Kansas Ave Memorial Bridge Mural
Created in 2026
Mural Team
Lead Artist: Zandra Sneed-Dawkins
Project Manager: Staci Dawn Schnacker
Supporting Artists: Pradeep Bangalore, Jordan E. Brooks, DeAna Morrison, Jonah Graf
This mural stands as a testament to the power of community collaboration. More than 75 volunteers, including city officials, community organizations, residents, Topeka Police Department, Topeka Rescue Mission, Washburn University students, and students from Quincy and Elmont Elementary Schools, contributed to the creation of this project during the summer of 2026.
Reflections of North Topeka: A Walking Museum of Possibility
Long before the development of the NOTO organization, the North Topeka area was a landmark for history and a crossroads for trade, transportation, immigration, and community life in the Midwest.
Before it was NOTO, before it was North Topeka, and before it was known as Eugene, this land was part of the homelands of the Kaw Nation, also known as the Kanza, the “People of the South Wind.” The Kansas River was not simply a landmark on the map. It was a source of life, movement, food, trade, and connection. The river valley supported Native communities for generations before Euro-American settlement pushed westward into the region.
The name Topeka itself is rooted in the Kanza language and is understood to mean “a good place to dig potatoes,” a reminder that the identity of this city begins with Indigenous land, Indigenous language, and Indigenous knowledge of place.
As the United States expanded west in the early 1800s, the Kaw Nation’s land base was reduced through treaties and increasing pressure from settlers, traders, and territorial expansion. The Treaty of 1825 dramatically changed the future of this region. Through that treaty, the Kaw ceded vast portions of their land to the United States, while certain reservation lands were set aside along the Kansas River. Among those lands were tracts connected to the Gonville sisters, Kaw Nation women whose family lines would become deeply tied to the earliest recorded settlement history of North Topeka. The NOTO area itself was formerly half-breed Reserve Number 4, allotted to Julia Gonville.
This is where the story of cultures crossing begins.
French-Canadian fur traders, including the Pappan brothers, married into the Kaw Nation through the Gonville family. These relationships were personal, cultural, and economic, and they helped shape one of the most important early crossings on the Kansas River. In 1842, the Pappan family established Pappan’s Ferry, a river crossing that served travelers moving through the region along military roads, trade routes, and westward trails.
The ferry became more than a way across the water. It became a point of exchange. People, wagons, livestock, goods, stories, and ambitions all passed through this place. Travelers heading toward Oregon, California, New Mexico, and other western destinations relied on crossings like Pappan’s Ferry. Before there were bridges, before there were railroads, and before there was a formal city on the north side, this river crossing made North Topeka a place of movement and possibility.
In 1865, that possibility took a new form when William K. Curtis and Louis Laurent laid out a town on the north side of the Kansas River. They called it Eugene. Eugene as largely established on Gonville land, belonging to Julia. Today, her descendants still own parcels of land. Though Eugene would exist as an independent town for only a short time, its impact was lasting. The town was positioned at a critical point between river traffic, trail movement, and the growing railroad network that would soon transform Kansas.
Less than a year later, on New Year’s Day in 1866, the Union Pacific Railroad arrived in what is now North Topeka. That moment changed the direction of the community. The arrival of the railroad helped turn Eugene into a center of industry, commerce, and growth. Rail lines brought workers, freight, manufacturing, warehouses, mills, and new businesses. The north side of the river quickly became one of the industrial engines of the Kansas capital.
In April 1867, Eugene was annexed by south-side Topeka, becoming the city’s first major expansion and its First Ward. (Cities were historically divided into sections called wards for voting, becoming the first ward meant it became the cities first official designated district for voting.) But even after annexation, North Topeka maintained its own identity. It was not simply an extension of Topeka. It was a working district, a railroad district, a business district, and a neighborhood with its own rhythm and pride.
Throughout the late 1800s, and into the early 1900’s North Topeka grew through labor, immigration, and industry. Volga German families, Exodusters seeking freedom and a new beginning after Reconstruction, Hispanic workers and families, railroad laborers, entrepreneurs, and tradespeople all contributed to the district’s growth and identity. North Kansas Avenue became a corridor of daily services and commercial activity. Buildings rose, businesses opened, and the area became known for its dense collection of shops, trades, and industry.
The river that helped create the district also brought devastation. As in the early years, North Topeka endured major floods, including the destructive flood of 1903 and the catastrophic flood of 1951. These disasters damaged buildings, displaced families, and forced businesses to rebuild or close. Even today, the memory of floodwater remains part of the district’s story, held in basements, foundations, photographs, and community memory.
By the 1940s and 1950s, North Topeka was remembered as vibrant, bustling, charming, and thriving. The 800 and 900 blocks of North Kansas Avenue served as the North Topeka Business District. There were grocery stores, restaurants, a movie theater, a hardware store, salons, and the kind of everyday places that made a neighborhood feel complete. For people living north of the river, this was where they shopped, gathered, ate, worked, and spent time with friends and family.
The bridge connecting downtown Topeka to North Topeka was essential to that life. The Melan Bridge carried people between the two sides of the city and helped keep the business district active. But in 1965, the collapse of the Melan Bridge marked another turning point. When the replacement bridge rerouted traffic away from North Kansas Avenue, the district lost a major flow of visibility and access. Combined with suburban expansion, changing shopping patterns, flood recovery, and disinvestment, North Topeka began to decline.
The Evolution of NOTO
Even during difficult decades, businesses remained. The Topeka Rescue Mission remained. Residents, property owners, artists, and advocates continued to see value in the historic buildings and in the community itself. The word NOTO was once used by some as a dismissive shorthand for North Topeka, but over time, that name would be reclaimed and transformed into a symbol of creativity, resilience, and pride.
In 2008, through the Heartland Visioning process, Topeka residents voiced a desire for an arts district. Community leaders, including Anita Wolgast and John Hunter, helped carry that vision forward. North Topeka was not the easy choice, but it was the right one. The historic storefronts, walkable blocks, old architecture, and deep sense of place made the district a natural home for artists and creative redevelopment.
In 2010, the NOTO Arts & Entertainment District began to take shape. Artists like Barbara Waterman-Peters helped prove that the district could once again become a place of energy, gathering, and creation. Studios opened. Galleries followed. First Friday Art Walks brought people back to North Kansas Avenue. What had once been a railroad and business district began a new life as a cultural district.
Today, NOTO is not a break from North Topeka’s history. It is a continuation of it.
The murals, galleries, restaurants, music, festivals, public art, and restored buildings all sit on land layered with memory. This is Kaw homeland. This is the site of river crossings and ferry landings. This is the former town of Eugene. This is the industrial north side of Topeka. This is a district shaped by immigrants, workers, floods, bridges, businesses, artists, and generations of people who refused to give up on it.
The story of NOTO is not only a story of revitalization. It is a story of return, remembrance, and reinvention.
It reminds us that places are never just buildings or streets. They are living records of the people who crossed them, built them, survived them, and imagined them into something new. From Kaw homeland to Reserve no.4, from Eugene to North Topeka, from business district to arts district, NOTO continues to carry the grit, determination, and community spirit that have defined this place from the beginning.
And now, through projects like the Reflections North Topeka that history is being brought back into public view, not as a forgotten past, but as a walking museum of possibility.
