Loose Park
Encyclopedia
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...
. It is located at 51st Street and Wornall Road. The park is home to a lake, a shelter house, Civil War markers, tennis courts, a water park, picnic areas and a Rose Garden. The Rose Garden is popular for all types of outdoor special events including theatrical performances and wedding ceremonies.
The park was once a pasture belonging to Kansas City pioneer Seth Ward
Seth Ward (businessman)
Seth Edmund Ward was a trader on the California, Oregon and Santa Fe trails who parlayed his success into a real estate empire that included today's Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri....
. During the Battle of Westport
Battle of Westport
The Battle of Westport, sometimes referred to as the "Gettysburg of the West," was fought on October 23, 1864, in modern Kansas City, Missouri, during the American Civil War. Union forces under Major General Samuel R. Curtis decisively defeated an outnumbered Confederate force under Major General...
in American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
Confederate General Sterling Price
Sterling Price
Sterling Price was a lawyer, planter, and politician from the U.S. state of Missouri, who served as the 11th Governor of the state from 1853 to 1857. He also served as a United States Army brigadier general during the Mexican-American War, and a Confederate Army major general in the American Civil...
is said to have to commanded his forces from gun emplacements on the south end of the park.
In 1897 Ward leased the land to the Kansas City Country Club
Kansas City Country Club
The Kansas City Country Club, founded in 1896, is a country club in Mission Hills, Kansas, USA, an affluent suburb of Kansas City, Missouri. It is the club for which the Country Club District and the Country Club Plaza of Kansas City are named...
for its first golf course. In 1907 J.C. Nichols bought land around the course to form the Country Club District
Country Club District
The Country Club District is the name of a group of neighborhoods comprising a historic upscale residential district in Kansas City, Missouri, and Johnson County, Kansas, USA, developed by noted real estate developer J.C. Nichols. The district was developed in stages between 1906 and 1950...
and Country Club Plaza
Country Club Plaza
The Country Club Plaza is an upscale shopping district and residential neighborhood in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. It was the first shopping center in the world designed to accommodate shoppers arriving by automobile...
. In 1925 when the golf club moved to Mission Hills, Kansas
Mission Hills, Kansas
Mission Hills is a city in Johnson County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 3,498. The city is a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri, which is adjacent to the east, across the aptly named State Line Road. Mission Hills was originally developed by noted Kansas...
the land became a city park.
In 1977 artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Christo and Jeanne-Claude were a married couple who created environmental works of art...
wrapped the Walk Ways with 12,500 m2 of orange-yellow coloured shiny nylon fabric.
In 1979 Neal Patterson, Cliff Illig and Paul Gorup founded the Cerner
Cerner
Cerner Corporation is an international health care information technology corporation that specializes in providing complete systems for hospitals and other medical organizations to manage and integrate all electronic medical records, computerized physician order entry , and financial...
Corporation while on a picnic in the park.