Reps. Cleaver, Davids Demand Answers on Lack of Funding for Freedom’s Frontier National Heritage Area

Last week, U.S. Representatives Sharice Davids (D-KS) and Emanuel Cleaver, II (D-MO) called on the Trump Administration to immediately release long-overdue funding for National Heritage Areas (NHAs), which preserve local history, create jobs, and drive tourism across the country.

Despite being signed into law in March, federal funding for NHAs — including the Freedom’s Frontier National Heritage Area (FFNHA) in western Missouri and eastern Kansas — still hasn’t been delivered. As a result, local sites are struggling to keep staff employed, preserve historic landmarks, and continue educational programs that serve thousands of visitors and students each year.

“NHAs contribute billions to the U.S. economy annually and support hundreds of thousands of jobs, leveraging each dollar of federal funding into more than $5 of nonfederal resources,” the lawmakers wrote. “For example, FFNHA provided 61 percent of its FY24 income from nonfederal sources. Our nation’s 62 NHAs provide an excellent and sustainable model of economic development at little cost to the federal government. This delay in funding is causing significant strain on our NHAs – many of which rely on small staffs and robust volunteer networks; annual NPS appropriations are critical to attracting private donations, planning grants and historic preservation efforts, and executing educational opportunities.”

NHAs are public-private partnerships that highlight culturally significant regions across the U.S., from Civil War battlefields to Indigenous heritage sites. Each federal dollar invested generates over $5 in private and local support. Without this timely funding, programs grind to a halt and community-driven preservation work suffers.

“We respectfully request that you quickly provide us with a timeline as to when FY25 appropriations for NHAs will be processed and work to execute these funding awards as soon as possible,” the lawmakers concluded.

Established in 2006, the FFNHA is one of 55 National Heritage Areas throughout the United States. FFNHA tells the stories and builds awareness of western Missouri and eastern Kansas’ past, present, and future, including stories of American settlement of the western frontier, Bleeding Kansas and the Civil War, Brown v. Board of Education, and significant figures in our nation’s history such as President Harry Truman, Amelia Earhart, and the Native tribes of the Great Plains. 

The FFNHA supports and promotes roughly 323 partners, including historic sites, museums, historical societies, libraries, and other cultural-heritage tourism destinations in 41 counties across the Missouri-Kansas border.

Some notable FFNHA partners in the Third Congressional District of Kansas include Old Quindaro Museum, John Brown Museum, Kansas City Area Historic Trails Association, Kaw Point Park, Louisburg Historical Society, and more.

Some notable FFNHA partners in the Fifth Congressional District of Missouri include the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, Truman Presidential Library, American Jazz Museum, the National WWI Museum and Memorial, and more.

The official letter from Davids and Cleaver is available HERE.