Waterfest Rummage Sale
A two-day rummage sale during Waterfest. Donate items any time, and shop June 26-27 at 218 South Street. Proceeds benefit the Museum.
Unique Instrument and Musician Revealed in Kasson Group Photo at Regent Spring
An April 2, 2025, Facebook post on the Excelsior Citizen page asked about the group photo (above) taken at the popular Regent Spring. The photo, which the Museum is grateful to have received recently as a donation, included a couple of musicians on the second row of the steps. One man is holding what turned out to be a harp guitar; the other is a violin. We’d never heard of a harp guitar (nor had our resident musician) so we knew it was something rare and interesting. We began researching harp guitars and who might have played one in Excelsior Springs. We can’t say conclusively that we’ve identified the musician, but we have found some compelling evidence. But first, here’s some background on harp guitars – with a surprising connection to Kansas City.
Harp Guitars: Unique Guitar’s Heyday 1885-1920s
Harp guitars originated in Europe and are first mentioned in America in Virginia in 1859-60. But the instrument did not catch on then, according to writer Jessica Cortez in a 2017 article for the Museum of Making Music (“Floating Strings: The Remarkable Story of the Harp Guitar in America”).
The harp guitar gained broader use, she wrote, after 1885. . .
. . . “when a traveling businessman, J. Hopkins Flinn, arrived at J.W. Jenkins’ Sons Music Co. in Kansas City with a new invention: he had nailed a piece of wood onto the neck of a standard guitar and used violin tuners to add three floating strings. After his instrument was met with lackluster enthusiasm, Jenkins furnished Flinn with an improved six-bass string design. The result? What is believed to be America’s first production harp guitar. . . .By 1920, harp guitars were firmly established in nearly every style of American music. By 1930, they had effectively vanished. Why? Changing tastes, technological advances, and an ever trend-conscious American public were certainly factors. Vaudeville, where harp guitars had once flourished, was replaced by cinema, and then radio. When the Jazz Age arrived soon after World War I, players traded their mandolins for tenor banjos, and preferred piano and drum accompaniment over harp guitar. If a guitar was needed, the new arch top guitar with its punchy sound was the better choice. There were a few harp guitar holdouts as late as 1930, when they could still be heard as accompaniment instruments in popular Hawaiian music ensembles.” [“Floating Strings: The Remarkable Story of the Harp Guitar in America” was posted 10/14/1917; it was accessed 4/22/2025 online at https://www.nammfoundation.org/articles/2017-10-14/floating-strings-remarkable-story-harp-guitar-america.]
Who Was the Excelsior Springs Harp Guitarist?
The April 2 Facebook post also mentions Regent Spring and the photographer Kasson Studios. More about them later – first we turned to the Museum’s digitized newspapers and archives to see if we could find out more about the man holding this strange instrument.
Our search turned up an intriguing candidate for the harp guitarist: A former vaudevillian named Gene Kepler, whose “Gene Kepler Two” and later “Gene Kepler Trio” and sometimes “Gene Kepler Orchestra” performed during several musical events throughout 1904 in Excelsior Springs. Kepler’s instrument? A harp guitar!
Several news articles from other newspapers in the late 1890s mention Kepler in vaudeville bookings. In December 1897, the Butler [MO] Daily Democrat describes Eugene Kepler as “an old minstrel boy [with] a wonderful baritone voice” adding that “his comic and sentimental songs leave a lasting impression wherever sung.” The Waco [TX] Times-Herald ran a photo engraving of Kepler in April 1898 (below left) when he was touring with “Prof. Bert Prince,” described as “the mandolin virtuoso and an artistic whistler.” By September 1898, Prince and Kepler were in Jefferson City, MO.; the article described the performers as “Kansas City mandolin and guitar specialists.” After finishing a Midwest tour, they were headed to New York City for a three-month engagement playing in the different theaters.
The first article found in Excelsior Springs newspapers was published in February 1904. Kepler had a new partner – “Dr.” Polk (no first name given.) The Daily Call reviewed a performance by Kepler and Polk as being “of a very high class and a decided hit with the audience.” The local Daily Call newspaper reported that Gene Kepler’s song “took down the house and he showed that he has not forgotten any of his professional work, for which he was famous a few years ago in vaudeville.”
In March 1904, the duo received high praise for their concert of sacred music at the Newton Hotel (the Newton was located at the corner of St. Louis and Kansas City avenues, where Colony Plaza is today. This hotel had several owners and other names over the years, including The Benton, The Plaza and The Cody.)
The reviewer in 1904 raved that the “music was far above the ordinary and it is doubtful if [violinist Henry] Freefield and Kepler [have] any equals in the country on the violin and harp guitar.”
Next, on April 2, 1904, the “Kepler Orchestra” backed an unnamed Kansas City musician in the reopening of The Excelsior Club on Spring Street (now home to Springdale Apartments.) The new Excelsior Club had more refined expectations after the first, notorious Excelsior Club on Broadway was closed. And that’s a story for another day.
In June 1904, a lengthy article in the Kansas City Journal reported that visitors to “the Springs” were impressed by the noticeable number of desirable features added to the resort community, including “melodious strains from a part of the day’s programme as regularly as the meals. The morning concerts at the Regent spring have been started and promise to prove more popular this season than ever before. ‘The Kepler Trio,’ composed of Gene Kepler, Henry Freefield and Bradley Bradford have been at the Springs for several weeks. The trio furnishes music for the Hotel Royal, the Excelsior Club and one of the other hotels. It also plays for the delightful dances which are enjoyed at ‘the Royal’ on Wednesday evenings.”
Kepler didn’t just focus on his music while here – he found time to set a season high bowling record of 207 at the Royal Bowling Alleys near the Royal Hotel. He also brought a bantam weight boxer, Clarence Forbes, here to train before his bout at the Missouri Athletic Club in Kansas City. Kepler also became a member of the Eagles lodge here and the Elks Lodge in Richmond (an Elks Lodge had not yet been established here.)
The Kepler Trio spent the summer in St. Louis before returning briefly to Excelsior Springs, then went to Omaha to perform before heading to Hot Springs for the summer season.
But before leaving for Omaha, violinist Henry Freeheld of Texas took time to marry an Excelsior Springs girl, Nellie Eversole. An engraving of Freehold (see above) was published in March 1904, and it’s not possible to confirm that he is the violinist seated to the left of the harp guitarist in the Regent Spring photo – although the two images both seem to indicate such similar characteristics as wavy hair, large ears, and the prominent proboscis.
Although the newspapers articles indicate the Kepler Trio would return to Excelsior Springs the following season, Kepler returned for only a short while in April 1905 and then left for Manitou Springs, Co. In March 1906, the Daily Call received a letter from Kepler, reporting that he was in San Francisco with the Kepler Trio, which now consisted of Kepler, Al Smith and George Bennett.
Things took a darker turn for Kepler in San Francisco. He had been managing the “Blue Moon Café,” but it had closed sometime in 1914, and he told friends a year later that he wasn’t working. In September 1915, he was being sought in relation to the strangling death of an ex-convict, Mary Glyn alias Mary Kline. A picture identified as Kepler was found in the apartment of the murdered woman, and the building owner had identified Kepler as having called on the woman and was “the last person who saw her alive.” But the police later found the photo identification was in error and they were seeking another suspect. So far, our research has not turned up more about Kepler after 1914.
Kasson Photography
Photographer H.H. Kasson had a studio at 233 Broadway in Excelsior Springs, perhaps as early as 1894. A newspaper article when Kasson sold his photography business to Paul Trimble in 1909 said Kasson had established the first photo studio here 15 years earlier, and “until three years ago, [Kasson] had a monopoly on picture taking, both indoors and out.” Kasson shot group photos at the well pavilions and studio portraits at his Broadway location. He also photographed key early landmarks such as the second Elms Hotel.
One of the most curious things about H.H. Kasson is that “Kasson” was his first name and his surname was Hickox. He seems to have used Kasson in his business, but censuses, land documents and other official records show him as Kasson Hickox. His wife and daughter used Kasson and Hickox variously as their surnames. The Kassons left Excelsior Springs for Kansas City in 1909 and ultimately settled in Chicago by 1915. Daughter Ethel returned occasionally to visit friends and old haunts here. Kasson is listed as a retired photographer in the 1940 census. He died in Chicago on Jan. 27 of that year.
The Regent Spring
The Regent Spring was a popular mineral water pavilion in the Elms Park in 1904, and was owned by Henry Ettenson. Ettenson had bought the first Elms Hotel and other land holdings out of receivership when the Excelsior Springs Company failed after the “Panic of 1893,” the worst economic depression in the United States until the Great Depression in the 1930s. The first Elms burned not long after Ettenson attained ownership and was not rebuilt until 1909 under different ownership. Ettenson had come to Excelsior Springs from Leavenworth, where he had become wealthy in the department store business.
The Regent Spring was one of the earliest mineral waters that was discovered here about the same time as the Excelsior Spring. The Regent was first named the Empire Spring by its discoverer, Capt. James L. Farris, a prominent attorney in Northwest Missouri who represented Ray County for four terms in the state legislature. Farris’s spring had become a part of the land holdings of the Excelsior Springs Company around 1883 when Henry Fish and his partners began developing much of the local infrastructure.
Farris platted at least two additions to Excelsior Springs – the Farris, Dunn and Isley Addition (now called the Boarding House District) and the Empire Addition, which is located on the hill south of Siloam Mountain. His name is memorialized in the short Farris Street that meanders from St. Louis Avenue down to South Marietta Avenue.
Farris also figures largely in one of the origin stories about our community, recounted in the obituary of Travis Million published in the Oct. 9, 1922, Daily Standard. The article said that a hunting party led by Farris had encountered Mr. Million, a farm laborer, and Farris advised him to use the mineral waters to treat a skin disease afflicting a child. The child’s “cure” led to the discovery of the mineral water properties of the springs of Excelsior Springs.
More about the discovery and development of Excelsior Springs is on display now at the Museum in the new “Company Town” exhibit. We hope you’ll visit the Museum soon to learn more about the founders and developers of our community.
By Kathy Duncan; research by Jan Marasch and Kathy Duncan
Museum Calendar
April-November: Museum open 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays
Closed: Easter Saturday and Memorial Day Saturday
June-July: Museum open 11 a.m.-7 p.m. each Thursday during “Shop Local Late” downtown promotion
June 27-28: Two-day “pop-up” rummage sale during Waterfest
Save The Date: Sept. 9-14, 2026
Excelsior Springs Museum & Archives to host Vietnam Traveling Wall in 2026
The Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall will be on display in Excelsior Springs in 2026 from Sept. 9-14. The memorial wall is an approximate 3/5-scale replica of the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial Wall located in Washington, D.C. It stands six feet tall at the center and covers almost 300-feet from end to end. The memorial wall and the equipment for locating names will be located at James E. Piburn Ballfield, off Penn Street and Broadway in downtown Excelsior Springs, MO.
In conjunction with the traveling exhibit, a special local display, “Not Forgotten,” will open Feb. 1, 2026, and run through Nov. 30, 2027, at the museum, which is located at 101 East Broadway in historic downtown Excelsior Springs.
The Vietnam Wall names 58,303 servicemen and eight servicewomen who died during the Vietnam War. This includes 1,418 soldiers lost from nearly 400 cities and towns across Missouri, including 19 from Clay County and five from Ray County in the Excelsior Springs Museum’s service area.
The “Not Forgotten” display in the Excelsior Springs Museum will tell the history of the Vietnam War through the eyes of local service members and those affected on the homefront.
The Excelsior Springs Museum & Archives is making a concerted effort now to gather names and information on all of those connected with Excelsior Springs and surrounding areas who served in the military during the Vietnam era. You may obtain a copy of a Military Survey Form for yourself or a loved one or friend by stopping by the museum or download here. To request a form or for more information, please email the Museum at emuseum101@gmail.com or call 816-630-0101.
Sippin’ Into Springtime
Mark your calendar now for the next event … Sippin’ Into Springtime! The downtown event will be held Saturday, March 29.
Spring Rummage Sale: April 3-5
The Museum’s twice-yearly rummage sales and occasional pop sales are currently held at 218 South Street in the former bank building at the (corner of Thompson and South.) Appointments to drop off donations of gently used items may be accepted at any time by emailing the Museum at emuseum101@gmail.com or leaving a message at 816-630-0101.
