Wagons ho! Westport’s dilapidated Conestoga lifted away, replaced with ‘new’ version

Eric Adler
·2 min read

After 61 years of rain, wind, snow and sweltering heat that rotted its wood, broke its wheels and corroded its metal, the old covered wagon held.

Cooper Weeks worried it wouldn’t.

The worst-case scenario to the owner of the Old Westport Shopping Center was that the crane sent Wednesday morning to haul away the deteriorated Conestoga-type wagon that has sat since 1963 at Westport Road and Southwest Trafficway would lift the wagon only to see it collapse into a heap of wood and metal and dust onto the parking lot.

“I really don’t think people realized how out-of-shape it really is,” his son, Cooper Weeks II, said.

“There she goes!” Weeks’ daughter, Mercedes Chastain, said as the wagon, supported by beams beneath its belly, rose off its perch of stones and swung into the air. “It’s bitter sweet, for sure.”

Crews worked Wednesday to remove a covered wagon, believed to be from the 1860s, that has stood since 1963 at the Old Westport Shopping Center.
Crews worked Wednesday to remove a covered wagon, believed to be from the 1860s, that has stood since 1963 at the Old Westport Shopping Center.

The wagon, with metal parts dating to the 1860s, had been a fixture in Westport ever since the shopping center opened with its Western-themed architecture in 1963. The center was built on the site of the former St. Pius X school.

Weeks said that he had tried for years to preserve the wagon, knowing that it had become a landmark and unofficial symbol for Westport. In the 1800s, Westport, before it became part of Kansas City, was instrumental to outfitting settlers venturing west along the Santa Fe, Oregon and California trails.

It became increasingly evident that the wagon could not be repaired.

Weeks last year found a replacement in South Dakota, painted a gray-blue and created nearly 50 years ago to celebrate the United States’ 1976 bicentennial. The replacement wagon, which was in storage on site in a parking garage beneath Westlake Hardware, was rolled out Wednesday and pulled to the corner by workers Chris Piganowski, 24, and Cooper Williams, 19, of Infinity Sign Systems.

Local media marked the removal of the old wagon, just as news reporters in March 1963 covered the opening of the shopping center.

Mercedes Chastain, daughter of Cooper Weeks, owner of the Old Westport Shopping Center, sat in a replacement covered wagon as crews from Infinity Sign Co. rolled it into place. The replica wagon, built for the 1976 bicentennial, replaces an 1860s covered wagon that had been at Westport Road and Southwest Trafficway since 1963.
Mercedes Chastain, daughter of Cooper Weeks, owner of the Old Westport Shopping Center, sat in a replacement covered wagon as crews from Infinity Sign Co. rolled it into place. The replica wagon, built for the 1976 bicentennial, replaces an 1860s covered wagon that had been at Westport Road and Southwest Trafficway since 1963.

The old wagon is to be stored beneath the hardware store until it is dismantled. Weeks said individuals and organizations, including the Westport Historical Society, have already inquired about taking wheels or other parts as historic artifacts.

The replacement wagon was to be set in place Wednesday, with its covering to be added Thursday by the Kansas City Tent & Awning Co.

One on-going concern, Chastain said, regards homeless people who over the years have broken through the wagon’s bottom and canvas to use the wagon as shelter, particularly in the winter. Chastain said they will attempt to secure the replacement wagon.

“It’s going to be tough,” she said. “But I hope people respect it.”