Kansas City, MO

Sparxafire!
We do have a lot of wonderful fountains here — of the elaborate and grandiose type. During the early development of Kansas City, founding fathers wanted the city to have, “more boulevards than Paris; more fountains than Rome.” And we do have lots of great avenues and fountains. According to city all, Kansas City is officially known as the “City of Fountains,” and the city uses the image of a fountain as its logo.

But “more than” …? That has never been proved to me. Through an accidental oversight, I forgot to visit Paris and Rome to personally check this out. Although, I suppose one would need to define a fountain. Water fountain? What about a waterfall? We have those architecturally presented into our cityscape, but since they don’t splurt, do they count?

The Kansas City Fountains website claims to have listed more than 200 Kansas City Fountains… then goes on to say that only Rome has more fountains than Kansas City… without revealing how many fountains Rome has! They also do not count the hundreds of corporate fountains, neighborhood and other private foountains that are inspired by the city’s committment to fountains.

When Nebraska Furniture Mart came to town, for godsake, it attempted to anchor itself to the city with a significant fountain!

Here’s the definitive clue: I don’t notice the Rome website touting, “More Fountains Than Kansas City!” on its front page. Aha! See? Even Rome is not so sure!

Beyond the highly controversial numbers and claims of world leadership, KC’s fountains are great. I do not take them for granted, and when I am visiting other cities, I occasionally find myself spotting perfect places to put a fountain. Strangely, I think I miss them when I’m out of town.

Kansas City’s most famous fountain = the JC Nichols Memorial Fountain located in our semi-famous Country Club Plaza. The Plaza is the one that produces spectacular holiday views by outlining all the buildings in lights … I mean, 80 miles of light strings containing 280,000 bulbs outlining architecturally unique Spanish-style buildings.

One of my favorite KC fountains is the one closest to my house… and that’s part of the reason it’s my favorite. It is the only fountain designed to run all winter long and thereby create a fascinating mountain of ice that constantly changes with winter temperatures! Freezing cool! Sparxafire, indeed!