The Fountains of Kansas City, Kansas / Wyandotte County

Footnotes

1. City of Fountains Foundation — “The Fountains of Kansas City” (fountain index) and the Foundation’s regional galleries, including “Kansas City Metro Area.” https://cityoffountains.org/fountains-of-kansas-city/ and https://cityoffountains.org/kansas-city-metro-area/ — asserts: the Foundation’s complete regional catalogue, organised by region (Country Club Plaza; South Plaza, Brookside & Mission Hills; Midtown; Crossroads; River Market–Downtown–Liberty Memorial; Paseo to Northeast; Northland; KC Zoo, Swope Park and East of 71 Hwy; Nelson-Atkins). The catalogue contains no fountain located in Wyandotte County, Kansas. Its Kansas entries are confined to Johnson County (Mission Hills, Merriam, Prairie Village, Westwood, Westwood Hills). (Read via Firecrawl 2026-07-31.) ↩

2. KCUR 89.3 (Kansas City Public Radio) — “A guide to Kansas City’s hundreds of fountains, from the famous to the obscure,” 2023-04-15. https://www.kcur.org/arts-life/2023-04-15/kansas-city-fountains-guide — asserts: the first public fountains in Kansas City were installed for public hygiene, providing cleaner drinking water for humans, horses and dogs; a few survive, including the Intercity Horse Trough Fountain, “which was moved from its 1904 location in downtown Kansas City, Kansas, to the Wyandotte County Museum in 1967”; the fountain’s lion-face spouts are a motif shared with the Meyer Circle Sea Horse and Observation Park fountains. KCUR links the fountain to the Kansas City Public Library’s item record (see ⁴). (Read via Firecrawl 2026-07-31.) ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

3. KC Parent — “The City of Fountains,” a fountain-by-fountain guide written by a City of Fountains Foundation volunteer. https://kcparent.com/the-city-of-fountains/ — asserts: the Intercity Horse Trough Fountain is “informally known as the ‘First Fountain’”; near the beginning of the 20th century Kansas City’s growing horse population made watering a public-health problem, and the Humane Society of Kansas City concluded flowing water was healthier than the stagnant troughs then scattered around the city; the decorative lion heads give a stream any human can fill a cup from, flowing into an upper basin at horse-drinking height and overflowing into a lower basin for dogs; the fountain has been moved around the area over the years; it is now in the care of the Wyandotte County Museum, and after more than a decade sitting dry, it flows again. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

4. Kansas City Public Library, Missouri Valley Special Collections — item record “Horse Trough Fountain,” https://kchistory.org/image/horse-trough-fountain — identified as: the Library’s catalogue record for the Intercity Horse Trough Fountain, linked by KCUR as the reference for the fountain². The record page is JavaScript-rendered and could not be read directly — an automated fetch returns HTTP 200 but only the Quartex platform shell, and a Firecrawl scrape on 2026-07-31 returned the same. The URL is cited here as a pointer to the record, not as read content. To consult in person: Missouri Valley Special Collections, Central Library, 14 W. 10th St., 5th Floor, Kansas City, MO 64105. ↩ ↩²

5. Wikipedia — “List of fountains in the Kansas City metropolitan area.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fountains_in_the_Kansas_City_metropolitan_area — asserts: that in 1904 the Humane Society of Kansas City in Kansas — established to prevent cruelty to women, children and animals — built a fountain near the west end of Minnesota Avenue at North 3rd Street, with water from spigots in lions’ mouths so people could fill cups, falling into a granite basin at horse-drinking height and overflowing into four street-level pools for dogs, a street light on top; in 1967 the fountain was given to the Wyandotte County Museum; the Humane Society went on to mount more than 100 fountains, including bronze ones for people alone. The article also lists a “Providence Medical Center Fountain” and “Nebraska Furniture Mart II” and “III” among metro fountains. The list is unsourced at the item level; its 1904 narrative cites the City of Fountains Foundation’s “A Brief History of Kansas City Fountains” (now only available via the Internet Archive) and a Kansas City Star city-guide article. ↩ ↩² ↩³

6. Electronic Valley (Derby, Kansas local-history project) — “National Humane Alliance Fountain in Kansas City, KS.” https://electronicvalley.org/derby/Greenway/Fountains/Kansas%20City,KS.htm — asserts, citing the Wyandotte County Historical Society: the Kansas City, Kansas National Humane Alliance fountain “dates back to about 1904”; the city had a large horse population and an epidemic among horses was blamed on stagnant water in the city’s troughs; in 1907 Mayor Cornell advised the city council to accept the National Humane Alliance’s gift and install it at the west end of the Inter-City viaduct between Minnesota and Armstrong Avenues on Fourth Street, the Kansas City Humane Society having worked with the council to obtain it; a lightly attended dedication was held on a Sunday afternoon in June; the fountain was later moved to the tennis courts at 18th and Parallel, and in 1967 the Wyandotte County Historical Society purchased it and moved and restored it at Wyandotte County Park in Bonner Springs; “the fountain no longer works,” though the lion heads and plaque remain along with a newer smaller plaque. This is an amateur local-history site, not an institutional one, but it is the only account that cites the county historical society and gives the acquisition and relocation sequence. Treat as a competing account, not as settled fact. ↩ ↩²

7. City of Fountains Foundation — “Rosedale World War I Memorial Arch.” https://cityoffountains.org/rosedale-world-war-i-memorial-arch/ — asserts: recruits from the Kansas National Guard became the Rainbow Division, making up the 117th Ammunition Train in World War I, the first six companies recruited in Rosedale, Kansas, later part of Kansas City, Kansas; on May 12, 1919 veterans returned to streets decorated in rainbow colours and Hudson Boulevard was renamed Rainbow Boulevard; architect John Leroy Marshall, a Rosedale citizen and one of the first architecture students at the University of Kansas and himself a WWI veteran, designed the arch, influenced by the Arc de Triomphe and more closely resembling the Washington Square Arch; located in Mount Marty Park. The Foundation catalogues it under sculptures and monuments, not fountains — it is the Foundation’s only Wyandotte County entry of any kind. ↩ ↩²

8. Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas — Parks and Recreation: “Parks Directory” https://www.wycokck.org/Departments/Parks-and-Recreation/Parks-directory and “About Parks & Recreation” https://www.wycokck.org/Departments/Parks-and-Recreation/About — asserts: the department’s published inventory of parks, shelters, community centers, pools and trails. No fountain inventory is published, and no fountain is named in the parks directory — checked by site-wide URL mapping of wycokck.org for “fountain” on 2026-07-31, which returned no fountain page. Absence here is evidence about publication, not proof that no KCK fountain exists. ↩ ↩²