West Terrace Park, Palisades

Outlook Tower and the Palisades on Kersey Coates Drive were pictured on a post card published by the Elite Post Card Co. of Kansas City, with a postmark of 1910. The area was one of the early projects of the Kansas City Board of Park Commissioners, under the direction of George Kessler, landscape architect of the board. It was part of the principle adopted by Kessler to follow nature as closely as possible and to develop the natural topography of early Kansas City. A souvenir booklet published in 1920 by the park board describing the area, which was part of West Terrace Park, reads: West Terrace Park occupies the same relative position on the Kaw River Bluffs, in the western part of the city, as North Terrace Park on the Missouri River Bluffs. The shacks, the ugliness that had already taken hold of this park have been eradicated, and the Kersey Coates Drive (1.18 miles long), above which rise cliffs and terraced walls of masonry after the manner characteristic of certain Italian cities, gives a broad panoramic view of the railroad terminals and factories in the west bottoms, with Kansas City, Kansas on the hills beyond the Kaw. Of the view from the Outlook Tower at 10th Street, the famous artist Lorado Taft said, I know of no city in America or Europe which has a scene like that. It looks like a hill town in Italy, but is more beautiful than any. Today the towers remain at the foot of 10th Street at the bluff. The elaborate system of stone steps leading down to Kersey Coates Drive and the sheltered drinking fountain, as well as Kersey Coates Drive itself, are gone, removed to make way for the freeway system. Coates apparently was incorrectly spelled Coats by the publisher of the post card. Kansas City Times, May 4, 1979.