August 23, 2007  The Clay County Park's Department has completed the  construction of a new pit toilet at Jack Rabbit Bend Horse Trailer Parking area at Smithville Lake.  The toilet is open for business!

The City of Kansas City, Mo., announced the appointment of Deb Ridgway as the new bicycle and pedestrian transportation coordinator.

The City is very fortunate to have someone with Debs experience, skill set and passion for alternative transportation in this newly created position. We look forward to her efforts to move the City forward in the area of bicycle and pedestrian transportation, said Stan Harris, director of the Public Works Department.

It has been said that the only major battle of the Civil War in Clay County was the Battle of the Blue Mills Ferry when the Confederate soldiers were crossing the Missouri River at that ferry and were followed by Union troops.  The Southern men hid in the thickets on the side of the road and ambushed the Union men.  This skirmish lasted nearly an hour.  The action allowed the Secessionists to escape safely to the south of the river so they could join the State Guards in Lexington.  According to Gatewood's 1885 history, the Federal loss was 14 killed and about 80 wounded.  The State Guards lost 3 in the field and 2 more died of wounds the next day with 17 or 18 wounded.  The Federal dead were buried on William Jewell College grounds.  This, of course, was not of much consequence as a battle, but the incidence of brutal skirmishes on both sides caused general unrest all over this part of the country.  When Peggy Smith, librarian in the Missouri Valley Room called with the clipping from the Kansas City Journal published on 14 November 1904 concerning the “Battle of Randolph, Missouri in July 1861”, the writer had to admit the story was a new one and worthy to be published.  So here it is slightly edited:

At the time Ft. Sumpter was fired upon, Kansas City, Missouri. Had a population variously estimated from 4,000 to 8,000.  There was then a small settlement of a dozen houses immediately across the Missouri River on lower grounds called Harlem and another village of a half dozen log cabins about three and a half miles farther down on the same side called Randolph.  This little town was the scene of a serio-comic battle of the beginning of the rebellion.  The account given by H. E. Robinson in the Maryville Republican is very interesting.