Renner (23PL1) Type Site for Kansas City Hopewell, Modern History and Recent Politics

Article discusses the history and current condition of the Renner Site located within the Renner-Brenner Park, close to the heart of the City of Riverside, Missouri. The site, placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1969, first was excavated by Waldo R. Wedel, a young Smithsonian Institution archaeologist, in 1937. Subsequent excavations occurred. The city of Riverside, however, has proceeded on constructing a playground complex within the heart of the Renner site without waiting for the recommendations of the Cultural Resource Management plan. The archaeologically rich site contains evidence of three ancient occupations: Nebo Hill phase (Late Archaic), Steed-Kisker phase (Late Prehistoric), and Kansas City Hopewell (Middle Woodland), and has yielded large and diverse artifact collections. In modern times, the land on which the Renner-Brenner Park is located was owned first by the Brenner family in 1844.