Ask someone about Kansas City and you’re likely to hear things about it being a midsized city in the heartland of America with a penchant for BBQ, Jazz and sports.
Ask someone about mobsters and they immediately think of New York or Las Vegas in the time of prohibition. Images of tough looking wise guys with tommy guns and zoot suits flash in their heads. It turns out the two have a lot more in common than most people realize.
This series attempts to inform geocachers on the shockingly high number of locations around town with ties to organized crime. A lot of time went into researching this series and I’d like to give a special thanks to the wonderful folks in the Missouri Valley Room at the Kansas City library for patiently pulling old newspaper articles and microfiche for me. Additionally, large portions of the source material came from books by Terence O’Malley and William Ouseley. Bill Ouseley is a retired Special Agent with the FBI who spent over twenty years working in the organized crime squad.
Perhaps you’ve driven by this place before and didn’t even realize it. Also a good chance many have not as it’s in the “sketchy” part of town after all. I’ve driven by it dozens of times in the last year and fully knew what it was but wasn’t ready to face it yet. You see, this location has become part menace, part legend. It has been home to one of Kansas City’s great Civil Rights leaders, home to multiple homicides, drug deals spun wrong, and bad luck to its owners. All the while being fought for to preserve because of its history.
Early history on the place is not well known except that it opened for business in the 1940’s. Leon Jordan, purchased the Green Duck in the middle 50’s. In 1962 Jordan and Bruce R. Watkins formed Freedom, Inc. an organization that advocated political awareness amongst African-Americans in Kansas City. The headquarters for Freedom Inc. was next door to the Green Duck allowing Jordan to keep an eye on his business while running his political organization. Among the many Freedom Inc. achievements one of their most notable actions was desegregation to all public facilities in Kansas City.
After three terms in the Missouri House of Representatives, Leon Jordan was campaigning for a fourth term. That all came to end at around 1 a.m. on July 15, 1970. Jordan was leaving his business for the night and was a few feet away from his car when a late 60’s Pontiac came up beside him and fired a shotgun blast to his leg. While laying on the sidewalk the shooter jumped out and fired two more shots. Both point blank to the chest and groin areas. As the getaway car sped up 26th and disappeared they must’ve made a quick stop at 24th and Garfield and pitched the weapon (later recovered) and ditched the car at 23rd and Highland. The murder remains unsolved but is believed it was an execution by the Nick Civella family due to Jordan’s refusal to back off from his efforts to “clean up the streets”.
The recovered weapon was traced back to a robbery in 1965 that occurred in Independence. As a result police involvement was certainly a theory. During the writing of a book by the Kansas City Star they turned up new evidence that tied it to a possible mob hit. From there… the Green Duck became even more infamous.
After years of functionality as a basic watering hole, it was bought from foreclosure in the late 80’s by Jimmy Townsend. Townsend was a pillar in the African-American community and previous owner of Jimmy’s and Dee’s Steakhouse on 29th and Prospect. He would spend years renovating the Green Duck. Unfortunately, renovations did nothing to stop the underage drinking, gang fights, turf war, drug deals, and difference of opinion that made it a sketchy place. After multiple homicides inside and one busted drug deal by an undercover detective the Green Duck was shut down by Kansas City for 6 months in 2011 as a public nuisance. It was reopened in 2012 after agreeing to several stipulations.
The African-American community fought hard in September 2015 to protect this historical location since it was a big piece of their Civil Rights past. Their hard work paid off because they were able to get it onto the cities register of historic places. Unfortunately on December 20, 2015 Jimmy Townsend’s body was found gunned down behind his house in the 2900 block of Prospect. It isn’t known when his shooting death occurred but he was the second owner of the building to be gunned down.
Today it remains unknown what will become of the infamously historic Green Duck Lounge. It’s curse scares some off, it’s history attracts others (me, maybe you). But location is everything and based on where it sits it’s hard to ever know if we will see it up and running again. Currently the building sits unoccupied and lonely. It’s pretty quiet here now or at least it was the day I visited. I imagine it’s proximity to the KC Crime Lab and East Patrol Campus for the KC police play a role in that.
MOB CACHE
This is a mob cache. The only way to get the final coordinates of the cache is to stand at the posted coordinates with a group of at least 6 people. Carefully read the following instructions before attempting.
HOW DOES THIS CACHE WORK?
- The posted coordinates relate to the historical event(s) mentioned in the description of this cache. There is not a physical container to find but it is necessary for your group to stand here to get the coordinates of the final.
- The group must be formed by at least 6 people. Each one must have a smartphone with internet access using a standard browser (be sure that the geolocalization of your phone is enabled).
- Each member of the group must follow this link http://www.geotrailsw.com/mob/ Then, at the bottom of the page, you will be asked "which mob are you attending?". Insert the code 4004. The purpose of this procedure is to verify that the members of the group are really standing at the posted coordinates.
- Stand as close as possible to the GZ while remaining safe. There is a tolerance radius of 50 meters to account for GPS precision issues some smartphones experience.
- When at least 6 members of the group are connected, the final coordinates will appear on your screens. Good luck!
PLEASE DO NOT SHARE THE FINAL COORDINATES OF THIS CACHE!
