KANSAS CITY, Kan. (KCTV) – In this year leading up to America’s 250th birthday, KCTV5 is committed to telling the stories of people who shaped the history of our region.
What is now Kansas City, Kansas, was once Wyandott City and Quindaro, two towns formed by the Wyandot Nation, according to Judith Manthe, Principal Chief of the Wyandot Nation of Kansas. Ownership of the land on which the city was built has changed hands several times, she said, from the Delaware/Lenape to the Wyandot/Wyandotte to white urban developers. The turn of the 20th century brought a breaking point that inspired three Wyandot sisters to use the threat of force and legal skill to preserve a sacred burial ground.
The story of the defiant and determined Conley sisters is now at the center of an art installation, described as a mobile monument, unveiled at the Wyandotte County Historical Museum on August 30. It’s called “Trespassers Beware: Fort Conley and Wyandot Women Warriors.” Its title refers to a sign hung by the sisters outside a tiny wooden structure they dubbed Fort Conley. The project was initiated by Neysa Page-Lieberman, founder of Monumenta…