who were hanged at the end of World War II.

Fort Leavenworth is a self-contained city for soldiers and their families. There is a hospital, movie theater, bowling alley and school system, with three elementary schools  and Gen. George S. Patton Junior High.

Just down the road from the fort is the U.S. Penitentiary, which received its first prisoner in 1903. With walls 35 feet high - and 35 feet deep to discourage tunneling out the prison boasts that every inmate who escaped was brought back dead or alive. Except one, who was finally arrested for hunting moose without a license in Canada but deemed too old for extradition.

The penitentiary has a silver dome and was designed by James B. Eads, the engineer who built the Eads Bridge in St. Louis. Visitors are not even welcome on the circular drive in front. According to the visitors guide, "This magnificent structure can be viewed and photographed from a distance - across the street."

 

For more information contact:   
Leavenworth Convention & Visitors Bureau
Connie Hachenberg, Director
518 Shawnee, P.O. Box 44
Leavenworth, Kansas 66048
Phone: (913) 682-4113  FAX: (913) 682-8170 
E-mail your special requests

Revised: 08/23/05.