In the wake of World War I, America’s biggest venture on the world stage to that point, Kansas Citians poured their idealism and their money into the Liberty Memorial. It was meant to be a monument not only to those who died in the war but also to the principles of liberty and freedom. Today, more than eight decades after it opened, the memorial stands refurbished, resplendent and newly respected for its acclaimed state-of-the-art museum of World War I.

The site of the Liberty Memorial, on a hill overlooking Union Station, was chosen in 1920. Rejecting Swope Park as too distant, lumberman R.A. Long, developer J.C. Nichols and other businessmen who led the effort settled upon the area south of the massive railroad station and began acquiring land. Someday, they hoped, the area also could house an arts center.

The winning design, selected in a competition among local and outside architects, was by New Yorker H. Van Buren Magonigle. The 200-foot shaft would, in the architect’s words, “represent an altar high raised in the sky, with its flame of inspiration ever burning.”

The money – more than $2 million – had been raised in 1919, a year after the war ended, in a citywide fund drive that climaxed in a week of block-by-block solicitation.

The next great public event of the effort was dedication of the site and groundbreaking in November 1921.In an elaborate spectacle that coincided with the national convention here of the American Legion, five prominent wartime Allied commanders – among them Gen. John J. Pershing and French Marshal Ferdinand Foch –joined Vice President Calvin Coolidge on a temporary altar and rostrum built on the hillside south of Union Station. Cannon fired salutes, white-robed young women and the Allied commanders took laurel wreaths to the altar, a band played, and a ritual fire was lighted. More than 100,000 people looked on.

After much wrangling with Magonigle over the budget, by spring 1923 leaders of the Liberty Memorial Association and the city approved his plans. Construction began in early 1924. The cornerstone was laid that November.

Coolidge returned by train Nov. 11, 1926, Armistice Day. Now president, he formally dedicated the memorial. Landscaping was finished later. The last work on the original scheme, the frieze on the huge north wall, was dedicated in 1935.

The memorial was closed in 1994 because of structural problems. After passage of a Kansas City sales tax and a drive for contributions, the structure was reopened in spring 2002. In 2006 the World War I museum was completed beneath the memorial.