Fire Keepers Circle honors the ancestral heritage of the Potawatomi tribe.
Along a lakeside trail at Heritage Park in Olathe, an interactive sculpture invites visitors into a quiet, circular space—part shelter, part story. Wrapping visitors in a “blanket,” it offers a bench to rest, but its meaning goes deeper. This site marks a stop along the 660-mile “Trail of Death,” where Potawatomi people were forcibly removed in 1883 from Indiana to Kansas; 40 died along the journey.
The JCPRD Public Art Program commissioned the installation to honor and celebrate the resiliency of the Potawatomi tribe, whose community members participated by creating designs for metallic feathers. Inspired by the fire pit in a sweat lodge—a place to purify and renew the spirit—designers Leah Yellowbird and Aaron Squadroni conceived the circle, using layers to represent the tribe’s past and present: scenes of nature, contours that trace the historic path, and 859 perforated circles that represent each individual on the march. Working with Blingle of South Kansas City to illuminate the installation, the circles remain a beacon of light, even when dark sets in.
Heritage Park
16050 Pflumm Road
Olathe, KS
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Fire Keepers Circle honors the ancestral heritage of the Potawatomi tribe.