The Mermaid Fountain (Plaza)

The Mermaid Fountain stands at the southeast corner of Broadway Boulevard and Nichols Road on the Country Club Plaza. Two white marble mermaids, acquired in Italy by the J.C. Nichols Company and reportedly more than three hundred years old, sit on the edge of a large trefoil-shaped pool, each blowing a conch shell from which water issues.¹ The mermaids were first installed in 1930 on a rectangular pool; the present trefoil pool replaced it in 1968.¹

History

[!note] Correction — date, material, count and location were all wrong This page previously described a single cast bronze mermaid “installed in approximately 1950,” weathered “to a distinctive verdigris green,” located “near the 47th Street / Wyandotte area.” The City of Fountains Foundation records two white marble mermaids, originally installed in 1930, at the southeast corner of Broadway Boulevard and Nichols Road (4747 Broadway Boulevard).¹ All four claims are corrected in the body below as of 2026-07-31; the frontmatter still carries the bronze description and is flagged in Open Questions.

The mermaids were acquired in Italy by the J.C. Nichols Company and are reportedly more than 300 years old — which, if so, makes them among the oldest objects in the Plaza collection.¹ The Foundation reports the age without endorsing it (“reportedly”), and no consulted source names a carver: the Foundation’s Designer/Artist field for this fountain is blank.¹

The white marble mermaids were originally installed on a rectangular pool in 1930. In 1968 the current trefoil-shaped pool replaced the rectangular one, and at the same time a small bronze sculpture of a kneeling child, known as “A Morning Prayer” and by an unknown artist, was added at the centre of the pool’s fountain ring.¹

Architecture + materials

A large trefoil-shaped pool with two mermaids perched on its edge, both blowing into conch shells with a stream of water issuing from each. In the middle of the pool is a fountain ring, at the centre of which is the small bronze kneeling child, “A Morning Prayer.”¹ The mermaids themselves are white marble; only the central child figure is bronze.¹

Current status

Operating, with seasonal off-period in winter. Owner of record is Country Club Plaza KC Partners, LLC.¹

Cultural significance

The Mermaid Fountain is one of the seventeen fountains in the City of Fountains Foundation’s Country Club Plaza inventory.² Claims that it is among the most-photographed of the Plaza’s smaller fountains, that generations have posed at it, and that it frequently appears in social media are unsourced.

The fountain sits within the broader Plaza fountain ecosystem. The Foundation’s Plaza gallery lists seventeen fountains, including the Mill Creek Park Fountain (formerly the J.C. Nichols Memorial Fountain) and the Boy and Frog Fountain.² The Pomerene Memorial Fountain, previously named here as part of the Plaza cluster, does not appear in the Foundation’s Plaza inventory.

Visiting

• Address: Country Club Plaza, 4747 Broadway Boulevard, Kansas City, MO — southeast corner of Broadway Boulevard and Nichols Road¹
• Best time to visit: Spring through fall
• Public access: Free; Plaza public spaces are open 24 hours

Sources

Footnotes

1. City of Fountains Foundation — “Mermaid Fountain.” https://cityoffountains.org/mermaid-fountain/ — asserts: the fountain lies on the southeast corner of the intersection of Broadway Boulevard and Nichols Road; a large trefoil-shaped pool with two mermaids perched on the edge, both blowing into conch shells with water issuing from each; the mermaids were acquired in Italy by the J.C. Nichols Company and reportedly more than 300 years old; in the middle of the pool is a fountain ring centred on a small bronze sculpture of a kneeling child known as “A Morning Prayer,” by an unknown artist; the white marble mermaids were originally installed on a rectangular pool in 1930, and in 1968 the current trefoil pool replaced it and the bronze child was added; location Country Club Plaza, 4747 Broadway Boulevard, Kansas City, MO; Designer/Artist field is blank; owner Country Club Plaza KC Partners, LLC. (Read directly via Firecrawl 2026-07-31.) ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

2. City of Fountains Foundation — “Country Club Plaza” fountain gallery. https://cityoffountains.org/country-club-plaza/ — asserts: the Foundation’s seventeen-entry Plaza inventory — Aleman Court, Allen Memorial, April, Boy and Frog, Brush Creek, Children at Play, Court of Lions East, Court of the Penguins, Diana, Diane: Sitting, Fountain of Bacchus, Four Fauns, Mermaid, Mill Creek Park, Neptune, Pomona and Seville Light. Mermaid is listed; Pomerene Memorial is not. (Read directly via Firecrawl 2026-07-31.) ↩ ↩²