4.How was it discovered? 

 Officially, it was "discovered" by Waldo Wedel in 1937.  Waldo Wedel was from the National Museum, now known as the Smithsonian Institute.  In the archaeology world, nothing is "disovered" until you write a paper about it and publish it. Wedel would have never known about the Renner Site if a brilliant amateur archaeologist didn't bring it to his attention.  His name was, James Mett Shippee. (Note:  Shippee's name is on the monument as the disoverer.)  In the late 1800s, Fowke did report in Paxton's Annals the discovery of primitive life among the ridges.

By 1921, Leslie and Carolina had their land and Leslie had built her a fine home which is still there at the south end of the park. My ex owns the home now, but I'm still the only one she trusts to maintain and keep it upgraded.  It's changed a lot over the 85 years, but is still the same house.

Leslie Renner was a banker and not a farmer, although they did have a small lot wired off to raise chickens, which is were the gazebo is now.  Being a banker, Leslie was smart enough (or stupid enough) to lease the farm part of the land back to John Brenner who grew corn and strawberries there.  When John Brenner died in 1929, is son Albert took over the farming part there until his death in the late 1950's. 

In 1921, John had just plowed the Renner field in spring when Shippee happened to walk through it.  Shippee lived about 2 miles to the northeast and occasionally needed to go to Parkville.  The only road from his location to Parkville, went through the Renner Site.  The ampitheater sits on that original road bed and if you look at the house, it faces towards the old road and not Vivion Road.  Vivion Road wouldn't be built for another 25 years.  Between the parks parking lot and the bank to the west, there is still the concrete foundation to the old road bridge.

I personally had the privilege of knowing Shippee.  He told me he walked from his home towards Parkville that spring day.  He had recently served in the Navy as a draftsman (or something close to that).  He had already been an amateur archaeologist for some time and had an understanding of the Woodland Period far beyond his time.  So far above his time, that the basic thoughts about the Woodland People have not changed in 85 years!

There was a hard rain the day before Shippee came upon the Renner field on his way to Parkville. He was one to wander from the road on occasion and he did.  His eyes saw what nobody else cared about back then.  Artifacts everywhere.  Spearpoints, stone axes, the works.  In todays archaeological world, this would be like opening King Tut's Tomb (more on that later).

He was given permission to surface collect and came back the next day with paper and sketched the areas of concentrations on the surface.  That was probably the single most important piece of paper ever for that park and I have a copy of his sketch. (more on why later)

It was Shippee's belief this was no ordinary site and fired off a letter to Wedel.  I assume because it took Wedel 16 years to respond and get there,  because they probably didn't know each other and at this time was the golden age of Hopewell-Woodland discovery and understanding.

Evidently Wedel responded with something like, "I'll be there in 1937." Crude, but that had to be close and it wasn't like he could fly here.

So in his spare time, Shippee was granted permission to excavate in the chicken yard. (just north of the current gazebo) He wasn't allowed to dig in the "field" now known as the Renner Site because it was full of corn.  Nobody wanted the corn crop torn up because of fancy rocks.  Shippee took it upon himself to investigate with permission.  That's the kind of guy he was.

Sixteen years later, Wedel eventually made the trip by car.  It took him several days and his transmission gave out about 60 miles out.  You have to imagine a 1937 car filled with a three month supply of excavation tools and his personal things.  Shippee helped him get the transmission fixed and get there.  Wedel incorporated Shippee's help for the 3 month dig. 

Just south of the Renner house, was another house that happened to be abandoned at the time.  I don't know, but I think it belonged to my Aunt Carolina.  Either way, that's where Wedel stayed through the excavation from June to September, 1937. 

Using Shippee's previous findings, and the fact they were regulated to the chicken yard, Wedel set up a base line that still exists today and every archaeologist has used since- including me. His base line is a simple post driven into the ground in what he believed to be the center of the site.  Otherwise, the base line had no meaning outside of the site.  It was simply used as a reference point for his work and that base line remains there today.  The base line was a known point.  For example: if an artifact was found 12 feet east and 6 feet north of the base line and 30" deep, it would have been given a number like: 12' E, 6' N, 30" Deep.  Wedel's excavations were crude by today's standards, but his attention to written detail overcame his shortcommings from not knowing about modern archaeology.  He also had no way of knowing he just happened to be in the richest part of the site. (more on that later).

5. 1900's Photos of the Brenner Mounds 1 and 2. 1900'S PHOTOS OF BRENNER MOUNDS 1 AND 2 IN INDIAN HILLS

Before 1921 and Shippee's discovery of the Renner Site, it was generally known about the prehistory of the area, mostly because of the mounds and earth works on the nearby ridges.  To the east was one large mound about 60' in diameter and 6 feet tall.  On the west ridge were at least 5 groups of mound in various locations on the ridge, for a total of 20.  All but one of the mounds are gone and I'm the only one who knows where that one is.  It's right in front of somebody's front yard.  These mounds were investigated by Fowke in the late 1890's and again by Shippee before he knew about the Renner Site. Fowke is mentioned in THE ANNALS OF PLATTE COUNTY, BY WILLIAM PAXTON.  I have the actual photos of these mounds taken about 1917. These are photos of 2 mounds: Brenner mound #1 and mound #2.  These were actually stone vaults covered with tree limbs and dirt.

 BRENNER MOUND #1

West wall in #1 Brenner Mound approximately 1/4 mile east of the Renner Site on a ridge which is now a subdivision called Indian Hills.  These mounds are long gone, but this is the first of several photos I have of Brenner Mounds #1 and #2. They all show generally a 8 x 8 foot square vault with 2 foot thick rock walls.  There were door ways and the assemblage resembled an ingloo.  They would have been covered with timbers and brush and then covered with dirt, thus making a mound.  There is evidence some were reused as in burning the contents and brushing them aside to make room for a new burial.  Over the years the timbers would have collapsed and trees and foilage would have taken over.  The first thing a person probably saw in 1800 was a man made mound with trees growing out of it.  I doubt a door way was visible on first inspection. 

Southwest view of mound 1.

BRENNER MOUNDS #2

East wall and door way.  Some archaeologist and archeoastronomer place signficance on the door direction with the placement of the stars.  There may be some evidence or truth in that, but the any star location changes places every night.  A door to the east, just might have been looking towards the sunrise to the afterlife. 

The south wall. Notice the shovel for scale. I find it odd the Woodland People went though the effort of scraping out the groung and building  16 to 24 inch walls, which would have taken days.  The walls of the vault were built to stand the test of time, and they did.  But the roofs, or coverings, were made off logs and sticks. They lacked the technology in engineering.  Their best option was to cover it with hardwood logs and overlay that with much like they would have made their wattle and daub huts. Mud and grass. Yet, there is little recorded evidence of wattle and daub found by Fowke.  The Woodand People put so much effort into mound building and lacked the technology for a roof.  They knew that.  So with their technology, why didn't they build their homes the same way as the burial mounds?  ------------- I'll tell you why.  Because even in a permanent location at the Renner Site, their huts had to constantly be moved further from the center of the site because of the waste; the pits..... It was a matter of knowing a mound was a permanent site and a matter of knowing their home was not. My best guess is they moved about 30 feet a year or every two years at most.  Imgine camping in a tent for two or three years and having no refrigerator.  Where do you poop? Where do you through your trash out?  Where do you store your most private stuff?

Southwest wall showing door.

Northwest wall.

 My Great, great Uncle Lowell Brenner recalled riding on his fathers plow through the Renner field - before Shippee- and hearing the sound of rocks and artifacts crack beneath the plow.  He too, knew something about this being strange and was somewhat friends with Shippee.  Before Wedel, they evidently worked together and Lowell suddenly had quite a collection.  I have most of that collection today. (more on that later)

6.What happened next? 

Wedel excavated for 3 months and went back to right his report, which is still pretty much the bible of the Renner Site.  Shippee was given some credit and went on to discover and properly record countless other site throughout the Midwest.  There is little doubt that at this point, Shippee had a greater knowledge of the Midwest prehistory than anybody.  More importantly, his discovery of the actual places.

Almost 20 years went by before the next excavation at Renner.  I'm sure Shippee continued to surface collect when he had the time.  After Wedel's 1937 report, the site was generally known in the scientific community. 

In the meantime, the Renner's kept their farm going as normal.  Leslie Renner had a condition which prevented them from having children.  Unknown at the time, they had prepared a second story in the house for children. (more on that later)

Professors, Roedel and Howard, sought permission to conduct a summer excavation based on the same base line as Wedel's in 1954. They were granted permission and immediately sought Shippee's help.  Their excavation required going outside of the chicken yard into the corn field along Wedel's previous excavation.  Roedel and Howard agreed to pay for any corn damage to Mr. Renner.  Although their techniques were much farther advanced than Wedel's, it was still primitive by todays standards.  Their findings were written noted the Hopewell influence in their findings, mainly with pottery markings.

Roedel in 1954.  He is in pit #4, just east of the present gazebo. This photo is courtesy of M. Fuller.

7.What is a pit? 

Pits were holes dug by the Woodland people to store things.  Things could be either trash; a cache of artifacts or a mixture. Most pits at Renner averaged 3 feet in diameter and anywhere from one to five feet deep.  The shape of a pit was usually conical.  On average, there is a pit in any given direction about six feet apart.  Sometimes pits were used again in later time by the same people.

 This is a photo of a hearth unearthed by the 1954 team evident by the concentration of rocks.  Although there is no documentation with this photo, a hearth would indicate the finding of a significant amount of charcoal or charred wood.  It was basically a place where the Renner people had built a fire and had lined it with rocks- possibly to fire pottery.  This location would have been just east of the gazebo.  Photo is courtesy of M. Fuller.

Roedel and Howard's report confirmed the existance of Hopewell influence.  Their excavation techniques were more advanced than Wedel's and several carbon dates were obtained from their excavation.  That was a technology Wedel or Shippee didn't have.   Even then radio carbon dating was new and not nearly as perfect as it is today.  Roedel and Howard's carbon dates would be the last taken from the site as of 2006.

8.Modern Archaeology 

A salvage operation today on an archaeological site is as scientific as the state-of-the-art digs before the 1960's.

After 1954, there were no published professional excavations until the late 1970s, when KU came for some small excavations.  My Aunt Carolina was now alone and had the field still rented out for farming.  As she had done for 60 years, the excavation was regulated to the chicken yard. However, there is a photo of an excavtion that took place in the summer of 1960, also in the chicken yard.

With the corn plants next to the excavation, this excavation was not in the chicken yard.  I believe we are looking north, just east of Roedel and Wedel's excavations.  There was only one tree in the field at that time and you can see it if you look closely in the background. I can find no published reports on this excavation, but it appears to have be set along Wedel's original base line. I believe it was MU. Photo is courtesy of M. Fuller.

9.Gary Brenner 

I was 23 years old when my Uncle Vern Davis  called and told me Aunt Carolina wanted her house painted. That was 27 years ago.  It was 1978.  My wife and I were living in a 500 square foot apartment and counting every penny to pay rent (to my dad).  Whatever spare time I had, was spent on family history work. 

Before Vern's phone call, I didn't know that much about Aunt Carolina.  All I knew then was she was like the oldest person in Platte County and one of my great, great something Aunts.  We'd only met once or twice.  I knew her land had artifacts and was important.  I knew it was on the National Register of Historic Places.  Everybody in Riverside seemed to know her land was significant and full of artifacts.  My interest grew as I got her number and had dreams of painting her house and accidentally taking a shovel and finding a arrowhead.

Before I called her, I went to bed that night dreaming of all the historical stuff we could go over together, and most importantly, the money I'd make.  In the back of my mind was alway finding that arrowhead laying on the gound beside the paint brush I'd probably drop on it by accident.

I called her the next day and she was anxious for me to come over for the paint bid.  At this point in my life, I was more interested in making money and learning about family history.

We met and probably talked for 3 hours.  Aunt Carolina and I just hit it off.  She gave me family pictures and our talk turned to archaeology.  That's when my eyes lit up. 

To make a long story short, I did paint the house.  One thing about Aunt Carolina,  she fried a lot of onions.  I can still smell those and it drove me crazy. 

Carolina died in 1979, about 6 months after I painted her house.  Up to this point, I never did take a shovel to the yard or find anything other than what I learned about my family history.

After she died the estate was going to put the house up for sale.  My dad was the Mayor of Riverside at the time and they were interested in having the estate give the property to the City for a park to take a tax break.  The City and my dad wanted to make it a baseball field.

In the meantime, my interest was growing to get my family out of an apartment.  As the months went by and through negotiations with her estate which were my great Uncles and Aunt's, a deal was worked out for us to rent the home for $50 bucks a month.  In the deal, we had all the rights as renters to the house and all that is now the Renner-Brenner Park.  It also included that I do any necessary HANDYMAN work to keep the house and grounds up.  Part of the deal included we may only have a 24 hour notice to move if the property was sold or given to the City.

Mary and I moved in June, 1980 with our 4 month old daughter, Heather.  That June, still holds the record as the hottest June since 1933.  The average daily high was 105 and at nights we were lucky if the lows dropped into the low 80s.  I had found a used window A/C from somewhere and put in a window on the back enclosed porch.  We literally closed off the rest of the house with blankets and lived until mid July on that porch just off the kitchen.  The porch was added on sometime in the 60's.  We slept there, ate there and watched our small TV there.  We though we were moving up from a 500 square foot apartment to basically a big farm house.  I had dreams of a big garden and living off the land.

Through that June, we were living in 150 square feet in conditions as bad as they could get!  Off that porch, there was an old well or sistern.  Originally, the gutters on the house guided rain water to the sistern and that's what they drank  from 1920 until the 50's.  For us that summer, that sistern became the diaper and trash disposal. 

Even though it was hot and we had our 150 square foot living space, it did rain.  We found out the roof was shot and everytime it rained we had to put 10, 5 gallon buckets at known leaking points in the parts of the house we couldn't use. 

Being 25, raising a family in a 60 year old rotting house in the hottest summer since 1933, of course I found time to take a shovel and investigate all this archaeological stuff.

At first, my methods were just a hair better than an ordinary treasure hunter, which means I had a shovel and a simple hand built screen sifter.  But, I did have a grand plan. 

My grand plan was to learn archaeology, keep the house and have the City buy the rest of the land I couldn't afford.  The plan also included only digging where something could be built.  Because the house faces a street that is no longer there, I wanted to tear down our old garage and build a new one with a new driveway. 

My first excavations with my shovel were where I wanted the new garage someday.  Little did I know that would turn out to be one of the richest parts of the site.

From June of 1980 until the fall of 1991, I spent every available moment on 'my dig' at the future garage.  At the same time, I spent hours writing letters to people and organizations for help to save the site.  Riverside wanted Carolina's estate to just give it to them and I knew that probably wasn't going to happen. Remember, my dad was the Mayor at the time, so I knew their thoughts.  I wrote my then senator, Kit Bond.  I did receive a letter which basically said, "Good Luck".  I wrote to the Archaeological Conservancy and they responed with a phone call.  And they actually sent a guy out from their base in Arizona and we spent the afternoon together.  When he came to visit, I didin't know a whole lot about what I was talking about. 

A week or so later I got a letter from the Conservancy saying they could only accept donated land at that time.  Well, we knew that wasn't going to happen. 

Knowing we were renters and knowing they could put the property up for sale; I came home from work on day to see a For Sale sign in the yard.  I didn't sleep that night and spent the early morning hours planning a budget and a proposal.  I called my Uncle Vern Davis, who was the husband of one of the heirs and asked him if he though $20,000 would do it.  He said he'd let me know and call back.

I was starting to run out of options when Bill Graham from the Kansas City Star called.  That one phone call changed my archaeological life and the future of the Renner Site.

Mr. Graham was going to do a story on J. Mett Shippee and wanted us to all meet at my house.  Shippee was the Einstein of Kansas City archaeology. He was 30 years ahead of his time and no archaeological degree.  However, he was a teacher to those who would become professors around the region.  He received very little credit from those he taught to make this their living, until just before his death.  Those former students and now professors, didn't mind using his drawings; his writings, etc.  But his credit in their writings was usually regulated to the foot notes.  As ignorant as I was about the archaeology world, I did know of Mett Shippe thanks to Aunt Carolina.

I was embarrased about the though of Shippee seeing my crude "pot hole" dig to the south of the house.  In my mind, I didn't care because I was salvaging what I could while the future of the Renner Site remained in the balance.  But, I did care what Shippee thought and didn't want him to see my hole.  It rained the night before they came and I didn't have a chance to fill it in.  And besides that, they came an hour early.

10. Gary Brenner meets Mett Shippee 

I was working at my apartments when my wife called and told me they were there early.  I rushed home, which took about 30 seconds, to find the reporter (Mr. Graham), a photographer and some old man peering into my crude dig.  I knew who the old man was as I swerved into the driveway and saw the photographer taking a photo of Mett looking into my dig.

This was my "oh my God" moment as Shippee glared into my dig.  What's worse is the shovel in the pit.  It might as well have been 30 sticks of dynamite laying next to a jack hammer. The expression on his face pretty much explains it all and I'm sorry about the pic quality.  Also, the house needed some repair.  Photo from The Kansas City Star, September 13th, 1980.

After an awkward moment, Shippee just looked at me as if we had known each other for a lifetime and asked me, "Where's your screen (sifter)".  I knew what he was talking about, but had a momentary loss for words as I hadn't made a sifter yet. Years later, based on this meeting, I would go on to sell the patent rights to an electric sifter which I built and used for 10 years!  Shippee immediately seemed to take me under his wing and didn't seem upset with my hole in the yard.  It was obvious he was as concerned about the fate of the Renner Site as I was.  He said he had one I could use and invited me to his home the next weekend.  I learned more from him in those 30 minutes with Bill Graham that I can even put into words.  And there would be more.  Much, much more!!!!!

One of the most prolific items I ever found over almost 20 years, as a clay human effigy doll.  And I found it just after the first two Shippee meetings.  I had no clue at the time that I was in one of the richest parts of the site. Photos by M. Fuller.

What is most apparent is this is a figure of a pot belly male and has the Hopewell influence.  This was probably a toy for children.  If this was a figure of a female, we are missing breasts.  The artist took the time to form the pot belly.  If he did that, he or she, likely would have added on breasts.  A navel is clearly visible in the lower photo.  The effigy was made with no arms as the artist knew they would have broken off, but apparently the artist did form this piece into a sitting position.  The legs were long gone as the clay is somewhat smooth at the breaking point indicating this happend then.  In the upper photo just beneath the arm pit, you can see a distinct and obvious nail impression left by the artist.  I have no doubt this was not an accident.  Why take the time to carve the navel; form the body; fire it and you'd leave a defect by accident?  This is the only body of an effigy found at Renner.  A head was found by Kansas City Archaeologist, Jim Feagins of the Kansas City Archaeological Society in the 1970's.  The head was of the same clay material, same size, but does not fit this body.  The head Feagins found was clearly of Hopewell traits with no hair, big eyes and ears.

The next Saturday, I pulled into the driveway of Shippee's house.  I had brought a box of some of the artifact I found.

Shippee was painting his house and I found this 80 something man standing on the top of a 14 foot ladder with a paint brush and bucket. 

Moments later, we were inside his livingroom and were sipping ice tea.  While he was looking though my measily box of artifacts, I noticed a room off to the side which apparently contained his real stuff.  I pretended not to notice that room as he gave me a 10 minute lecture on pottery that would be worth a semester or two in today's college world. He went into great detail and I consumed every word. He treated me as a person that he could place some trust.  Up till a few years before we met, his goal was investigating.  Now, his thoughts were definately leaning towards preservation.  Both with his collection and at the same time the Renner Site.  Being a Brenner, he opened his doors and placed his trust in me. 

At this meeting, I was half the age I am now.  I partied and carried on and had a wife and a baby and it was a struggle to just pay for the day to day stuff.

(PLEASE GO TO "PAGE 2") I have to keep these pages within a certain band length.

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