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Parks give old spaces a new life

It was 60 years ago that the
first park opened in Columbia.
Since then, more parks have
been developed and renovated.
By Catherine Martin
news@ColumbiaMissourian.com
It’s Sunday, Aug. 21, 1949, in Columbia,
and about 10,000 people are attending a
dedication of Cosmopolitan Park, a 35-acre
tract donated to the city by the Cosmopoli-
tan Luncheon Club. That’s quite a turnout
for a town with a population of around
15,000.
Adjacent to the small park, in the area
that eventually would grow to become the
533-acre Cosmopolitan Recreation Area, is
Columbia’s Municipal Airport.
It wasn’t until the 1970s that the airport
closed and the city bought the land to cre-
ate the regional park that today remains
the city’s largest. The Parks and Recreation
Department developed a master plan for
the area, and construction began in 1972.
During the next 25 years, the park would
become home to softball complexes, tennis
courts, soccer and football fields, a skate
park and even a mountain biking trail.
Fast-forward from that 1949 dedication
ceremony to November 2000. A park sales
tax has just won the approval of 76 percent
of Columbia voters, allowing the city to buy
Stephens Lake Park from Stephens College.
Barbara Hoppe led the effort to save the
park from commercial use, and she wants
to walk the property now owned by the
city. She and her husband, Mike Sleadd, are
taking the stroll when he tells her he’s not
feeling well, prompting the couple to turn
around and go home.
The next day Sleadd had a heart attack.
“We always say he almost gave his life for
the cause,” Hoppe joked. Sleadd has since
recovered and been in good health.
Both Hoppe and Sleadd were dedicated to
saving Stephens Lake Park, which has quick-
ly become a staple of the parks system.
“We literally worked nonstop day and
night and on the weekends for pretty much
a year,” Hoppe said. “This was a passion; we
just had to be successful. Not being success-
ful was just not an option in our minds.”
Since Columbia’s first publicly owned
park opened in 1949, many residents have
felt a similar passion — including residents
of the Grasslands.
In 2001, the Grasslands confronted a
threat. A developer wanted to add an 11-
building apartment complex on Clarkson
Road. Residents already were struggling
with traffic, and the apartments, with 170
parking spaces, would have made it worse.
Ryan Sublett, left, skates at the Columbia Skate Park in Cosmopolitan Park on
Wednesday, as Alex Hoffman films him. The skate park opened 10 years ago.
John Ott, president of the Grasslands
Neighborhood Association, took action,
working with the association to raise enough
money to buy the land from the developer
then donate it to the city for a park.
Whether its turning an airport into a
ESTEN HURTLE/Missourian
regional park, buying and improving a pri-
vately owned park or working to create a
small park for a passionate neighborhood,
the Columbia Parks and Recreation Depart-
ment has had its work cut out for it since
1949.
A long and winding road: Cosmo
Park
Cosmo Park is alive with activity. Its
amenities attract a diverse crowd: chil-
dren using the playground; athletes playing
sports; and some people who use the park
for more unique purposes. Neil Brock, for
example, likes to come to Cosmo to fly his
stunt kites.
“I think I’ve come up here 230 times this
year,” Brock said.
He said he likes the park’s open, flat
land and often stands in one of the empty
football fields, gracefully guiding his kite
through the air.
The initiative to create Cosmo Park began
as early as 1947, when the Cosmopolitan
Club of Columbia decided the city needed a
park, club president Phil Hanson said.
The club bought that original 35 acres at
the end of the airport’s runway and donated
it to the city. It also donated time and labor
to help develop the park.
“We built the first shelters out there, and all
of those were built by hand,” Hanson said.
The Cosmo Club also installed swings,
slides, benches and picnic tables. The Junior
Chamber of Commerce of Columbia worked
with the Cosmos to build the first nine holes
of what is now L.A. Nickell Golf Course.
One challenge in converting an airport
into a regional park was actually getting
the message out to pilots that they no longer
should land there.
“Occasionally a pilot would get confused,”
said Steve Saitta, a parks development
superintendent for the city. The planes that
experienced this problem were typically
smaller, and their pilots were able to land in
the park anyway.
The park’s former status as an airport,
however, did carry benefits.
“One of the problems you run into when
you start to develop a big tract of land is
that it doesn’t have any infrastructure. One
of things we had here was all of these build-
ings that were part of the airport hangars,”
Saitta said.
Asphalt from the runway provided hun-
dreds of parking places and roadways and
still offers the perfect place to learn how
to ride a bike. Just ask Owen Jones, 4, who
learned how to ride a two-wheeler at Cosmo
the first weekend in December.
He and his dad, Cason Jones, visit the
skate park at least once or twice a week
while Jennifer Jones, Owen’s mother, exer-
cises on the trails.
“I was born and raised here,” Jennifer, 33,
said. “I remember having birthday parties
here as a kid in those shelters.”
Whether for biking, skating, birthday
Please see parks, page 6a

Friends: ‘Nathan was supposed to be the guy that survived’

Nathan Curry, 30,
was living without
heat when he died
in his home Dec. 3.
By Caitlin Carter
news@ColumbiaMissourian.com
In the last few months of
his life, Nathan Curry seclud-
ed himself from the outside
world. He did not respond
to phone calls or persistent
knocks at the door.
Although his friends say
they were accustomed to his
reclusive behavior, it had been
a quite some time since any of
them had heard from him.
When Curry, 30, died Dec.
3 in his home on Ammonette
Street in Columbia, he had
characteristically told none of
them that he was living with-
out heat or electricity. No one
even knew that he wasn’t tak-
ing care of himself.
“Everyone’s reaction when
they heard the news was like,
‘Are you kidding me?’” said
Curry’s friend, Dan Campbell.
“Someone at his wake even
said that Nathan was supposed
to be the guy that survived
with the cockroaches after the
bombs dropped.”
Curry’s friends say he need-
ed few possessions and was
ready to take off at a moment’s
notice. They describe him as
an intelligent, unpredictable
spirit.
Initially, the cause of his
death was reported as hypo-
thermia. Deputy Medical
Examiner Ariel Goldschmidt
said later that hypothermia
might only have played a role
in his death. According to his
preliminary findings, Gold-
schmidt said Curry suffered
from acute bronchopneumo-
nia, an infection of the airways
and lung tissue. He said the
investigation will continue.
On the night Curry was
found, temperatures in Colum-
bia had dropped to 24 degrees
Fahrenheit. Earlier reports
indicate that his house had
been without heat and elec-
tricity since Sept. 30 for non-
payment.
His friend Jonathan Stef-
fens said he had been unem-
ployed since he left his job at
Columbia Foods eight months
earlier; he had been attending
classes at Columbia College as
a math major.
Concerned for his well- Photo Courtesy of Jonathan Steffens
Please see death, page 4a Nathan Curry died in his Columbia home on Dec. 3.

Page 4A: Caps and gowns abound at MU, Columbia College

PATRICK T. FALLON/Missourian Matt Cloud/Missourian

Robert Dils photographs his son Noah Dils before Columbia College’s graduation. Mayor Darwin Hindman gives the commencement speech at an MU ceremony.

MU MeN’s Basketball Christmas Today’s weather Index Our 102nd year/#70

There didn’t appear to be as much rust as Missouri men’s
basketball coach Mike Anderson had feared after a week- Traditions Today: Partly sunny with a light southwest wind.
Temp: 42°
Features
Life Stories
7A
8A
2 sections
16 pages
long break. The Tigers shot 46 percent from the floor and Columbia churches gear up for the holiday sea- Tonight: Mostly cloudy. Nation 3A
caused 20 turnovers in its 88-70 victory over Arkansas-Pine son with living nativity scenes and Christmas Temp: 25° Opinion 5A
Bluff on Saturday at Mizzou Arena. The win extends Mis- pageants. Page 7A Page 2A Sports 1B
souri’s home-court streak to 25 games. Page 1B
World 3A 6 54051 90850 3