Designer: Unknown
Dedicated: October 23, 1953
Park: Loose Park north of Rose Garden adjacent to 52nd Street
Description: Red granite marker, 6-tons. Height, 5 feet; Length, 31/2 feet; Width, 4 feet
The Battle of Westport Monument, located north of the Rose Garden, commemorates the location where Maj. Gen. Sterling Price, “The Old Fox” of the Confederate Army, was defeated and his forces sent into retreat to the territory of Arkansas.
The Battle of Westport, October 21-23, 1864 was considered the turning point of the largest Civil War battle west of the Mississippi River involving approximately 30,000 men.
At this location General Sterling Price’s Confederate raid into Missouri was halted in a decisive encounter of the three day battle frequently identified by historians as the “Gettysburg of the West.”
The Native Sons of Kansas City were responsible for commemorating this significant engagement with a 6-ton red granite marker. The rough hewn granite quadrate stands at the approximate location where Maj. Gen. Sterling Price, “The Old Fox” of the Confederate Army, was defeated and his forces sent into retreat to the territory of Arkansas.
The Union Army won the three day engagement which destroyed the Confederate hopes west of the Mississippi.
