Joseph Hudson McKnight was a Wichita banker, businessman, and farmer. He was at one time considered one of Wichita’s “most remarkable pioneers,” and was described as “a city builder whose name will never die.” He didn’t receive the recognition some think he deserved, but that’s okay. The “strikingly unusual man” probably didn’t want it. 

McKnight’s legacy is one of a cranky, irritable, and difficult man, often defined by the numerous lawsuits he filed against the city over his land. There’s a bit more to his story than that, but it’s not one that is often told.

Joseph Hudson McKnight was born in 1861 in Pennsylvania to Amelia and George McKnight. The family was in Missouri in 1870, and according to his obituary, young Joseph left home at age 12 for Colorado to work in the mines. After he got bored with that, he headed east and hopped onto a ship where he worked and lived, sailing to Europe and back while still a boy. By 1880 at age 19, he was in Illinois with his family, working as a drug store clerk. It’s also said that he attended school there.

Joseph also met his future wife, Eva Helen Giltner, in Illinois. He moved to Anthony, Kansas in 1885 and Eva came with him. He married Eva in Anthony that same year, and it was reported that they had plans to stay quietly at home.

In 1890, the McKnights moved to Wichita where there was more opportunity. They had one son, a boy named George, in 1892. George had some kind of intellectual disability that kept him indoors, but not institutionalized. It’s said that his mind never progressed past the age of ten and that he spent all his time at home with his parents, most of it in the home that his father built on the family farm, which they called Willowdale Place.

McKnight’s early business ventures in Wichita include founding McKnight & Co. (later McKnight Wholesale Hardware Co.) where he promoted and sold Wichita-branded “Royal Worcester” cutlery, among other finer necessities. He also invested heavily in real estate.

Folks who are familiar with Wichita State University may know the McKnight Art Center, an art building on campus. When Joseph died in 1925, he asked that his will not be opened until his wife Eva died, and there were rumors that he had set money aside for a library or another public institution (he was said to be “a great reader and student”).

Eva died just two years later in 1927, and it was announced with great excitement that she set aside significant money for an art center. Eva is often credited with gifting the money (because it was outlined in her will, not his), but she used the money that Joseph left for her and presumably followed his rumored last wishes. I believe the art center was a gift to Wichita from both of them.

If you’ve driven down east Douglas, you’ve seen the statue erected in Joseph’s honor positioned between the former Roosevelt Intermediate School building and the original East High School building. Sometimes Joseph McKnight is remembered as the man who graciously sold (or generously donated) a portion of his farm to the city so these schools could be constructed, which isn’t quite true.

It is true that the 63 acres between Douglas and Kellogg, and Hydraulic and the drainage canal was once part of McKnight’s alfalfa farm, a prime piece of property that he purchased for a low price, and the city wanted very badly. The land wasn’t donated, and McKnight didn’t sell it until after fighting long, drawn-out battle with the city, and without the threat of condemnation (aka confiscation of his land) twice.

Who Was J. Hudson McKnight?

J. Hudson McKnight was described as “solitary” by Victor Murdock in the eulogy he gave at McKnight’s funeral in 1925. His secretive and non-conformist lifestyle, coupled with the fact that few people were close to him, leads to much speculation about the type of man he really was.

People who personally knew McKnight described him as a homebody who enjoyed being at Willowdale Place with his family, tucked away in his study, reading until late into the night. In his eulogy, Victor Murdock praised McKnight for the “one characteristic that made him stand out from the crowd” –  he just wanted to be left alone. 

Perhaps because he wanted to be left alone, he was also considered by many to be a cranky old curmudgeon. McKnight probably was cranky, but maybe he had a reason to be. It could be argued that McKnight wasn’t so cranky until he was a victim of greedy capitalists, city officials, and nosy citizens who harassed him to a breaking point, and basically stole his land. These actions would turn anyone bitter, betrayed by a city they once loved.

Some say McKnight was someone who shied away from politics, maybe because he once turned down a nomination for a congressional seat. But he was involved in politics, perhaps more than the average person. He had a personal relationship with at least one presidential candidate, and campaigned for him (he lost). He served as a member of the Sedgwick County “Free Silver Delegation,” a political organization. In the late 1890s, he campaigned to form the Wichita Congress in his role with the Transmississippi Commercial Congress, something he was widely praised for. Through this role, he had personal communication directly with many political officials, including President William McKinley and President Porfirio Diaz of Mexico. 

McKnight mostly made the news for his maverick actions. Among the worst, he was arrested once for pulling a gun on a fundraiser for the Red Cross, which I admit makes for a dramatic headline. A man pulling a gun on an innocent donation collector sounds more than solitary or cranky – it’s violent and irrational! It’s hard to imagine excusing this, unless you have more detail.

Previous mob violence in Wichita a few days prior, which started with the burning of at least one business and ended on McKnight’s front lawn, had set him on edge. The claim was that McKnight refused to purchase Liberty Bonds (aka refused his patriotic duty) and because of that, he had a mob at his door claiming he was a “pro-German” sympathizer. He sought help from the local police, and said he was instructed to protect himself and how. This fact made barely a blip in the sensational headlines about his arrest but was absolutely a factor in his actions. It would be stated after his death that he actually did buy Liberty Bonds – $200,000 worth.

These acts and others help to solidify his “cranky old man” status with the public.

McKnight has been accused of being a litigious man, a trait that became one of his defining characteristics in death. It’s true that McKnight found himself involved in many lawsuits, over things from tailoring to taxes, but they weren’t frivolous. Often his claims involved a breach of contract, and many times, he won. There’s some evidence to suggest that he preferred to avoid a lawsuit and settle out of court when that was an option, but amicable agreements aren’t usually the kind of stories that make the news.

McKnight may have also used the courts against the city similar to how they were using the system against him. The lawsuits he was involved in were viewed by some as “periodical stunts” rather than the actions of a man trying to protect his land, or a man attempting to enforce the terms of an agreement. He was probably involved in no more litigation than the usual rich capitalist who had something worth protecting. But McKnight wasn’t protecting just “something,” this was his home.

Prior to the land dispute that would define his life, McKnight was known and respected for being “closely identified with the commercial interests” of Wichita. But because of the lawsuits, some people grew to think of McKnight as an obstructionist who tried to thwart the advancement of a city that grew around him. He formed organized protests about improvements and infrastructure like sidewalks, pavement, and wider roads that touched his land, and sued the city every time something went awry.

McKnight wasn’t really mad that the city was growing. He was mad about the city taking pieces of his land, installing infrastructure through his land to prep it for unplatted residential lots, forcing him to make ‘improvements’ to his land for the benefit of the city, and using questionable tactics to accomplish their goals. This ended up being the fight that defined his life.

Landgrieved

As Wichita grew, McKnight was determined to keep his land, but he began to feel the city encroaching, The property around his holdings was subdivided and sold for homes and he was taxed for sewers, street paving, sidewalks and the dredging and straightening of Chisholm Creek, which ran through his property.

The Wichita Eagle, November 19, 1992

In 1896, J. Hudson McKnight purchased 123 acres of land from the Johnston children, heirs to the Johnston and Black fortunes. McKnight purchased the land cheap and intended to use it as his family’s estate. At that time, most of his land, from Hydraulic to Grove and Kellogg to Douglas, was used to farm alfalfa and sometimes wheat. There’s no indication that McKnight farmed the land himself, but he did rent it out to others to farm, and it was a functional farm until it was sold to the city.

A portion of the land along Hydraulic was used to construct the family home, a two-story stone structure with turrets, many windows filled with colored glass, and a beautiful garden for George to enjoy. Joseph, a patriotic man, was said to have put letters from a Senator in the cornerstone. This home, one of the finest in Wichita at the time it was built, stood prominently at what is now the corner of Hydraulic and English. They called it Willowdale Place.

The McKnight’s did not have peace at Willowdale Place. At the turn of the century, what to do with McKnight’s alfalfa farm became a hot topic (and the subject of political campaigns), with opinions shared in person and constantly published in the local papers. It seems everyone had something to say about what McKnight should do with his land, and the popular opinion was that he shouldn’t be allowed to keep his farm. By 1918 (the same year that a mob swarmed his lawn), the city was already years into an initiative to strongarm him into submission. 

For nearly two decades, almost the entire time he owned the large, open expanse of land that separated downtown Wichita from College Hill, the pressure toward McKnight did not relent. Public opinion gave rise to even more opinions about his land. The community saw “many ideal building locations” on McKnight’s land, and determined their ideas would be better than his farm. The constant flow of opinions, most opposed to McKnight making decisions about his own property, aimed to encourage him to give up his land to the city for “the greater good.”

It doesn’t seem like McKnight was opposed to advancing the greater good. He just didn’t want to be forced into something he didn’t want, especially under terms he found unfavorable. He offered to lease his land to the city for free so they could have a park, on one condition: that he wouldn’t have to pay taxes on the land during the lease. This offer was rejected because it was deemed too beneficial for McKnight to retain the land and profit from its increased value over time.

Joseph wasn’t opposed to schools using his land. He leased part of his land to the city for the short-lived Fairmont Athletic Park. Said to be “a great reader and student” and an “inveterate reader of substantial literature,” at one point he was willing to gift a portion of his land for the Andrew Carnegie Library with no strings attached (other than building the library there, of course). This would have been a gift to the city, but the offer was rejected and the library was instead built on Main Street.

McKnight wanted to decide what his land was used for, but the city wanted to use his land for purposes they deemed fit. In what could be seen as an effort to antagonize McKnight and force him to sell, the city began prepping his land for residential lots by constructing sewers and planning roads through his property. In 1910 the city unofficially subdivided his land into over 1,200 separate residential lots rather than the 123-acre farm that it was, and then increased his taxes year after year, sometimes up to 200%. After his death, the city’s tactics and McKnight’s responses to them would be described as “a hard-fought battle,” after which the city got what they wanted – McKnight’s land.

Timeline

Incomplete timeline of events reported locally about J. Hudson McKnight

1901: Option secured by the city to lease a portion of McKnight’s land for athletic purposes.

1902: The athletic field on McKnight’s farm is closed and moved elsewhere.

1903: McKnight tries to stop the opening and widening of Grove through his property, his argument being the city was taking his property without compensation. He loses.

1904: The city had completely grown around the farm, and McKnight’s real tax battle with the city began. He protested being included in the city limits (which would mean paying city taxes), a fight he lost. He appealed this ruling, and the Supreme Court denied his appeal.

1905: McKnight appeals the decision about opening Grove and challenges the compensation he received.

1906: McKnight loses his appeal, and is awarded $350 as compensation for the lost of a 34 foot wide strip of his land from Douglas to Kellogg.

1907: McKnight wins a temporary injunction to keep the city from interfering with trees and hedgerows along Hydraulic from Douglas to Kellogg. He constructs a sidewalk along Douglas and requests reimbursement for the work.

1908: McKnight sues the city over the value of his land because they are “wide apart on property values,” over 614%. Wichita residents are “much too interested” in the outcome of the case, and jurors must be summoned from elsewhere. He’s awarded $453 by a jury for the city condemning a portion of his land for Grove Ave. He organizes a protest to stop improvement on East Douglas Avenue and threatens to sue the city if they proceed. He was ordered to put in a curb and gutter along his Douglas-facing property, and he took his time to do so.

1909: City Commissioners joke in a meeting about condemning McKnight’s land for a park, but then begin seriously considering it. The city continues to “improve” the land for residential lots. McKnight refuses to allow contractors to run a sewer through his land.

1910: McKnight sues the city for $35 in taxes paid on 2/3rds of an acre that was condemned for the Chisolm Creek drainage canal, and $55 for damages to the sidewalks he built in 1908. He continues to refuse to allow the storm sewer construction through his property (but eventually loses the battle). Later, he sues the city for $16,000 in damages for the loss of seven acres of his land for the drainage canal and wins. Public opinion about what to do with McKnight’s property was published everywhere (and there was no shortage). Every single member of the Wichita Booster Club (112 people total) signed a petition to condemn McKnight’s land for a park. Then, the city raises McKnight’s taxes 178% by increasing the valuation of his property from $87,500 to $243,600. This is done by taxing him on a basis of 1,244 residential lots, even though the farm was not platted for residential. McKnight eloquently protests the valuation – and they increase it another $5,000. McKnight files an injunction against city officials, attempting to prevent them from collecting paving tax for East Douglas Avenue, and claiming that a portion of it was not legal. He sues the city for damages caused by the drainage canal and was awarded $30,000.

1911: McKnight sues the city for a rebate on the sidewalk they made him build. He points out that the water company is valued at $625,000 but they want to sell it for $1,800,000 and has two active injunction cases against the city involving his property. He gets into a fistfight with Dr. G.M. Howe (a tenant) over some unapproved renovations to one of his rentals.

1912: McKnight sues the city for damages to his alfalfa crop caused by overflow of the drainage canal beneath the Douglas bridge (after all the work on the canal on his property, he claimed they didn’t maintain the portion of the canal on their own property). That year he would file at least five lawsuits and two claims against the city, including grievances about streets placed through his land in preparation for residential lots that did not exist yet on land that they did not own.

1913: McKnight took his land fight to the Kansas Supreme Court again (he eventually dropped it), and continued fighting locally with city officials. He sued the city for a refund of taxes paid in 1910 and 1911 on portions of land the city had taken from him.

1914: Joseph’s mother dies. He protests his farm valuation, and manages to avoid an 8% increase that was imposed on other taxpayers. The city stores dirt on his land that they dug from the canal, and when they began hauling the dirt away to fill other areas of the canal, he protests. He’s accused of “pulling one over” on taxpayers by having the valuation of his land lowered.

1915: A.A. Hyde claims he worked out a deal to buy 60 acres of McKnight’s farm for a park for $98,000, but when put to a vote, Wichitans who had been so vocal about taking McKnight’s land for a park, voted to reject the purchase because the price was too high. McKnight gets into a legal battle over water – the city water company sues him for water bills dating back to 1909, while he claims he had an agreement with them to receive free water for ten years as compensation for laying his own water pipe. He loses and appeals.

1916: The Wichita water company and McKnight settle their dispute. The courts decided that McKnight owed just $9.75, and it cost the city just over $100 to come to that decision. He also wins a reduction in his property valuation (and his taxes), but in a separate private case he is ordered to pay over $400 to a plumbing company that sued him for unpaid bills.

1917: McKnight says he will sell his property for $375,000, more than twice its appraised value. After being nearly hit by a car, he sets aside money in his will to prosecute any motorist for manslaughter should he die under their wheels.

1918: McKnight was arrested for pulling a gun on a Red Cross solicitor and impersonating an officer and was fined $200. He’s sued by a tenant for being pretty difficult over the farm.

1919: Through her agent and husband, Eva asks the courts to stop the city from assessing their land for a new sewer, while her husband filed a claim with the war department for damages done to his land by two airplanes that landed in his field. The city began negotiations with McKnight to purchase a portion of his land for a school. A price could not be agreed upon (McKnight originally asked for $579,000), so the school board voted to condemn a portion of his land. Later it was reported that McKnight agreed to sell for $126,070, which he would later dispute and say he agreed to $226,070. The school board again voted to condemn the land, and then McKnight ended up selling 68 acres of land east of the drainage canal for $150,250 to the city for the purpose of building new schools.

1920: East End Theodore Roosevelt Intermediate School is constructed on the former McKnight farm. The name is shortened to Roosevelt Intermediate School.

1921: Hydraulic is paved – except for the stretch in front of the McKnight property. “Biggest event of the school year” on the McKnight tract at the new intermediate school, a May Day festival for twenty-three Wichita schools.

1922: McKnight’s name is suggested for the new high school, but “the gentleman has no particular taste or ambition for popular honors of that particular sort.” Kellogg, College Hill, and downtown Wichita are all paved “except for a short strip between Hydraulic and the canal on the south side of the McKnight estate.“

1923: Wichita High School (now East High School) opens on the old McKnight farm. Joseph offers to lease a portion of his land to the city for a park, but they refuse the offer.

1925: J. Hudson McKnight dies following a stroke at age 64. The contents of his will were to be kept secret until his wife Eva’s death. Victor Murdock gives his eulogy (which is worth a read) and states “his habit of strict individualism made him appear more contentious than he was.” (Or maybe he was just a cranky old man.)

Joseph Hudson McKnight is buried at Maple Grove Cemetery in Wichita, KS.

After J. Hudson Dies

1927: Eva McKnight dies. Her will provides for the care and support of their son George until his death, and upon his death, the remaining funds would be released. The McKnight Place tract (the remainder of the farm, except Willowdale Place) went on the market as residential lots (50 acres for $175,000), with one defining feature being the McKnight Parkway.

1928: Instead of a local artist, Alexander Phimister Proctor is selected by the McKnight estate executors to be the sculptor of the memorial sculpture and fountain. It was warned that the design “may not please” Wichitans. McKnight Parkway is established along the canal.

1931: J. Hudson McKnight’s memorial fountain and statue are unveiled as the “Eva H. McKnight Memorial Fountain.” Victor Murdock does the dedication.

1967: George McKnight dies, and $500,000 is immediately released for the construction of an arts facility at Wichita State University, per Eva’s will.

1969: The contents of Willowdale Place are sold at auction, and the home is razed.

Additional Resources

“You Kids Get Off My Lawn!” (College Hill Commoner, 2010)

Then and Now: J. Hudson McKnight Estate (Historic Preservation Alliance of Wichita and Sedgwick County)

Hyde Neighborhood Association

Excerpts from “A History of Wichita Public School Buildings”

McKnight Art Center, Historical Marker Database

McKnight Parkway, City of Wichita Parks and Recreation

McKnight Memorial, (sculpture), Smithsonian American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery

Alexander Phimister Proctor Monumental Sculptures

Wichita State University Special Collections, Papers of J. Hudson McKnight

ICT in the ICT, McKnight Parkway