The Scout

The Scout statue in Penn Valley Park has kept watch over downtown Kansas City for almost a century. Since its dedication in 1922, it has become a symbol and mascot for the city and a favorite subject for generations of photographers. But look through some of those photos over the years, and you may – or may not – see a few things intermittently missing. Reader Jeffrey Swoyer is a life-long Kansas Citian. He admits that he never paid much attention to The Scout until a visit with an out-of-town friend who had noticed the photographic disparities. Some pictures show the quiver on the rider’s back, some don’t.