Polemonium Reptans

William Rockhill Nelson (March 7, 1841 – April 13, 1915) was an American real estate developer, journalist, editor and co-founder of The Kansas City Star in Kansas City, Missouri. He donated his estate (and home) for the establishment of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Nelson was honored, for a time, as one of the most progressive city editors in the country. He crusaded for community improvement while retaining conservative, small-town values.

Upon his death, A. S. Ochs, publisher of the New York Times, said, “Journalism has lost one of its best examples of the right kind of independence, courage, ability, and enterprise.”

He is buried at Mt. Washington Cemetery in Independence, Missouri, with his wife, daughter and son-in-law.

In early 2021, after a series investigating its own history of how it covered — and failed to cover — Black Kansas Citians, the Kansas City Star “stripped from its pages and website the name, words and image that recognized its first publisher and founder, William Rockhill Nelson.”^[1]

Early life

Nelson was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana. His father was publisher Isaac De Groff Nelson (1810–1891) and his mother was Elizabeth Rockhill (1816–1889), the daughter of William R. Rockhill, an important farmer and politician in Fort Wayne, Indiana.^[2] For a short time, Isaac Nelson owned The Sentinel newspaper (which became the Fort Wayne News Sentinel). But I.D.G. Nelson, as he was fondly known for many years in Fort Wayne, was much more renowned as a nursery owner. His own estate, "Elm Park", was considered "the showplace of Allen County."

Nelson, as a 15-year-old attended the University of Notre Dame (which accepted high school students) at the time for two years which he described as "Botany Bay for bad boys." Notre Dame was reported to have asked that he not return.^[3]

Nelson was admitted to the bar in 1862 and was a campaign manager for Democratic presidential nominee Samuel J. Tilden. Tilden told him: "While it is a great thing to lead armies, it is a greater thing to lead the minds of men."^[4]

Nelson “expressed compassion toward the South.” He and his father opposed Abraham Lincoln in the elections of 1860 and 1864.^[5]

Nelson attempted to run a store in Savannah, Georgia but it failed. The southern sojourn was to earn him the nickname "The Colonel" even though he never served in the military. William Allen White said later: "Not that he was ever a colonel of anything...He was just coloneliferous."^[6]

Newspapers

Nelson formally took over the Sentinel with Samuel Morss in 1879. In 1880 they moved to Kansas City and started the Star. At the time there were three daily competitors – the Evening Mail; The Kansas City Times; and the Kansas City Journal. Nelson took over sole ownership of the paper within a few months.

Nelson's business strategy called for cheap advance subscriptions and an intention to be "absolutely independent in politics, aiming to deal by all men and all parties with impartiality and fearlessness."^[3]

He purchased the Kansas City Evening Mail and its Associated Press franchise in 1882 and started the Weekly Kansas City Star in 1890 and the Sunday Kansas City Star in 1894.^[3] Nelson bought the Times in 1901, putting The Morning Kansas City Star on it.

Nelson had portraits of Tilden, Grover Cleveland, and Theodore Roosevelt in his office.^[4] Roosevelt stayed with Nelson at Oak Hall.

In one encounter, Kansas City Mayor Joseph J. Davenport was thrown down a stairwell at the Star building by editors (including William Allen White) when he was believed to have physically threatened Nelson. Nelson said afterwards, "The Star never loses!"^[7]

Nelson was “a rich man willing to attack the rich, especially if they were slumlords thwarting his dreams for a beautiful Kansas City,” according to William Allen White, the future newspaper editor and Progressive leader who worked for The Star beginning in 1891.

Nelson was a beloved boss and champion of the individual reporter.^[4] He offered his employees nearly a year’s sick pay and reportedly invented the concept of the “open newsroom,” based upon the fact that closed doors meant time-consuming appointments would need to be scheduled, which interfered with the timely transfer of information.^[8]

Other interests

In addition to his newspaper duties, Nelson developed an area of farmland south of downtown Kansas City into a neighborhood of more than 100 houses, including his own mansion called Oak Hall.^[9] The area, which became known as the Rockhill District, was noted for its use of limestone in both the houses and in stone walls that stood beside the streets.^[10] Nelson also acquired more than 2,400 acres (9.7 km²) in what is presently Grain Valley, Missouri, for the establishment of Sni A Bar Farm. The farm's mission was the development of improved breeding methods and livestock. It served as one of the world's leaders in animal health for more than 30 years.^[4]

He campaigned for Kansas City's George Kessler-designed park and boulevard system and the 1900 “Kansas City Spirit” to build Convention Hall in 90 days in order to host the 1900 Democratic National Convention after the original (and new) convention hall had burned in April 1900.^[4]

Legacy

Nelson provided in his will that following the death of his wife and daughter his Oak Hill mansion be torn down and its 30-acre (120,000 m²) estate turned into an art museum. Proceeds from his $6 million estate were used to build the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City.^[11] Nelson’s will also established a trust for Sni A Bar Farm, with Presidents from the University of Missouri, the University of Kansas, and the University of Oklahoma charged with selecting its trustees.^[4]

The Art Gallery originally contained a recreation of Nelson's oak paneled room from Oak Hall (and namesake of the estate). The room contained Nelson's red plush easy chair and bookcases. The room was dismantled in 1988 to make way for a photography studio. His memorial is located in a mausoleum located at Mount Washington Cemetery in Independence, Missouri, between Truman Road and US Route 24.^[12]

Of Nelson’s legacy, Star President and Editor Mike Fannin said in 2020 that Nelson’s slogan was “lofty but ultimately dishonest.”

“The Star was not ‘A Paper for the People’ through much of its history,” Fannin said. “It was a paper for only some people, namely white people. Those values don’t square at all with The Star newsroom of today.”

Further Reading

Fannin, Mike. The truth in Black and white: An apology from The Kansas City Star. December 22, 2020.

Gotham, Kevin Fox. Race, Real Estate, and Uneven Development, Second Edition: The Kansas City Experience, 1900-2010.

Haskell, Harry. Boss-Busters and Sin Hounds: Kansas City and Its Star.

Johnson, Icie F. William Rockhill Nelson and the Kansas City Star: Their Relation to the Development of the Beauty and Culture of Kansas City and the Middle West. Burton Pub. Co, Kansas City, Mo., 1935.

Quigley, Martin Peter. Mr. Blood's Last Night: End of an Era in Journalism a Reporter Remembers Kansas City and the Times in the Late Thirties. ISBN: 0866290230. Published by Sunrise Pub Co, Austinburg, Ohio, U.S.A., 1980.

Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star: War-time Editorials by Theodore Roosevelt. Introduction by Ralph Stout, Managing Editor of The Star. Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1921.

Staff of The Kansas City Star. William Rockhill Nelson: The Story of a Man, a Newspaper and a City. United States, Printed at the Riverside Press, 1915.

Wolferman, Kristie C. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A History. University of Missouri Press, 2020.

Worley, William S. J.C. Nichols and the Shaping of Kansas City: Innovation in Planned Residential Communities.

References

External links

• Works by or about William Rockhill Nelson at Internet Archive