WE Blog

State legislators’ inability to find common ground this session applies to some actual ground: the new state-owned 76-acre park in Topeka at the former Menninger Clinic campus. A House-Senate conference committee has yet to reconcile the ungainly and inaccurate House-passed name, Oregon Trail Kaw River State Park — inaccurate because the trail did not pass through the site, which is not on the river — with Senate ideas to honor the Menninger family or note the nearby governor’s mansion, Cedar Crest. Topeka Capital-Journal columnist Pete Goering dubbed it the “Close to the Oregon Trail a View of the Kaw River Anything But Menninger State Park.” A Hutchinson News editorial, calling the House name a “meaningless mouthful,” suggested honoring the late Gordon Parks (in photo). Worthy subject, but “Gordon Parks Park”?
Posted by Rhonda Holman