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By: LEWIS DUIGIUD  
Date: 11/14/98  

The mud of 19th-century freemen and runaways walked with me hours after my field trip with students at Washington High School. 
Senior English teacher Dennis Lawrence had invited me by e-mail to join him and about 120 of his students doing research that would tax all five of their senses. ``The community is our text, and each student will be working on research projects in the community, which will be posted on the Web site they will create,'' Lawrence wrote. 
``There are no books they can consult for this,'' he said. 
I answered his invitation and spent an hour with the teens in the ruins of Quindaro. The walk through the cemetery and old town were new experiences for me and students in the Class of 1999 at Washington High. 
I've been studying with them since they were freshmen to learn what it's like to be a teen and a teacher today. I joined Lawrence and the students at abolitionist John Brown's statue. 
Our field study preceded a Quindaro Ruins/Underground Railroad Symposium last week at Kansas City Kansas Community College. 
Lawrence said that for about seven years he had taken seniors to old Quindaro, which is among the best-known and biggest sites on the Underground Railroad. Parkville lies just across the Missouri River from what used to be the 1856 town where runaway slaves found freedom. 
At the old cemetery, April Wilson, LeAnna Watson and others noted the headstone markings. Lawrence then took us on a hike through the old town, where steamboats used to dock. Quindaro quickly grew to a freeport town of 608 persons. It had a four-story hotel, more than 100 business and residential buildings, and a daily newspaper. 
``It's real interesting to learn something new about your heritage that you'd not known,'' Martin Bass said. ``I think they need to make it into a national park. '' 
We got high on the sights, smells, sounds, feel and taste of freedom and history in the area. Planes flew loudly overhead. 
Train whistles sounded on the track by the Missouri River, and the traffic roar on nearby Interstate 635 cut the still air. 
Some students knew too well the blight, abuse and neglect of the modern ruins of the northeast community around Quindaro Boulevard. The old town by the river, however, was the history they'd never been told. 
``To me, this is about going back in time, knowing who did what so we can have what we have today,'' Marcus Harris said. 
``It's a way to find out about the place where you live,'' Eric Hernandez said. 
The Quindaro ruins have survived total abandonment, nearly 150 years of decay, flooding, lawsuits and failed efforts to bury it with a landfill. 
``It's very exciting,'' Ebony Gipson said. ``But they've destroyed so much, there's not a lot for us to learn. '' 

Lawrence pointed to the remains of a stone structure with a tunnel in back. A creek gurgled nearby. With financing it could have been developed into a tourist magnet like the Plaza. 
But it's as if the area is still paying for its abolitionist past. It made Jeanine Hegwood ask lingering questions: ``How come nobody else taught us about this? Isn't this history important, too? What? Nobody cares about it? '' 
Lawrence's project succeeded in getting students to care about their community through their studies at Washington High. 

Lewis Diuguid's column appears Tuesday and Saturday. Send e-mail to him at Ldiuguid@kcstar.com or leave him a message at (816) 889-7827 and enter 1134.