Charles Carroll Spalding
How a 'border ruffian' who supported slavery got a monument honoring him in a KC park
On a recent visit to Penn Valley Park, a reader noticed an oddly placed stone along Penn Drive south of the lake. A plaque embedded into its surface reads: “To the author of Annals of the Great Western Plains, Charles Carroll Spalding, who in the day of small things had the bold vision to foresee the future city.”