Over the last 60 years, we’ve seen a lot of sizable building projects take place around Butler. When I first started working on the Square, the new Bates County hospital had just been opened, a huge building compared with the little infirmary it replaced. The Old High School was still in use, its three stories and gym providing an education for students at the time, but its days were numbered. The big new school on South Fulton street, completed in 1969, was necessary to supplant the old brick dowager, as enrollment increased.
Sunset View Nursing Home (later Countryside, before becoming Medicalodge), an RDLS church-backed project at the corner of South Main and Nursery, was sorely needed to bridge the gap between the old “rest homes” and staying in the hospital. Its size was increased to the south as the need for its services grew. South Main street originally ran right past its door, with a jog along Nursery needed to continue north on Main. Across the street was the Lynch Family Property, an overgrowth of brush that bordered the north side of the golf course. Long in need of development, Paul Buerge finally acquired it from Eleanor Lynch and turned it into Lynwood Estates over a period of years.
Perhaps the Biggest Thing to ever hit the area in the 1960s was the “Boeing Minuteman Missile” installation, when a large contingent of families moved into a specially-constructed trailer park south of the Hospital, east of the Deems Farm Equipment property. Constructing the network of intercontinental ballistic missile sites, headquartered out of Whiteman Air Force Base but spread over the counties in western Missouri, was a huge, years-long endeavor. Butler welcomed the Boeing folks with painted signs on the store windows, “Welcome Boeing Personnel”, featuring a rocket lifting off. I remember driving into the congested housing area where a “5 mph” speed limit sign was posted.
And then the four-lane Highway 71 project took place, phased in over the years around 1970. Such a huge operation had to be phased in, as it spanned the state from Joplin to Kansas City. Where possible, Old 71’s right-of-way was used for the southbound lanes, but considerable land acquisition was needed for the rest. Some of the sections south of Butler were opened first, with one side providing two-lane service across the “bottoms” while the other was being built up. I recall the old 71 Highway slab being underwater when the Maris de Cygne backwater spread out during a flood; highway department trucks sometimes led a one-way convoy of cars through the few inches covering the roadway. Rattlesnake Hill, north of the Miami creek, was steadily whittled down to provide fill for the new elevated road. The north sections, up to Archie, were opened next and finally the by-pass connected the two previous roads opened, taking the heavy truck traffic off the 71 Strip through Butler and forever changing the character of Old Butler.
The Butler airport, first acquired by the City in 1963, was expanded beyond its original 80 to 100 acres in the late1980’s so it could offer a 4000-foot runway capable of accepting light jet airplanes. Because Butler had seen industrial growth in the 1970s from companies like F. M. Thorpe and Russell Stover, whose plants were large projects in themselves, being able to bring in heavier, faster planes was important to keep the town’s prospects competitive. An airport is like any other community service, part of a package examined by companies considering a place to locate a new plant.
Big projects come about because a need, a vision and community support align. Let’s hope Butler, and this country, never cease to dream big.
