August R. Meyer was a minig engineer, founding organizer of Leadville, Colorado

Leadville, Colorado

Leadville is a Statutory City that is the county seat of, and the only municipality in, Lake County, Colorado, United States. Situated at an elevation of , Leadville is the highest incorporated city and the second highest incorporated municipality in the United States...

, and developed the park and boulevard system for Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...

 as first president of the Commission of Parks.

Background

August Robert Meyer was born in St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

 on August 20, 1851. His father was Heinrich Peter Meyer (1815-1864) and his mother was Anna Catharina Margaretha Kraft (1812-1898). They were residents of Hamburg, Germany, and immigrated to the United States before their marriage on July 29, 1844, in St. Louis, Missouri. Heinrich Meyer was an enterprising man: by 1850, the Federal Census shows he was manufacturing lard oil and boneblack. Later, he partnered with Jacob Tamm (1815-1893) and founded a company which soon became the St. Louis Woodenware Company, a highly productive and profitable corporation which existed until 1907. (Tamm may have been a long-time friend of Heinrich Meyer; they both were born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1815.) After Heinrich Meyer died in 1864, (listed as one of the wealthiest manufacturers in St. Louis at his death,) Anna Meyer sent her son to begin his education in Germany in 1865. August Robert Meyer studied at the College of the Canton of Zurich, Switzerland, and after graduating, began a course of study at the School of Mines in Freiberg, Germany, graduating in 1870.

August R. Meyer returned to the United States, and to St. Louis, Missouri, in 1873. He worked for a coal mining operation in Illinois for one year, and then went to Colorado in 1874. In 1875, he started an ore-crushing mill at Alma, Colorado

Alma, Colorado

The historic Town of Alma is a Statutory Town located in Park County, Colorado, United States. The town population was 179 at the U.S. Census 2000....

 and struck it rich in the Colorado Silver Boom

Colorado Silver Boom

The Colorado Silver Boom was a dramatic expansionist period of silver mining activity in the U.S. state of Colorado in the late 19th century. The boom started in 1879 with the discovery of silver at Leadville...

. He and other investors including Horace Austin Warner Tabor

Horace Austin Warner Tabor

Horace Austin Warner Tabor , also known as The Bonanza King of Leadville, was an American prospector, businessman, and politician. His life is the subject of Douglas Moore's opera, The Ballad of Baby Doe....

 founded Leadville and Fairplay, Colorado

Fairplay, Colorado

The Town of Fairplay is a statutory town that is the county seat and the most populous town of Park County, Colorado, United States. Fairplay is located in South Park at an elevation of . The town is the fifth-highest incorporated place in the State of Colorado. The population was 610 at the...

. His home in Leadville, called Healy House

Healy House Museum

Healy House Museum was the Leadville, Colorado home built by city father August R. Meyer for his bride, Emma. For some time it was operated as a boarding house; two of the boarders were Dan Healy and his cousin Nellie....

, is on the National Register of Historic Places and is a museum.

In 1881, Meyer moved to Kansas City, Missouri. He established the Kansas City Smelting and Refining Company in the Armourdale

Armourdale, Kansas

Armourdale community is a district in the lower part of the Kansas River valley in Kansas City, Kansas. It is a main district between the West Bottoms and the Rosedale, Kansas area....

 section of Kansas City, Kansas

Kansas City, Kansas

Kansas City is the third-largest city in the state of Kansas and is the county seat of Wyandotte County. It is a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri, and is the third largest city in the Kansas City Metropolitan Area. The city is part of a consolidated city-county government known as the "Unified...

. The company was taken over by the Guggenheim

Meyer Guggenheim

Meyer Guggenheim was the patriarch of what became known as the Guggenheim family. He was born in Lengnau, Aargau, Switzerland, was of German Jewish ancestry and emigrated to the United States in 1847...

-owned American Smelting and Refining Company, and he joined the board of directors. Later, he became president of United Zinc Company.

In 1887, Meyer became inspired by the City Beautiful Movement and began pushing for a new park system in Kansas City, Missouri. In 1892, Mayor Benjamin Holmes

Benjamin Holmes (Missouri)

Benjamin Holmes was a Democratic Mayor of Kansas City, Missouri in 1890-1891.He was the first mayor under a new charter allowing for two-year terms and was oversaw the design and construction of the George Kessler-designed parkway system.He was born in Independence, Missouri...

 appointed him president of the city's first park board. Meyer and Holmes hired George Kessler

George Kessler

George Edward Kessler was a German American pioneer city planner and landscape architect.Over the course of his forty-one year career, George E. Kessler completed over 200 projects and prepared plans for 26 communities, 26 park and boulevard systems, 49 parks, 46 estates & residents, and 26 schools...

 to design the extensive and noteworthy system.

Meyer's home, called "Marburg," was a three-story, 35-room Germanic castle on eight and one-half acres. After his death, Howard Vanderslice

Howard Vanderslice

Howard Vanderslice was a Kansas City, Missouri businessman who donated the land that forms the campus of today's Kansas City Art Institute.Vanderslice was born in Great Crossing, Kentucky in Scott County, Kentucky....

 bought the house and estate and donated it to become the Kansas City Art Institute

Kansas City Art Institute

The Kansas City Art Institute is a private, independent, four-year college of fine arts and design founded in 1885 in Kansas City, Missouri....

 (where after a Wight and Wight

Wight and Wight

Wight and Wight, known also as Wight & Wight, was an architecture firm in Kansas City, Missouri consisting of the brothers Thomas Wight and William Wight who designed several landmark buildings in Missouri and Kansas....

 addition) it is the school's administration building. It is now called Vanderslice Hall and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

.

Meyer died in Kansas City on December 1, 1905, at age 54. Meyer Boulevard is named to honor his great work to create the boulevard and park system in Kansas City. A bronze bas-relief sculpture by Daniel Chester French

Daniel Chester French

Daniel Chester French was an American sculptor. His best-known work is the sculpture of a seated Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.-Life and career:...

 on an 18 feet (5.5 m) high Knoxville marble marker honoring Meyer was dedicated on 2 June 1909, four years after his death. The memorial is located at 10th and The Paseo

The Paseo

The Paseo is a major north–south parkway in Kansas City, Missouri. It runs in the center of the city: from Cliff Drive and Lexington Avenue on the bluffs above the Missouri River in the Pendleton Heights historic neighborhood, to 85th Street and Woodland Avenue...

in the parkway. The epitaph reads:

"Houses and Shops Are Man's

But Grass and Trees and Flowers

Are God's Own Handiwork

Undaunted, This Man Planned and Toiled

That Dwellers in This Place

Might Ever Freely Taste the

Sweetest Delights of Nature."

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