This article is under verification. Some claims may be incomplete or awaiting a cited source. KS.City is a civic encyclopedia in active compilation.

[!warning] Sourcing failure — 2026-07-31 No source of any kind was found for this fountain. A search of the City of Fountains Foundation’s complete Country Club Plaza inventory (seventeen named fountains),1 the Foundation’s full site index (465 pages),1 the City of Kansas City’s own “Monuments, Fountains, Sculptures and Attractions” open-data inventory (230 records),2 Kansas City Parks and Recreation’s fountain listing,3 Wikipedia’s list of fountains in the Kansas City metropolitan area,4 and open web search returned zero matches for “Pomerene,” for “Pomerene Memorial Fountain,” or for “Atha Carter Pomerene.” No Plaza fountain dated 1958 is documented anywhere. Nothing below is deleted. Every claim on this page should be treated as unverified until someone confirms it in print or on the ground. See Open Questions for the two named Plaza fountains this entry may be a garbled version of.

A memorial fountain installed at the Country Club Plaza in 1958 honoring Mrs. Atha Carter Pomerene, a benefactor of the Plaza. One of the most-photographed of the Plaza’s smaller fountains; sits at the southern edge of the Plaza facing Brush Creek.

History

The Pomerene Memorial Fountain was dedicated in 1958 at the Country Club Plaza in memory of Mrs. Atha Carter Pomerene, a Kansas City benefactor whose family had supported the Plaza’s development through the J.C. Nichols Company era.1245

The fountain was installed approximately two years before the J.C. Nichols Memorial Fountain (dedicated 1960 in memory of J.C. Nichols, its four equestrian figures sculpted by the French artist Henri Gréber in 1910) — together representing the late-1950s wave of Plaza fountain investment.6 The J.C. Nichols dedication date is sound; the “late-1950s wave” framing is not: the Plaza’s documented memorial fountains from this period are the Aleman Court Fountain (1947) and the Allen Memorial Fountain (July 1962), with nothing documented in 1958.78

Architecture + materials

Limestone basin with a cascade-style water feature. Restrained classical detailing in keeping with the Plaza’s Spanish/Mediterranean Revival aesthetic.

Current status

Operating. Seasonal off-period in winter, typically drained late November through late March.6

Cultural significance

The Pomerene Memorial Fountain anchors one of the Plaza’s quieter, more-pedestrian-friendly corners. While it lacks the iconic status of the J.C. Nichols Memorial Fountain, it represents the broader pattern of mid-20th-century memorial-fountain installation across the Plaza.

The pattern itself is real and documented, even if this fountain is not. The Plaza’s mid-century memorial fountains include the Aleman Court Fountain (1947, dedicated by Mexican President Miguel Alemán during the first state visit of a Mexican president to the United States, with Harry S. Truman and Dwight Eisenhower present),8 the Allen Memorial Fountain (dedicated July 1962 to Earl and Eleanor Nichols Allen, the daughter and son-in-law of J.C. Nichols, who died in a house fire; sculptor S. Gemignani, cast by Marinelli Studios),7 and the Pomona Fountain (1969, a life-size bronze imported from Italy, by Donatello Gabbrielli, cast by Marinelli Studios, at 320 Ward Parkway).9

Visiting

  • Address: Country Club Plaza, Kansas City, MO 64112
  • Best time to visit: Spring through fall
  • Public access: Free; 24-hour public space

Sources

Footnotes

  1. City of Fountains Foundation — “Country Club Plaza” (regional fountain gallery). https://cityoffountains.org/country-club-plaza/ — asserts: the Foundation’s complete Plaza inventory, seventeen entries: Aleman Court Fountain, Allen Memorial Fountain, April, Boy and Frog, Brush Creek Fountains, Children at Play Fountain, Court of Lions East Fountain, Court of the Penguins Fountains, Diana, Diane: Sitting, Fountain of Bacchus, Four Fauns Fountain, Mermaid Fountain, Mill Creek Park Fountain, Neptune, Pomona Fountain, and Seville Light Fountain. No Pomerene fountain appears. The Foundation’s full page sitemap (https://cityoffountains.org/page-sitemap.xml, 465 URLs, retrieved 2026-07-31) likewise contains no “pomerene” page. (Read via Firecrawl 2026-07-31.) ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  2. City of Kansas City, Missouri — “Monuments, Fountains, Sculptures and Attractions” open-data inventory (dataset 6x5f-7sf4; 230 records). https://data.kcmo.org/d/6x5f-7sf4 (machine-readable: https://data.kcmo.org/resource/6x5f-7sf4.json) — asserts: the City’s own catalogue of fountains, monuments, sculptures and attractions with type, address, artist, medium, date, owner and coordinates. A full-text search of all 230 records for “pomer” returned zero matches. The dataset’s Plaza-area memorial-fountain records include the Seville Light Fountain, the Helen Spradling Moylan Memorial Fountain (4747 J.C. Nichols Parkway) and the J.C. Nichols Memorial Fountain. ↩ ↩2

  3. Kansas City Parks and Recreation — “Fountains” (place-type listing of the department’s fountain inventory). https://kcparks.org/place_types/fountains/ — asserts: KC Parks’ catalogue of the fountains it owns and operates, 46 entries. No Pomerene fountain appears. (KC Parks would not own a privately held Plaza fountain, so this is corroborating rather than decisive.) (kcparks.org is reported to block some automated fetches; read via Firecrawl 2026-07-31.) ↩

  4. 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: a list of fountains “now officially recognized by the City of Fountains Foundation,” running to several hundred entries including all the Plaza fountains. It contains no Pomerene entry. It does record the Pomona fountain sculpture by Donatello Gabbrielli at Ward Parkway and Broadway in the Plaza, and a “Helen Spradling Boylan Memorial.” ↩ ↩2

  5. Country Club Plaza — “Country Club Plaza Self-Guided Walking Tour.” https://countryclubplaza.com/events/country-club-plaza-2026-self-guided-walking-tour — asserts: the Plaza’s own visitor tour of “iconic fountains, sculptures, historic buildings, and architectural landmarks.” The published page names no individual fountain, so it neither confirms nor denies a Pomerene fountain; it is cited as the closest thing to the “Plaza fountains historical guide” named in the original draft’s sole footnote. ↩

  6. City of Fountains Foundation — “Kansas City, The City of Fountains” walking/driving brochure (PDF, 6 pp.). https://cityoffountains.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/KC-Fountains-Brochure-web-v1-1.pdf — asserts: the J.C. Nichols Memorial Fountain, Kansas City’s best-known fountain, was dedicated in 1960 in memory of J.C. Nichols, developer of the Country Club Plaza, its four equestrian figures said to represent four rivers and sculpted by the French artist Henri Gréber in 1910 for a Long Island estate; and that most Kansas City-area fountains are turned off and drained for winter because of the region’s freeze-thaw cycle. The brochure’s numbered tour of 32 fountains contains no Pomerene entry. ↩ ↩2

  7. City of Fountains Foundation — “Allen Memorial Fountain.” https://cityoffountains.org/allen-memorial-fountain/ — asserts: imported from Italy and dedicated in 1962 to Earl and Eleanor Nichols Allen, the daughter and son-in-law of the late Jesse Clyde Nichols, who died in a house fire; a young child looks up to a female bathing figure seated on a marble pedestal; designer S. Gemignani, cast by Marinelli Studios; dedicated July 1962; Country Club Plaza, 320 Nichols Road; owner Country Club Plaza KC Partners LLC. ↩ ↩2

  8. City of Fountains Foundation — “Aleman Court Fountain.” https://cityoffountains.org/aleman-court-fountain/ — asserts: named for then-President of Mexico Miguel Alemán, who visited Kansas City as part of the first state visit of a Mexican president to the United States and dedicated the fountain in 1947 with Harry S. Truman and Dwight Eisenhower in attendance; a marble fish or dolphin at the base of a seashell-topped recessed arch in a sunken courtyard, water flowing from its mouth into a seashell basin on a fluted pedestal and overflowing into an oval basin below; Country Club Plaza, 310 W. 47th Street; 1947; owner Country Club Plaza KC Partners, LLC. ↩ ↩2

  9. City of Fountains Foundation — “Pomona Fountain.” https://cityoffountains.org/pomona-fountain/ — asserts: a Plaza courtyard setting for Pomona, the Roman goddess and protector of vineyards and orchards; imported from Italy and installed in 1969; life-size bronze figure elevated on a shallow saucer on a polished marble pedestal in a red-stone reflecting basin, with a water curtain cascading from the bowl and spray rings lit at night; a marble original stands in the King’s palace in Bangkok; designer Donatello Gabrielli, cast by Marinell[i] Studios; 1969; owner Country Club Plaza KC Partners, LLC; located at 320 Ward Parkway. (See also the KS.City Wiki page pomona-fountain.) ↩

See also

Categories
  • Concept
  • Fountain
  • Plaza
  • Postwar

On the record — ks.city/wiki/fountains/pomerene-memorial-fountain · last revised 2026-07-31