Friday
Upon arrival, we will fit in a few sights around KC as shown below, get you checked into your rooms, do some last-minute setup and overview at the venue, and then cap the evening off with a private gathering at the Powers Casa.
Mount Moriah Cemetery South is a Masonic-enshrined cemetery and an integral resource for several Masonic groups in the Kansas City area. One of the more prominent features of the cemetery is the Temple Mausoleum, completed in 1925. Inside the Temple Mausoleum, the sacred Temple Room is one of the few Masonic-sanctioned temple rooms of its kind in the United States. It is still used for meetings, ceremonies, and inductions.
The first shots leading to the Civil War.
At dawn on June 2, 1856, the abolitionist John Brown led a Free-State militia in an attack on the camp of a pro-slavery militia led by Henry Clay Pate that was encamped along the Santa Fe Trail in southeastern Douglas County, Kansas Territory. Around 100 men fought an intense three hour battle that ended with Henry Clay Pate, the leader of the pro-slavery militia surrendering to Brown. This action became known as the Battle of Black Jack.
Pate, a 24 year-old Virginia native, and his militia were in the field to “get Old Brown” as a response to the Pottawatomie Massacre on the night of May 24-25, 1856, for which Brown was implicated.
They were using this as an opportunity to put pressure on Free-State partisans in the area, Brown was attempting to stop Pate and his men from their anti-Free-State activities, and to rescue two of his sons who had been captured by the proslavery men.
Brown himself called the action “the first regular battle between Free-State and proslavery forces in Kansas”.
Previous “Bleeding Kansas” violence consisted of sackings, massacres, and other events in which a more powerful group quickly overwhelmed smaller unarmed or non-resisting groups and individuals.
The Battle of Black Jack was the first armed action in which two forces of comparable strength and determination fought in Kansas. It was the beginning of civil war combat in Kansas, where a growing number of historians agree that the American Civil War began.
The Battle of Black Jack is where John Brown began his armed war on slavery.
One local historian has called the Battle of Black Jack and Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry the bookends of that war.
There are many direct connections between the battle and the raid. Brown used the bowie knife he captured from Pate in the battle as the model for the 1,000 pikes that he took to arm freed slaves at Harpers Ferry. J.E.B. Stuart, who was in the military detachment sent to force John Brown to release Pate and his men, was later at Harpers Ferry, and was able to identify the man leading the raid as the man he had met in Kansas in the aftermath of The Battle of Black Jack.
The game of Basketball in 1891. Born in rural Ontario, Canada, both his parents died while he was still in grade school and his grandparents and then an uncle were left to care and raise him. Becoming an ordained minister and a medical doctor, he took a job teaching physical education at the YMCA International Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts. There he created the game of basketball, intending to introduce a game that allowed exercise indoors, by using two peach basket hoops, a soccer ball and 13 simple rules. He later came to the University of Kansas at Lawrence in 1898 , filling the dual post of Athletics director and chapel director. He initiated the first collegiate Jayhawks basketball game at the University. Throughout his lifetime he never received any fame or fortune from the sport he created, and only after his passing in 1939 was enormous recognition heaped upon him. For his historic invention, Naismith’s name adorns the Basketball Hall of Fame located in downtown Springfield, Massachusetts. Streets and buildings in Springfield and Lawrence are named in tribute. The sport he invented has evolved into a game that more than 300 million people play worldwide, with professional leagues on every Continent.
Getting in town early for the event? Stop by starting at 6:30 pm for a Masonic Con Kansas meet and greet with our lecturers, vendors, and attendees.
Saturday
Day of the event. Hold on to your aprons!
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Mount Moriah Cemetery South is a Masonic-enshrined cemetery and an integral resource for several Masonic groups in the Kansas City area. One of the more prominent features of the cemetery is the Temple Mausoleum, completed in 1925. Inside the Temple Mausoleum, the sacred Temple Room is 1 of the few Mason-sanctioned temple rooms in the United States. It is still used for meetings, ceremonies and inductions.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed non risus. Suspendisse lectus tortor, dignissim sit amet, adipiscing nec, ultricies sed, dolor.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed non risus. Suspendisse lectus tortor, dignissim sit amet, adipiscing nec, ultricies sed, dolor.
Sunday
But wait, there's more! Before you head out, we are going to make a morning of it and catch some sights in KC, naturally with some history involved. Sorry, but you knew what you were getting yourselves into with me…
Starting our morning off on the Kansas side of KC, we will be visiting the Huron Indian Cemetery in the heart of downtown Kansas City, Kansas. This cemetery features several graves of early and notable Kansas Masons.
Right across the street, we will find the old Scottish Rite Temple that is now the 7th Street Casino. Although the building is no longer Masonic in operations, it is still a lovely structure of Kansas Masonic history to visit.
- Let’s start the day off with a bite and walk around at the historic KC River Market.
- The area encompasses the location in which Kansas City was first founded. The market name comes from its large open air farmers’ market, the southern section of which was the public square in the mid 1800s. It derives its “Westport Landing” name because it was the dock on the Missouri River for the exchange of goods going to the community of Westport three miles to the south on higher ground that was operated by John Calvin McCoy. McCoy was to lead a group of settlers to create the “Town of Kansas” in the neighborhood in 1850 which in turn became the “City of Kansas” in 1853.
- Mafia Roots – Kansas City quickly made it’s name for being a notorious mob town ultimately reaching the height of mob activity in the 1970s and 80s to the extent of the Civella family (still in operation to this day) completely leveled a building with a homemade bomb and set fire to several others in the “River Quay” (River Market area). In other words, SHIT GOT REAL. The Kansas City mafia erupted into war in the late 1970s related to an internal dispute over control of the city’s River Quay neighborhood, its then-trendy nightlife and entertainment center. The unrest set off a near-decade of violence and instability in the Civella crime family. On one side of the feud was ambitious and bloodthirsty Civella clan capo and street boss William (Willie the Rat) Cammisano, intent on turning the neighborhood into a red-light district. On the other, K.C. mob soldier David Bonadonna, his businessman son Freddy, who had spearheaded the real estate development and economic resurgence in the area, and their main muscle, the independent Spero brothers (Carl, Joe & Mike), upset with the Civellas for killing their older brother and underworld mentor Nick in 1973. The Bonadonna faction resisted the crusty Cammisano and his crew’s move into the neighborhood and their desire to rebrand and tax local establishments for fear that it would drive consumers away, which it wound up doing.
July 22, 1976 – Kansas City mobster David Bonadonna is found in the trunk of his Mustang automobile, shot in the back of the head, a short distance away from Willie the Rat Cammisano’s garage headquarters where he was last seen in the hours before being killed.
November 17, 1976 – Kansas City wiseguy and Bonadonna loyalist John (Johnny B) Brocato is found stuffed in the trunk of his car at the airport, shot in the back of the head.
February 19, 1977 – Civella crime family lieutenant John (Johnny Green) Amaro is shot to death in his garage.
February 22, 1977 – Bonadonna faction enforcer and hit man Harold (Sonny) Bowen is shot-gunned to death inside a crowded bar in the heart of the River Quay on the evening of Amaro’s wake. Bowen is believed to have killed Amaro.
March 27, 1977 – Popular River Quay establishments, Pat O’Brien’s and nearby Judge Roy Bean’s Tavern are decimating in a bombing. Many historians point to this event as the unofficial end of the River Quay era in the city, with the once-bustling and booming neighborhood becoming a virtual ghost town overnight due to the increasing tensions in the area and the perception that it was unsafe. Bowen was slain inside Pat O’Brien’s.
August 5, 1977 – Bonadonna faction enforcer Gary Parker is blown up in a car bomb in his driveway.
May 2, 1978 – Local hood, thief and Bonadonna-loyalist Myron (Alley Cat Andy) Mancuso is shot to death behind the wheel of his car, last seen leaving a 24-hour diner with Willie the Rat’s son and protégé William (Little Willie) Cammisano, Jr. a half hour before being found dead.
May 4, 1978 – Local hood, thief and Bonadonna-loyalist Michael (Minuteman Mike) Massey, Mancuso’s partner-in-crime and an informant that got Kansas City mobster Anthony (Tiger) Cardarella busted for racketeering, is shot to death behind the wheel of his car.
May 17, 1978 – Bonadonna faction enforcer and independent gangster Mike Spero is slain in the infamous Virginian Tavern Massacre, where several Civella crime family hit men came blasting into the Spero brothers’ headquarters with shotguns blazing. Mike’s brother Joe is wounded fleeing out of a side door and his brother Carl is paralyzed in the attack.
June 18, 1980 – Bonadonna faction enforcer and independent gangster Joe Spero is killed in a bombing in Clay County while fiddling with booby-trapped explosives in his work shed on his farm.
January 6, 1984 – “Spero Gang” leader and one-time Bonadonna backer, the wheelchair-bound Carl Spero is blown up at his Five-Star Investment Used Cars office headquarters in the time surrounding Willie the Rat’s release from federal prison and ascension to don. Cammisano assumed the reins on an official basis upon the passing of crime family namesake Nick Civella and the incarceration of his brother and underboss Carl (Corky) Civella.
February 9, 1984 – Longtime Kansas City mafia figure Anthony (Tiger) Cardarella, once on the frontlines of the River Quay War for the Civella syndicate, disappears and isn’t found until three weeks later strangled to death in the trunk of his car in parking lot of freight company warehouse on February 27.
September 19, 1984 – Longtime Kansas City mafia figure Felix (Little Phil) Ferina, Cardarella’s trusted gangland running buddy and another former front-liner in the battle for the River Quay in the 1970s, is shot to death in front of his house. Ferina and Cardarella allegedly spoke openly of trying to overthrow Willie the Rat.
*Willie the Rat Cammisano died of cancer in 1995. Freddy Bonadonna committed suicide inside the Witness Protection Program. None of the River Quay murders were ever solved.
We can’t let you leave KC without some BBQ in your belly. We will visit the KC famous Gates BBQ for lunch and let you get slapped with the greeting at the door. “HI….MAY I HELLLP YOU?!”
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed non risus. Suspendisse lectus tortor, dignissim sit amet, adipiscing nec, ultricies sed, dolor.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed non risus. Suspendisse lectus tortor, dignissim sit amet, adipiscing nec, ultricies sed, dolor.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed non risus. Suspendisse lectus tortor, dignissim sit amet, adipiscing nec, ultricies sed, dolor.