KANSAS CITY, KS — For 40 years, Anthony Hope his family, along with the Concerned Citizens for Old Quindaro, have been working to preserve the rich history of the are.
Hope is excited by the possibility Congress could designate the Quindaro Ruins a national landmark.
“We had a college here, one of the first black colleges west of the Mississippi, called Western University and the town was right below this hill," said Hope, president of Concerned Citizens For Old Quindaro. " It had a bank, it had a grain elevator and it was a thriving town back in the day."
The town gave one of Anthony's relatives, Robert Monroe, freedom as he and his family escaped slavery in Missouri.
“Robert Monroe, he brought the family over in 1856 and they came across the Missouri River and they settled here and when they got here the Wyandotte Nation Tribe was here and they adopted my family. We lived with them,” Hope said.
Hope says historic sites like the Old Quindaro Brewery, now in ruins, is one site that needs to be preserved using federal recognition and funding
“It’s the recognition and the financial aspect,"Hop said. "We will be able to tell our story with narrative trails and history shows and lesson on the history of Old Quindaro."
Hope says he is grateful Congresswoman Sharice Davids, along with Congressmen Emanuel Cleaver and Jake LaTurner, introduced a bipartisan bill to make Old Quindaro a national landmark.
That's something Anthony hopes will bring the history that lies beneath the ruins to the surface.
“Old Quindaro Brewery and a lot of people came together to make this place what it was; escaped slave families, immigrant easterners and abolitionists,” Hope said. "People stereotype about the street Quindaro, but this was a community where everyone knew each other and wasn’t no crime and we all got along. I was raised and born right here and it’s still a nice place. Quindaro is a beautiful place to live and a beautiful place to raise a family.”
