photo by: Elvyn Jones

The Black Jack Battlefield Board of Trustees is looking to undertake a series of improvements at the site east of Baldwin City. Included among them is a visitor center that would be built near the Robert Hall Pearson farmstead, pictured on April 24, 2021, which is also part of the park.

Jonathan Hart, the chairman of Black Jack Battlefield’s board of trustees, wants to restore the historic site to a condition that John Brown, Henry Clay Pate and the other men who fought there in 1856 would recognize.

The Battle of Black Jack on June 2, 1856, marked an escalation in the violence of the Bleeding Kansas era that preceded the Civil War. It was the first time organized, armed militias from proslavery and antislavery groups met in combat. Brown’s antislavery forces prevailed when one of his sons got behind Pate’s lines and falsely shouted that the proslavery fighters were surrounded.

When the militias met on a site about 3 miles east of present-day Baldwin City, the roughly 12-acre battlefield was covered with tallgrass prairie, Hart said. But since that time, nonnative trees like red cedar and locust have taken root, covering much of the hillsides and the two creek beds where the battle took place.

“It’s very hard to visualize the battle with all the trees in the way,” he said. “Trees are already altering the creek beds where the battle was fought.”

To help visitors get a better picture of the battle, the Black Jack board would like to clear most of the trees from the battlefield, and it’s planning a capital campaign to realize that and other goals to improve the Black Jack Battlefield and Nature Park. The board sought feedback from stakeholders this past year to see how much support there was for the tree removal, construction of a visitor center and installation of a parking lot that will blend in with the surviving tallgrass prairie, Hart said. The board reached out to potential partners or supporters of the battlefield in Baldwin City and elsewhere in the county and the region, and Hart said the feedback was very positive.

The proposal for improving the site calls for a visitor center with an audiovisual room to accommodate schoolchildren and other guests. It would have a barn-like appearance and would in fact be built on the foundation of an old barn on the Robert Hall Pearson farmstead, which is part of the park and sits adjacent to the battlefield proper. The farmstead was once owned by Pearson, who fought with Brown in the battle.

The parking lot would make use of pavers that would provide a hard surface while also allowing the growth of native grass in between them, Hart said.

“It just wouldn’t look right to have a full concrete parking lot next to a historic farmhouse,” he said. “The use of pavers was popular in the responses.”

Although Hart said the proposed improvements were necessary, he also said it would take more than that to attract more visitors and create more awareness of the battle and its historical importance. Hart, who is in his second year as chairman, said the board and the park’s supporters would have to be more enthusiastic and driven in their outreach efforts, too.

“We really want to spread the word,” he said. “But it’s going to take a working board and people who really want to get their hands dirty.”

Another key to success is working with partners. One of them is the Santa Fe Trail Association — it owns the property across East 2000 Road immediately to the east, which has visible ruts cut by wagons plying the Santa Fe Trail. Others include the Baldwin City Chamber of Commerce and the Maple Leaf Festival Committee, Hart said. Black Jack Battlefield will have its annual commemoration of the battle with events on June 5 and 6, and that will take place in conjunction with the Santa Fe Trail Association’s June 5 dedication of the new wagon trail viewing areas, he said.

The Black Jack Battlefield and Nature Park has been listed as a National Historic Landmark since 2012.