History
The 1935 flood of the Kansas River inundated Manhattan with over five feet of water, washed out its 60 year old oak bridge and caused considerable damage to business and residential property. It was the middle of the depression years and Manhattan's former Mayor, Evan Griffith, had been selected by President Roosevelt to be the Kansas Director of the Works Progress Administration which then provided the funding for a new steel bridge with art deco bridge piers. A young boy, Blaine Thomas, watched with fascination as nearly 200 laborers a day constructed the new bridge which would be finished in 1937 and named the Josiah Pillsbury Viaduct after one of our early settlers. Fifty nine years later, in 1996, the two lane bridge was replaced by the present four lane bridge but when the City Commission made plans to demolish the east and west art deco bridge piers, a now grown up commercial artist, Blaine Thomas, objected saying, "Those workers didn't have the luxury of skill saws, plywood and ready mixed concrete, they were craftsmen! This is part of our Manhattan history; you can't destroy those bridge piers!"
And the City Commission agreed; the bridge piers remained in place. Soon after, Blaine Thomas rendered a "MANHATTAN WELCOMES YOU" sign which he thought could be constructed on the east bridge pier, however, his idea didn't gain traction until a few years later. By chance, Blaine's rendering resurfaced in 2012 and this time it received overwhelming approval and soon efforts were begun to raise $50,000 for its construction. The money was raised and by 2016 as construction neared an end, some close to the project who had spent considerable time under the viaduct and near the bridge pier came to realize that Blaine's sign was pointing to, nudging, and revealing what our fair city had failed to comprehend, failed to understand, failed to realize the tremendous opportunity that was . . . our river. Our long neglected Kansas River was ripe to be ecologically redeveloped for public recreation, residential housing, commercial opportunities and to be reconnected to our downtown, our city, our Manhattan.
In 2017, a KSU Landscape Architecture class of 14 students devoted an entire semester to studying our Kansas Riverfront and rendering ideas for its redevelopment. The results were well received and viewed at two public displays and before a joint meeting of our City and County Commissions. The student's work continues to be displayed and discussed at local civic organizations. In 2018, the KSU Landscape Architecture department invited a noted specialist in riverfront development, Gina Ford of Boston [Agency Landscape + Planning], to do a KSU lecture and afterward, was convinced to return to have a look at our Kansas River; she returned in October 2018. And when she arrived was taken to the east bridge pier area for a water's edge view. She slowly looked up and down the river and then across at the Manhattan skyline above the top of the levee, turned and said, "You have no idea what you have; this could be magnificent; it’s a wonderful river; its potential for downtown redevelopment for Manhattan is a tremendous economic opportunity!"
Many U.S. cities have already begun to develop their riverfronts, such as San Antonio, Omaha, Cedar Rapids, Wichita, Oklahoma City while others are just getting started including Topeka, Lawrence and Kansas City. After Oklahoma City redeveloped their Canadian River, "Downtown became the place to be and the city's fortunes dramatically changed for the better."
It's 2019 and past time for our fair city to rise to the challenge!