of the Country Club Plaza. Because the center of the main battlefield comprises present-day Loose Park and a portion of the upper (Wornall) campus of The Pembroke Hill School, the memorial is at the southern end of Loose Park, along West 55th Street. The Battle of Westport Museum & Visitor Center, located in Swope Park, depicts the experiences of the soldiers and civilians during the three days of the battle. A Battle of Westport Driving Tour starts in Westport at Kelly's Westport Inn, the oldest standing building in Kansas City, Missouri. It consists of a series of placards, one at each stop, giving both a detailed history of what occurred there and directions to the next stop. Stops along the self-guided tour include the Wornall House, which served as a hospital during the battle, and Forest Hill Cemetery, the final resting place of many men and officers of General Joseph Shelby's "Iron Brigade", including General Shelby himself. The Trailside Center museum in Kansas City has several exhibits and research material related to the battle. Battlefield preservation The first steps toward memorializing the Battle of Westport came early in the twentieth century. In 1906, local historian Paul Jenkins published his Battle of Westport, while the Byram's Ford engagement was reenacted in Swope Park in 1912. During the 1920s, civic leaders under H. H. Crittenden of the Missouri Valley Historical Society conceived a plan to save the Westport battle sites near present-day Loose Park and Byram's Ford. Crittenden's father was Col. Thomas Crittenden, who led one of the Union cavalry brigades at the Byram's Ford battle, and later served as governor of Missouri. The mayor and council of Kansas City passed ordinances recognizing these sites; this was followed by the introduction of a bill in 1924 in the United States Congress to create a National Military Park. This endeavor proved unsuccessful, and memorial efforts ceased for several years. During the 1950s, much of the battlefield was disturbed by commercial and industrial construction, though the developer of one industrial complex did erect a memorial near the historic route of the Byram's Ford Road. On the eve of the Civil War centennial in 1958, the Civil War Round Table of Kansas City was formed with former President Harry S. Truman as a charter member. Dr. Howard N. Monnett, a member of this Round Table, researched, spoke and wrote extensively about what he termed the