By TIM JANICKE, The Kansas City Star

A statue of abolitionist John Brown stands sentry at 27th and Sewell in Kansas City, Kan., high above the Missouri River, guarding the path to a ghost town.

 Marvin Robinson, impatient and walking fast, leads his tour group north on 27th past a trash pile and through a ramshackle gate.

 He traces an arc with one arm.

 ``Stop and look at the bluffs and Parkville,'' Robinson tells the people who have followed him here. ``The river was the great divide - the symbol of whether the nation would go into the Confederacy or the Union.''

 Robinson has devoted his life to preserving the ruins this group has come to see: the remains of what was once the town of Quindaro.

 A beacon on the Underground Railroad, Quindaro embraced escaping slaves, sheltering them until their next stops in free Kansas, usually Lawrence or Topeka. The town existed for only five years, from 1857 until 1862, then was largely abandoned after its economy soured and the Union took the community's men to fight in the Civil War.

 Its ruins - an area of between 100 and 200 acres, depending on where you draw the boundaries - lie just west of Interstate 635 and south of the Missouri River.

 The angels that guard the Quindaro ruins have confronted many devils over the years: First there were the Union troops that appropriated the abandoned homes for firewood. More than a century later a landfill was proposed for the area. A couple of years ago a developer wanted the site for a golf course and housing project.

 It's been Mother Nature that's done the most damage, however.

 Weather and time have ravaged what were once businesses and homes, although some stone foundations remain. An archaeological excavation 13 years ago for the proposed landfill uncovered the foundations, but they've since deteriorated from exposure to the elements and from the Missouri River flood of 1993.

 The salvation of what's left is Robinson's quest. 'Sacred, holy ground'

 ``Older people in the black community say that this is sacred, holy ground,'' Robinson tells the tour group. ``The soil and the sand and the limestone were stained with the blood of those who sought refuge and freedom.''

 The group descends a dirt road strewn with stones and divided by a rivulet, not a road to take with a car.

 Robinson's entourage this day includes Wyandotte High School students and teachers, a charitable foundation official, and Kansas City, Kan., Chamber of Commerce and convention and visitors bureau officials.

 Robinson is not the only Quindaro tour guide. Other groups and individuals show the site, too, but Robinson has gotten the most publicity for Quindaro in recent years.

 One of the people on the tour today is Betty Roberts, president of the Quindaro Town Preservation Society, a group originally formed in 1987 to help fight the landfill proposal. The group's goal, Roberts says, is to get Quindaro recognized as ``the pivotal site in the West for the Underground Railroad.'' The organization envisions a park with paths and interpretive signs, as well as a museum for artifacts that were unearthed during the archaeological dig - everyday items like china, eyeglasses, doorknobs and marbles. The society would like to see the National Park Service administer the site.

 Robinson draws his tour group through a thicket and points to a stone-lined hole in the ground.

 ``The ice house measured 17 by 24 feet in diameter,'' he says. ``They would haul chunks of ice off the Missouri so they would have refrigeration - it would last until May or June.''

 The group continues to descend the steep road and comes around a curve into a clearing. Across the north boundary of the old town stretches an elevated railroad track, the berm obscuring the Missouri River on the other side. In Quindaro's heyday, riverboats docked on a natural limestone shelf that reached into the water. Now, weeds have sprouted, and by midsummer they'll be so thick they'll obscure the ruins. By then the mosquitoes will be abundant both day and night, too.

 ``Quindaro House Hotel was four stories high and had 40 rooms,'' Robinson tells the group. ``When they excavated, they found plates, Civil War soldiers' medallions, cattle bones from steaks - it showed the diet.

 ``Before the flood of '93, the walls were as high as three people standing on each other's shoulders. They've fallen over something horrible, but they are still sacred, holy ground.'' Many interested parties

 Robinson has written countless letters and filed many applications to assorted agencies, seeking official recognition of the site. Roberts hopes Robinson's PR barrage will work.

 ``He's very dedicated,'' she says. ``He's a little bit like John Brown - he sees a goal and he keeps at it.''

 Because Robinson comes from elsewhere - eastern KCK - not everyone favors him as Quindaro's frontman. Jesse Hope is one of these people.

 ``Why does he think he's the first one to ever discover this when it's been here all along?'' Hope asks. ``He's basically just a newcomer.''

 Hope, who lives just west of the original town site, says he is descended from a slave family that escaped from Parkville and walked to Quindaro across the frozen Missouri River. About two miles of bottomland and the river separate the towns.

 Hope organized opposition to the proposed landfill in the 1980s. He says he appreciates Robinson's efforts but would like to see others recognized as champions of the Quindaro site, too.

 ``There are so many people that haven't been discussed,'' he says, ``people that gave all they had. There were little old ladies that gave their heart and soul. Some people left it in their wills to give everything they had to stop the dump.''

 Hope, 46, belongs to the Allen-Chapel AME Church, one of the original Quindaro churches. Although a title search hasn't made it official, most parties agree that the AME church and the city of Kansas City, Kan., own the Quindaro ruins site. The church claims 80 percent of the land because it once owned the now-defunct Western University, an African-American college that occupied parts of the old town site.

 Although the church and the city don't openly criticize Robinson, they don't embrace him, either. Together they have decided to nominate the site for historical recognition at state and national levels. Church officials say the next step would be building a park and improving access for the public. They believe other neighborhood improvements would ensue.

 Hope's group, the Concerned Citizens for Old Quindaro, hasn't taken sides. But Hope would prefer to see the church stay out of it. Over the years, Hope says, the church has closed the college, Douglass Hospital and a nursing home. He describes his disgust at seeing, as a kid, textbooks deteriorating in the dilapidated classrooms of Western University.

 ``I think the church has had their chance,'' Hope says. ``I think the city would work with us better.''

 For his part, Robinson doesn't trust the church or the city.

 They've invited him to join them, but he's wary because he believes the church has been in cahoots with both landfill proponents and the golf-course developer. A church representative did not want to be quoted.

 And then there's Robinson's dispute with the city.

 In 1994 the KCK City Council tried to muzzle him, enacting a law allowing citizens the right to speak at only six council meetings per year. Robinson had appeared before the council so many times that his harangues about Quindaro and other issues had exasperated council members. They rescinded the ``Marvin Robinson Law'' after questions about free speech were raised. A mother's mission, too

 When the land at Quindaro is dry, Robinson leads groups past the site of the Quindaro Chindowan newspaper, past wells and down an overgrown path to the river. Robinson freely mixes legend with fact as he dispenses historical patter.

 ``A steamboat loaded with fugitive slave women and children came up the river,'' Robinson recounts. ``The border ruffians started shooting guns and shooting cannon. The steamboat sank and the people died. We pause for a moment of silence to pay homage to those who wanted freedom but didn't make it.''

 His laserlike focus on Quindaro has taken a toll on his life. He has, by his own count, been hired and fired 10 times just this year. Currently, he says, he is an unemployed telemarketer. His 1992 Chrysler New Yorker, with 170,000 miles on the odometer, doesn't run.

Robinson, who admits to being in his mid-30s, grew up in KCK, graduated from Sumner High School, went to college at Emporia State University, did a stint in the Navy and then attended Temple University in Philadelphia.

 His voice cracks as he talks about his mother. Renovation of the Quindaro ruins was her mission, too.

 Verdis Robinson died in December 1997. Her working life was one of public service in Kansas City, Kan., and Wyandotte County. She served as a state representative and a county commissioner, and she worked in the city's parking control department.

 Some say that since his mother's death, Robinson has changed from Quindaro proponent to Quindaro zealot.

 ``I think he's very emotional about the issue,'' says Steve Collins, a sociology professor at Kansas City Kansas Community College. Collins is just finishing a scholarly study of the Underground Railroad at Quindaro.

 ``If Marvin Robinson had not continued to work the past 12 years,'' Collins says, ``then the site would have been completely destroyed by now - I'm sure of it.

 ``There are two people you've got to look at when you talk about Quindaro - Marvin, and Jesse Hope,'' he says. History worth preserving

 The professor says the Underground Railroad legend is true.

 ``I've come across information that documents an extensive network with Quindaro, Lawrence and Topeka as cities on the Underground Railroad,'' Collins says. ``It was not a few isolated individuals - it was organized.

 ``The fact that Quindaro was part of an organized network on the Underground Railroad suggests that a slave route from Parkville to Quindaro was a reality.''

 Many have believed the Railroad existed at Quindaro, Collins says, but he believes he is the first to verify it, with documents and interviews with Quindaro descendants.

 ``I want people to say, here's a document, here's an interview, here's a letter,'' Collins says. ``You take all of these things together. It's not based on myth, folk tales and narratives. It's real and it's worth preserving. It's worth teaching. It should be part of the history of Kansas City, Kan.''

 But he also explodes a myth about the African-American population of Quindaro. Although the area around Quindaro was settled after the Civil War by blacks, Collins says the city of Quindaro was predominantly white.

 His study of the 1860 federal census of Quindaro shows that out of 685 residents, 29 were black and 28 were American Indian. The rest were white.

 Robinson doesn't buy Collins' census data. On tours he emphasizes the diversity of the Quindaro population and argues that many residents were black.

 ``This was a heavily populated black community,'' he says. ``Census records are designed to dismiss the black population of the community. Back then we weren't even considered people.''

 If those on the tour give him time, Robinson will have them climb a steep path to the old Quindaro Cemetery. Beneath is a sweeping view of the river and Parkville. He'll talk about Quindaro Nancy Brown, a Wyandot Indian and the town's namesake.

 ``Quindaro - what does the name mean?'' he asks. ``In the French-Canadian-Wyandot language it meant 'a bundle of sticks' or 'in unity there is strength.' '' What of the future?

 Whether there will be a unity of effort among Robinson's contingent, the AME church and the city remains to be seen. It's also possible that nothing will happen. Other Quindaro development plans have been floated and sunk over the years, one as recently as 1996.

 But several organizations are poised to help if things get sorted out.

 Patsy Moss of the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation views the Quindaro ruins as ``a hidden treasure.''

 ``I'm an advocate,'' she says. ``They need to come up with a plan.''

 A representative of the National Park Service endorsed the site as a national landmark during an appearance at a symposium in Kansas City, Kan., last year.

 And Kerry Strahm, executive director of the Kansas City, Kan./Wyandotte County Convention and Visitors Bureau, says he is ready to promote it.

 Robinson says he was naive when he started his quest almost 12 years ago. He says he thought ``it would take two or three PR campaigns'' to get the site saved.

 Now, when he leads tours past the old brewery in Quindaro, he asks people to look deep into the cellar that once held the beer kegs.

 ``If you look up there, you can see a shaft of light shooting down,'' he tells them. ``Metaphorically, it's a light at the end of the tunnel.'' H

Tim Janicke is photo editor for Star Magazine. To reach him, call (816) 234-4791 or e-mail tjanicke@kcstar.com