Renner Village Site (Renner Brenner Park)

The Renner Village Site, also known as Renner Village Archaeological Site and Renner-Brenner Park, once stood as an area inhabited by Native Americans by 5000 B.C.E., if not earlier. The Hopewell people inhabited the area from roughly 1 - 500 C.E., although some extend the period to 700 C.E. The Hopewell people established an extensive trading and cultural network that remained in place long after the decline of the Hopewell peoples in other areas of the United States. It was the existence of these trading networks that led to the discovery of artifacts from this period by J. Mett Shippee in 1921 when Mr. and Mrs. L. R. Renner owned the property

The Hopewell people are most known for their extensive trading network, sometimes referred to as the Hopewell Exchange System. Though the Hopewell people lived in population hubs throughout the Midwest, including today's Kansas City area, evidence of their trading network exists throughout North America. The Hopewell people obtained seashells from the Gulf of Mexico, silver from Ontario, shark's teeth from the Chesapeake Bay region, and obsidian from Yellowstone, to name a few items. In return, the Hopewell provided to other native nations instructions on creating fired pottery, making and using bows and arrows, and ideas on religion (including soul journeys and trances that involved consuming tobacco).  

The Kansas City Hopewell appears to enjoy a few subtle differences from their eastern counterparts, notably a lack of large earth mounds and elaborate grave goods and artworks. Still, they engaged in the same farming, trading, and religious practices as the rest of the Hopewell people, who comprised two-thirds of today's continental United States. Even after the Hopewell population faded after 500 C.E., the trading network continued. Their influence spread to other nearby native people, and to several Midwestern Native American nations in later years, including the Algonquins, who eventually interacted with the French and English (mainly enjoying peaceful, diplomatic relations based on trading until the eighteenth century.) In the Kansas City area, including at the historic site, the peoples of the Middle Mississippian culture arose as the dominant culture; they shared much of the traditions established by the Hopewell Nation. 

Excavations of the site took place in 1937, 1954, 1980 to 1993, and then in 2009. During the summer of 2009, controversy arose over a plan to erect a playground at the historic location. A compromise allowed for excavation work during the summer of 2009 before opening to the public in the spring of 2010 as Renner-Brenner Park (named for two families who had owned the site.) The site now serves as both a public park and archaeological site.

23PL1 - Renner Site. stlcc.edu. June 2010. http://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/renner/. 

Fischer, William, Jr. "Renner Village Site, 23PL1." The Historical Marker Database. HMdb.org. June 16, 2016. https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=73531. 

"Kansas City Hopewell." University of Kansas Anthropological Research and Cultural Collections. ku.edu. 2003. http://www.arc.ku.edu/~arc/cgi-bin/hopewell/kchopewell.php.

Mann, Charles C. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2012.

The Renner-Brenner Site Park. Accessed May 9, 2022. https://www.rennerbrennersitepark.com/.

White, Richard. The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815. Twentieth Anniversary Edition. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.