The Scout

The Scout statue located in Penn Valley Park has kept watch over the Kansas City skyline for more than 90 years. However, this 10-foot statue of a Sioux Native American did not always call Kansas City home. In 1910, the famous sculptor Cyrus E. Dallin created “The Scout” for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition. This exposition was held in San Francisco to recognize and celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal. There, the statue won a gold medal in the sculpture category. After the exposition, the statue, en route back to Massachusetts (where Dallin created it), made a stop in Kansas City where it was temporarily displayed in Penn Valley Park. Kansas Citians loved the statue so much, they created a campaign called “The Kids of Kansas City” and raised $15,000 (which would now be about $175,000) to purchase the statue. By 1922, The Scout was a permanent fixture.