By Jill Draper
Belton Parks and Recreation has ambitious plans for a 69-acre tract of land donated recently by a retired pharmacist. The entire project, estimated to cost at least $20 million, will include several miles of nature trails, an amphitheater, events center, visitors center, botanical garden and greenhouse.
Plans also call for a sunflower field, pumpkin patch, orchard, community garden, and restored prairies and woodlands.
The land is located south of Belton High and adjacent to Cleveland Lake Park, which is used primarily for stormwater retention, said Brian Welborn, parks director. He called the donation “a dream come true.”
Both tracts of land—Cleveland Lake and the new acreage—were owned by Jack Dryden, who operated Dryden Drug at 401 Main Street in Belton for years. He originally bought the land as an investment and as a place for his father to hunt. The city acquired roughly half of the land for Cleveland Lake, and a year ago Dryden donated the remaining half.
Although he now lives in south Kansas City, Dryden grew up in Belton, sweeping floors, carrying trash and his favorite—serving customers at the soda fountain—at Dryden Drug. Pharmacy runs deep in his family through four generations. His grandfather ran a drugstore in Lee’s Summit, his father opened Dryden Drug in Belton in 1931, and Jack and his son worked as pharmacists there until it closed in 2010.
The original drugstore building at Main and E. Walnut streets expanded over the decades and is now occupied by a café and malt shop and an antiques store. But a room at the other end of the property serves as a pharmacy museum. Vintage scales and a collection of mortars and pestles sit on shelves atop long lines of tins and vials containing old medicines. In one corner a case of full liquor bottles is labeled as a blood purifier. In other corners are a brass spittoon, a poster for Arctic ice cream and a display advertising Rexall products.
A popular brand from the 1920s-30s was Penick’s Tested Botanical Drugs. During those times people often made home remedies, purchasing substances like aromatic rhubarb, cardamom, soluble ginger, sarsaparilla, pine tar, red clover tops, senna and elm bark, said Dryden.
When he graduated from the University of Kansas in Lawrence in 1953, pharmacists still routinely compounded liquids, capsules and ointments, he said.
While the pharmacy museum is not open to the public, some of these vintage items will be relocated as an educational display at the park’s visitors center when it’s built, and some of the plants they come from will be grown nearby in the botanical garden. Even today, Dryden noted, “there are so many plants that are the basis of medications.”
A big fan of the Overland Park Arboretum and Powell Gardens, Dryden wanted to make a gift inspired by these two attractions to the Belton community. His gift does have restrictions, though. The city can’t turn around and sell it for a housing development or install soccer fields.
Dryden hired a landscape architect firm, Indigo Design, to map out his vision for the 69 acres before the donation was completed, and the parks department has continued to keep him involved as the plans are finalized through a second firm, SWT Design, said parks director Welborn.
Funding for the new park is still being decided. Some money will be borrowed, some will come from park fees for renting the event center, some will be donations through a friends group and some might come from grants. A major groundbreaking is anticipated in 2026.
According to Welborn, Dryden’s donation and the new plans were the envy of other park directors when he attended a Missouri Parks and Recreation Association conference this spring. “How’d you pull that off?” they asked.
“It’s very unusual. We’re filled with a lot of appreciation,” Welborn said, noting that with a population estimated at 25,000, Belton has been cited as the second fastest growing city in the state. And according to the latest version of Belton’s comprehensive plan, the number one thing residents want is more trails.
Dryden turns 93 this summer. He realizes he probably won’t be around to see how the new park shapes up, but that’s okay with him. “I hope it will be an asset to get people back to nature,” he said. “It’s a nice gift to the city. I think this will be a good use for it.”