PARKVILLE, Mo. — The 49th annual Parkville Days begin Friday night.
While a lot of people know of the festival, some may not know how it started: It all traces back to a painting and a homecoming 40 years in the making.
It goes back to 1933.
Kansas City-born painter Gale Stockwell was hired by the federal government as part of the Public Works of Art Project, a program under President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal to help artists survive the Great Depression.
According to Tim Westcott, associate archivist at Park University, Stockwell was tasked with capturing everyday life in small town America, and he decided Parkville fit that description perfectly.
"It was sort of that quaintness, that cuteness, however you want to say it," Westcott said.
Stockwell painted an image of Parkville's Main Street, with shops lining the street and a mother and child walking down the sidewalk.
"I think it does bring back a simpler time," Jim McCall, a lifelong Parkville resident, said. "A time when Parkville, as most small towns, went through the evolution of the suburban mall, lost a lot of its businesses."
Stockwell lost track of the painting after he turned it into the government.
Then, 40 years later, he learned it was hanging at the White House, in the office of President Richard Nixon's press secretary, Ron Ziegler.
The government agreed to loan the painting to Parkville for a viewing.
It arrived in May 1973 and a month later, the town held a celebration and parade, with Stockwell serving as the Grand Marshal.
That was the beginning of Parkville Days.
For Parkville natives like McCall, the painting evokes childhood memories. He recalled businesses hanging a white sheet across the light pole in the middle of the street and projecting movies onto it.
"We'd all bring our chairs down, and we would watch a movie on Main Street on a Saturday night," McCall said.
Parkville Frame Gallery is the only retailer in the Kansas City area that has a license to sell prints of the painting.
Owner Jason Fewin says he's proud to preserve the history of his city.
"Anyone who even knows a little bit about Parkville can tell right off that it is still Parkville, because everything in there is still pretty close to the same as it was back then," Fewin said.
McCall agrees that while a lot has changed, many things have stayed the same.
"Parkville has been called charming, quaint, all those words, but I think it captures what Parkville was and what Parkville grew into," McCall said. "I think it does provide Parkville a certain place in history."
Stockwell's original "Parkville, Main Street" painting is now at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C., though it's currently in storage and not on display.
Parkville Days runs from Friday, Aug. 19 through Sunday, Aug. 21. More information is available on the city's website.
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