McCune School
By Amber Rumpel
Judge Henry McCune was the first juvenile court judge in Jackson County. He felt that jailing boys had a demoralizing effect on them and set out to establish a “parental home” where delinquent, neglected and orphaned boys, aged 8 to 18, could live in a family atmosphere while learning useful life skills. In 1905, the county court was given the authority to open an institution of this nature; in 1907 they paid $9000 for a 100-acre tract that was part of the Winslow-Rogers farm east of Independence.
The original plan was for boys who were sent to the farm to stay with the headmaster for a 30-day orientation period or “until the rough edges were rounded off.”They would then be integrated into a home on the farm that would have a housemother, housefather and nine other boys. They would live like a family, with the mothers cooking and doing the housework. The fathers would work around the farm doing various jobs, and the boys would attend school on the farm. Judge McCune’s vision was for the boys to be reared on the farm by the house parents as if they were the sons of wealthy farmers. They were to receive an education, religious instruction and discipline. They would wear their own clothes, and there would be no guards on this farm. The boys were not to feel like prisoners.
The home opened on April 16, 1908, under the supervision of Professor James M. Taylor. In the beginning, the program operated in the original farm buildings. It was soon decided that they needed a school building, so the court built a temporary one. The Kansas City School District sent four teachers and many supplies to the farm. McCune’s first day of school was October 15, 1908.
In November of 1908, the cornerstone for the administration building was laid, and the cornerstone of the permanent school building was laid the following year. Each building was constructed of native stone, quarried on the property. The school building consisted of six rooms, four for academic classes and two for manual training. They began adding cottages to the property, eventually constructing eight in all. The top floor of each two-story, stucco and stone cottage had a dormitory housing up to 30 boys. The cottages lined a street along with trees and a sidewalk, resembling large homes in a wealthy subdivision.
The court appointed a superintendent of farming, Ernest R. deVigne, who assumed jurisdiction over McCune’s farm. He felt that putting the boys to work would alleviate some of the financial burden created by the facility. In agreement, the court began planning a vocational program, and that program was established in 1913 in an effort to make the institution self-sufficient.
The school continued to have academic courses and added vocational instruction, which included agriculture, building construction and repair, steam laundering and shoe making. Boys in sixth grade and above split each school day between academic and vocational classes. They were allowed to choose a vocational area to pursue and they worked in that field each day. The younger boys spent the entire school day in academic classes but were expected to do daily chores around the farm. There were eight academic teachers and 15 vocational teachers at this time.
All construction, farming and repairs at the home were done by the residents of the home. By 1916, the boys had built two houses and an electrical power plant with service lines to each building. They did all of the excavation work, the store work, the carpentry, plumbing, electrical wiring, and painting, and made all the furniture. In their free time the boys swam, fished, played basketball, boxed, played softball, played indoor games and had song fests.
In 1917, James M. Taylor resigned his position as superintendent of the home, citing the county court’s interference as reason for his inability to continue to perform his duties effectively, specifically citing the hiring of DeVigne. The Kansas City School Board was upset that the court was interfering with a system that had run successfully for nine years. The Board pulled its support of the home, allowing the court to exercise singular control over the institution and leaving the court to hire and pay teachers, as well as pay for supplies themselves.
H. G. Kemper was named as Taylor’s successor. During Kemper’s tenure, the home did away with the vocational program and the county sold much of the equipment. Kemper also adopted a corporal punishment and “prison silence” system. By 1918, the conditions at McCune had deteriorated to the point that the Jackson County grand jury stepped in to take control of the institution. They called for Kemper’s resignation and appointed Clarence Blocher in his place.
In 1919, the Kansas City School District reached an agreement with the county court, and entered again into partnered responsibility for the facility. There was general dissatisfaction with Blocher’s work, so in 1920 the school board removed him as superintendent and replaced him with Julian Stewart. A few weeks later, the state board visited McCune and found that the conditions there were deplorable. The buildings had become rundown and the children were dirty and underfed. The state board decreed how meals should be served, how students should receive vocational training and how the salaries of the teachers and superintendent should be split between the Kansas City School board and the county court.
Over the next five years, there was much controversy as the county court fired Julian Stewart, charging that he was incompetent, and hired Bert Hafner, who had no experience operating or even working in a facility such as McCune. Mr. Hafner was accused of using many inhumane forms of punishment with the young men at the home. The county court then made a motion to reinstate Stewart, but the school board was not happy with either of these men. The state legislature stepped in and gave total control of the management of the home to the circuit court, removing the county court from the equation. These judges asked the school board to appoint a superintendent. In 1926, the board brought back James M. Taylor to McCune as the superintendent.
Mr. Taylor was able to return the home to the successful program that it had been under his previous care. From the beginning of the program and even as late as 1931, McCune was described as the model institution for delinquent youth. Boys were remanded to the program for two years, but could get out earlier by earning merits. While under Taylor’s care, boys continued their vocational education, had clean clothes, and had access to a dentist, a doctor and a barber on campus. The boys attended a nondenominational church service each Sunday. Taylor never wanted the boys to feel as if they were criminals, but wanted rather to give them an opportunity to learn skills that would allow them to be successful citizens. In 1932, the court purchased an additional 116 acres of land that was owned by Mary and R.D. Mize.
In the early 1930s, Taylor began having disagreements with Juvenile Court Judge Ray Cowan about the young men who were being sent to McCune, and for releasing residents before they had met the criteria for release. In 1934, Judge Harry S. Truman called for Taylor’s resignation, citing the “conflicts and animosities” he was creating with Judge Cowan. All told, James M. Taylor supervised McCune for 20 years.
Elementary students were still being schooled at the farm in the 1940s, but older boys were being bussed into Kansas City to Manual High and Vocational School. Investigators found that the McCune boys were treated as if they were hopeless by the teachers at the Kansas City school. They were not encouraged to participate in any school activities and their lockers were segregated from the other students.
By 1942, the conditions at McCune had deteriorated greatly. Due to declining enrollment, four of the eight cottages were closed. Within two years, complaints were again lodged against the facility. Reports were made of filthy conditions, rodent infestation, and boys being whipped
Juvenile Court Judge Ray Cowan suggested McCune be sold, because the population had decreased so dramatically. Although the current superintendent claimed that the farm still turned a profit, the judge felt that a smaller home nearer the city would make the boys more appreciative of the importance of the law. A group of citizens headed by the superintendent of Kansas City schools decided to leave McCune where it was, to restore the buildings and revamp the school program. They decided that they wanted skilled teachers, but that a vocational program would not be beneficial since the students weren’t there long enough to properly learn a trade.
In March of 1946, the McCune school building was destroyed by fire. It apparently started as a small blaze in the principal’s office. Unfortunately, the farm had no hydrants, so firefighters were unable to battle the fire. No one was injured. An unoccupied cottage was cleared out where school could be held for the elementary grades. High school students were sent to Northeast High and the Manual and Vocational schools in Kansas City. In 1948, there was another fire at McCune this time in the dormitory that was being used as the grade school. It was quickly extinguished and caused minimal damage.
Construction of new buildings began on the McCune campus in January of 1950, after a bond proposal of nearly a million dollars was accepted a few years earlier. Plans called for one building to house the school and administrative offices along with three dormitories. Construction was completed sixteen months later.
A fourth cottage was built on McCune property 15 years after the other buildings were completed. Soon, a recommendation was made to remodel the older cottages to be more in line with the new structure. Remodeling included the installation of walls to form separate bedrooms in what were currently open dormitories, as well as construction of a glassed-in viewing area for cottage workers to better monitor the residents’ activity. These changes brought about the first signs of McCune resembling a prison. The superintendent at the time suggested renaming the facility McCune School rather than McCune Home -- a fitting suggestion, as no remnants of Judge McCune’s original vision of a “home” for boys was evident.
In 1981, the Kansas City School District announced that they would no longer provide educational services for McCune and that current teachers at the facility would all be employed in other Kansas City district buildings. At that time, Fort Osage refused to be responsible for McCune’s educational services. The superintendent, Victor Gragg, didn’t feel that it should be the Fort’s responsibility since most of the students at McCune did not come from the district. However, in 1982 a bill was passed stating that each school district was responsible for education of students in correctional facilities that fall within the borders of that district. Fortunately, the home district of each student was required to pass along the taxes they received for that child to the responsible district. The Fort Osage School District contracted the educational program out to a agency, citing their own inexperience with a facility like McCune. Soon, Comprehensive Mental Health Services took over the educational program at McCune.
By the late 1980s, McCune School was housing boys with very different offenses than the original residents of McCune Home. In the first 40 years, the boys were mostly run-always, truants and orphans. The crimes the boys were guilty of increased in severity over the years, and McCune was soon seeing young men who had committed arson, burglary and even shootings. Administrators put an 18 foot fence around one of the cottages to hold violent offenders who were on campus temporarily. They soon put a fence around another cottage to house students while they are first being oriented to the program. Many people living near McCune began complaining that the school needed more security after seeing an increased incidence of car thefts in the area which they attributed to the high rate of escapes from McCune. In 1992, an 18foot fence was built to encircle the entire campus. In addition, plastic windows that only open about 6 inches were installed in each resident room, along with bars on the outside. These changes were discouraging to many workers at McCune who felt that the addition of the fence made it into a minimum security prison, rather than the correctional facility it was intended to be.
In 1997, the Fort Osage School District canceled the contract they had held for 15 years with Comprehensive Mental Health and took over the educational program at McCune itself. This move was a great benefit to the students and staff of McCune School, as it allowed them to have access to the same caliber of materials, benefits and training of other students and staff in the district. *
*Much of the information in this history was taken from newspaper clippings which were not marked with date, author or name of newspaper. Following is a list of the publications used that did have some form of citation.
Bibliography (incomplete)
Westlake-Whitney, C. (1908). Kansas City, Missouri: Its History and Its People 1808-1908.
Kansas City Star (2/13/1908), (11/28/1909), (12/24/1913), (6/28/1917), (7/21/1918), (8/26/1918), (9/3/1918), (12/2/1925), (12/3/1925),
Kansas City Times (11/19/1908), (7/28/1913), (4/1916), (8/24/1964)
Kansas City Post (8/4/1909), (12/6/1914)
M.E. Ballou (1926). Jackson County Institutional Homes. P. 17-21.
Proceedings of the 11th Annual Session of the Kansas Conference of Social Work.
(1910). P. 81-83
“Jackson County Court to Have Supervisions of McCune Home”, Kansas City Times,
(7/2/1917).
Kansas City Star Kansas City Times (3/2/1926), ( 8/25/1932), (12/17/1934),(10/10/1944)
“Asks New Boys’ Home”, Kansas City Times (9/13/1945)
“For Same M’Cune Site”, Kansas City Star (9/30/1945)
“Big M’Cune Fire”, Kansas City Star (3/24/1946)
“Studies Wait on Work”, Kansas City Times (3/25/1946)
“Fire at M’Cune Home”, Kansas City Times (4/20/1948)
“Boys’ Morale Rises with Completion of $825,000 McCune Home Project”, Kansas City
Star (5/6/1951).
“M’Cune is Integrated”, Kansas City Times (1965).
“Plan McCune Center Open House”, Kansas City Star (4/17/1966).
“Trees Go, Teams Come at McCune”, Kansas City Times (4/25/1969).
“Boys Packed into Dorm”, Kansas City Times (10/9/1970).
Ostroff, R. (5/29/1981). “Youth homes threatened by dispute”
Hoyt, T. (5/26/1982). “Law would make Fort Osage responsible for McCune classes.”
Kansas City Star.
Farquhar, J. (9/19/1989). “McCune security causes concern.” Independence Examiner.
Gurley, G. (11/14/1992). “Two sides held back by fence”.
Scott, L. (7/17/1997) “Fort Osage district increases involvement at McCune.”
Independence Star. P. 8
By Amber Rumpel
Judge Henry McCune was the first juvenile court judge in Jackson County. He felt that jailing boys had a demoralizing effect on them and set out to establish a “parental home” where delinquent, neglected and orphaned boys, aged 8 to 18, could live in a family atmosphere while learning useful life skills. In 1905, the county court was given the authority to open an institution of this nature; in 1907 they paid $9000 for a 100-acre tract that was part of the Winslow-Rogers farm east of Independence.
The original plan was for boys who were sent to the farm to stay with the headmaster for a 30-day orientation period or “until the rough edges were rounded off.”They would then be integrated into a home on the farm that would have a housemother, housefather and nine other boys. They would live like a family, with the mothers cooking and doing the housework. The fathers would work around the farm doing various jobs, and the boys would attend school on the farm. Judge McCune’s vision was for the boys to be reared on the farm by the house parents as if they were the sons of wealthy farmers. They were to receive an education, religious instruction and discipline. They would wear their own clothes, and there would be no guards on this farm. The boys were not to feel like prisoners.
The home opened on April 16, 1908, under the supervision of Professor James M. Taylor. In the beginning, the program operated in the original farm buildings. It was soon decided that they needed a school building, so the court built a temporary one. The Kansas City School District sent four teachers and many supplies to the farm. McCune’s first day of school was October 15, 1908.
In November of 1908, the cornerstone for the administration building was laid, and the cornerstone of the permanent school building was laid the following year. Each building was constructed of native stone, quarried on the property. The school building consisted of six rooms, four for academic classes and two for manual training. They began adding cottages to the property, eventually constructing eight in all. The top floor of each two-story, stucco and stone cottage had a dormitory housing up to 30 boys. The cottages lined a street along with trees and a sidewalk, resembling large homes in a wealthy subdivision.
The court appointed a superintendent of farming, Ernest R. deVigne, who assumed jurisdiction over McCune’s farm. He felt that putting the boys to work would alleviate some of the financial burden created by the facility. In agreement, the court began planning a vocational program, and that program was established in 1913 in an effort to make the institution self-sufficient.
The school continued to have academic courses and added vocational instruction, which included agriculture, building construction and repair, steam laundering and shoe making. Boys in sixth grade and above split each school day between academic and vocational classes. They were allowed to choose a vocational area to pursue and they worked in that field each day. The younger boys spent the entire school day in academic classes but were expected to do daily chores around the farm. There were eight academic teachers and 15 vocational teachers at this time.
All construction, farming and repairs at the home were done by the residents of the home. By 1916, the boys had built two houses and an electrical power plant with service lines to each building. They did all of the excavation work, the store work, the carpentry, plumbing, electrical wiring, and painting, and made all the furniture. In their free time the boys swam, fished, played basketball, boxed, played softball, played indoor games and had song fests.
In 1917, James M. Taylor resigned his position as superintendent of the home, citing the county court’s interference as reason for his inability to continue to perform his duties effectively, specifically citing the hiring of DeVigne. The Kansas City School Board was upset that the court was interfering with a system that had run successfully for nine years. The Board pulled its support of the home, allowing the court to exercise singular control over the institution and leaving the court to hire and pay teachers, as well as pay for supplies themselves.
H. G. Kemper was named as Taylor’s successor. During Kemper’s tenure, the home did away with the vocational program and the county sold much of the equipment. Kemper also adopted a corporal punishment and “prison silence” system. By 1918, the conditions at McCune had deteriorated to the point that the Jackson County grand jury stepped in to take control of the institution. They called for Kemper’s resignation and appointed Clarence Blocher in his place.
In 1919, the Kansas City School District reached an agreement with the county court, and entered again into partnered responsibility for the facility. There was general dissatisfaction with Blocher’s work, so in 1920 the school board removed him as superintendent and replaced him with Julian Stewart. A few weeks later, the state board visited McCune and found that the conditions there were deplorable. The buildings had become rundown and the children were dirty and underfed. The state board decreed how meals should be served, how students should receive vocational training and how the salaries of the teachers and superintendent should be split between the Kansas City School board and the county court.
Over the next five years, there was much controversy as the county court fired Julian Stewart, charging that he was incompetent, and hired Bert Hafner, who had no experience operating or even working in a facility such as McCune. Mr. Hafner was accused of using many inhumane forms of punishment with the young men at the home. The county court then made a motion to reinstate Stewart, but the school board was not happy with either of these men. The state legislature stepped in and gave total control of the management of the home to the circuit court, removing the county court from the equation. These judges asked the school board to appoint a superintendent. In 1926, the board brought back James M. Taylor to McCune as the superintendent.
Mr. Taylor was able to return the home to the successful program that it had been under his previous care. From the beginning of the program and even as late as 1931, McCune was described as the model institution for delinquent youth. Boys were remanded to the program for two years, but could get out earlier by earning merits. While under Taylor’s care, boys continued their vocational education, had clean clothes, and had access to a dentist, a doctor and a barber on campus. The boys attended a nondenominational church service each Sunday. Taylor never wanted the boys to feel as if they were criminals, but wanted rather to give them an opportunity to learn skills that would allow them to be successful citizens. In 1932, the court purchased an additional 116 acres of land that was owned by Mary and R.D. Mize.
In the early 1930s, Taylor began having disagreements with Juvenile Court Judge Ray Cowan about the young men who were being sent to McCune, and for releasing residents before they had met the criteria for release. In 1934, Judge Harry S. Truman called for Taylor’s resignation, citing the “conflicts and animosities” he was creating with Judge Cowan. All told, James M. Taylor supervised McCune for 20 years.
Elementary students were still being schooled at the farm in the 1940s, but older boys were being bussed into Kansas City to Manual High and Vocational School. Investigators found that the McCune boys were treated as if they were hopeless by the teachers at the Kansas City school. They were not encouraged to participate in any school activities and their lockers were segregated from the other students.
By 1942, the conditions at McCune had deteriorated greatly. Due to declining enrollment, four of the eight cottages were closed. Within two years, complaints were again lodged against the facility. Reports were made of filthy conditions, rodent infestation, and boys being whipped
Juvenile Court Judge Ray Cowan suggested McCune be sold, because the population had decreased so dramatically. Although the current superintendent claimed that the farm still turned a profit, the judge felt that a smaller home nearer the city would make the boys more appreciative of the importance of the law. A group of citizens headed by the superintendent of Kansas City schools decided to leave McCune where it was, to restore the buildings and revamp the school program. They decided that they wanted skilled teachers, but that a vocational program would not be beneficial since the students weren’t there long enough to properly learn a trade.
In March of 1946, the McCune school building was destroyed by fire. It apparently started as a small blaze in the principal’s office. Unfortunately, the farm had no hydrants, so firefighters were unable to battle the fire. No one was injured. An unoccupied cottage was cleared out where school could be held for the elementary grades. High school students were sent to Northeast High and the Manual and Vocational schools in Kansas City. In 1948, there was another fire at McCune this time in the dormitory that was being used as the grade school. It was quickly extinguished and caused minimal damage.
Construction of new buildings began on the McCune campus in January of 1950, after a bond proposal of nearly a million dollars was accepted a few years earlier. Plans called for one building to house the school and administrative offices along with three dormitories. Construction was completed sixteen months later.
A fourth cottage was built on McCune property 15 years after the other buildings were completed. Soon, a recommendation was made to remodel the older cottages to be more in line with the new structure. Remodeling included the installation of walls to form separate bedrooms in what were currently open dormitories, as well as construction of a glassed-in viewing area for cottage workers to better monitor the residents’ activity. These changes brought about the first signs of McCune resembling a prison. The superintendent at the time suggested renaming the facility McCune School rather than McCune Home -- a fitting suggestion, as no remnants of Judge McCune’s original vision of a “home” for boys was evident.
In 1981, the Kansas City School District announced that they would no longer provide educational services for McCune and that current teachers at the facility would all be employed in other Kansas City district buildings. At that time, Fort Osage refused to be responsible for McCune’s educational services. The superintendent, Victor Gragg, didn’t feel that it should be the Fort’s responsibility since most of the students at McCune did not come from the district. However, in 1982 a bill was passed stating that each school district was responsible for education of students in correctional facilities that fall within the borders of that district. Fortunately, the home district of each student was required to pass along the taxes they received for that child to the responsible district. The Fort Osage School District contracted the educational program out to a agency, citing their own inexperience with a facility like McCune. Soon, Comprehensive Mental Health Services took over the educational program at McCune.
By the late 1980s, McCune School was housing boys with very different offenses than the original residents of McCune Home. In the first 40 years, the boys were mostly run-always, truants and orphans. The crimes the boys were guilty of increased in severity over the years, and McCune was soon seeing young men who had committed arson, burglary and even shootings. Administrators put an 18 foot fence around one of the cottages to hold violent offenders who were on campus temporarily. They soon put a fence around another cottage to house students while they are first being oriented to the program. Many people living near McCune began complaining that the school needed more security after seeing an increased incidence of car thefts in the area which they attributed to the high rate of escapes from McCune. In 1992, an 18foot fence was built to encircle the entire campus. In addition, plastic windows that only open about 6 inches were installed in each resident room, along with bars on the outside. These changes were discouraging to many workers at McCune who felt that the addition of the fence made it into a minimum security prison, rather than the correctional facility it was intended to be.
In 1997, the Fort Osage School District canceled the contract they had held for 15 years with Comprehensive Mental Health and took over the educational program at McCune itself. This move was a great benefit to the students and staff of McCune School, as it allowed them to have access to the same caliber of materials, benefits and training of other students and staff in the district. *
*Much of the information in this history was taken from newspaper clippings which were not marked with date, author or name of newspaper. Following is a list of the publications used that did have some form of citation.
Bibliography (incomplete)
Westlake-Whitney, C. (1908). Kansas City, Missouri: Its History and Its People 1808-1908.
Kansas City Star (2/13/1908), (11/28/1909), (12/24/1913), (6/28/1917), (7/21/1918), (8/26/1918), (9/3/1918), (12/2/1925), (12/3/1925),
Kansas City Times (11/19/1908), (7/28/1913), (4/1916), (8/24/1964)
Kansas City Post (8/4/1909), (12/6/1914)
M.E. Ballou (1926). Jackson County Institutional Homes. P. 17-21.
Proceedings of the 11th Annual Session of the Kansas Conference of Social Work.
(1910). P. 81-83
“Jackson County Court to Have Supervisions of McCune Home”, Kansas City Times,
(7/2/1917).
Kansas City Star Kansas City Times (3/2/1926), ( 8/25/1932), (12/17/1934),(10/10/1944)
“Asks New Boys’ Home”, Kansas City Times (9/13/1945)
“For Same M’Cune Site”, Kansas City Star (9/30/1945)
“Big M’Cune Fire”, Kansas City Star (3/24/1946)
“Studies Wait on Work”, Kansas City Times (3/25/1946)
“Fire at M’Cune Home”, Kansas City Times (4/20/1948)
“Boys’ Morale Rises with Completion of $825,000 McCune Home Project”, Kansas City
Star (5/6/1951).
“M’Cune is Integrated”, Kansas City Times (1965).
“Plan McCune Center Open House”, Kansas City Star (4/17/1966).
“Trees Go, Teams Come at McCune”, Kansas City Times (4/25/1969).
“Boys Packed into Dorm”, Kansas City Times (10/9/1970).
Ostroff, R. (5/29/1981). “Youth homes threatened by dispute”
Hoyt, T. (5/26/1982). “Law would make Fort Osage responsible for McCune classes.”
Kansas City Star.
Farquhar, J. (9/19/1989). “McCune security causes concern.” Independence Examiner.
Gurley, G. (11/14/1992). “Two sides held back by fence”.
Scott, L. (7/17/1997) “Fort Osage district increases involvement at McCune.”
Independence Star. P. 8