Cited last year in the top 25 "best and most affordable" U.S. suburbs by BusinessWeek online, Shawnee is a town proud of its past and excited about its future.
No town in the county has a richer history or more promising future. Shawnee's roots go back to the Native American people who lived on this land just south of the Kansas River in the early 19th century.
For a time in the 1850s, when the town was called Gum Springs, it was home to the Kansas territory's first legislature and capital, and it was the first county seat. Looted by William Quantrill during the Civil War, Shawnee was rebuilt by sturdy immigrant farmers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
It is booming today. The third largest city in Johnson County and growing daily, it ranks among the top 10 cities in the eight-county metro area for new-home building through April 2007 and is projected to reach 59,300 in population by 2010.
New subdivisions push west and north into wooded hills and across former truck farms. Multifamily construction is also increasing as apartments rise along Kansas Highway 7 and Shawnee Mission Parkway.
The city's 42 square miles extend from just west of I-35 in northern Johnson County to beyond Highway K-7 and into some of the county's prettiest ground. Builders, developers and home buyers are drawn by the combination of lovely homesites, quick highway access (Interstates 435 and 35 are gateways) and the mix of country and city housing choices.
Shawnee has a new gateway in Pioneer Park on Shawnee Mission Parkway, a new skate park in Swarner Park and the new Splash Cove at Jim Allen Aquatic Center, a themed downtown aquatics park dedicated this June. The Shawnee Downtown Partnership, formed from a 2002 Downtown Action Program, is directing the revitalization efforts for the city's original downtown.
New commercial development is also bustling on the town's west side, along Highway K-7 and at the junction of I-435 and Shawnee Mission Parkway. Renovations are beginning in Shawnee Town, an outdoor museum depicting life in a rural Kansas town from the 1840s through the 1920s.
Other Shawnee attractions include its 24,000-square-foot Civic Centre, 24 city parks (with more in development), the Johnson County Museum of History; Wonderscope Children's Museum; the Ice Sports Arena indoor ice rink; the Mid-America Sports Complex; Shawnee Mission Beach Volleyball; the county's 1,250-acre Shawnee Mission Park, located partially in Shawnee; and Tomahawk Hills, 250 acres that holds a public golf course and a sports dome.
