While a bishop in Kansas City, Missouri, in the 1920s, he championed a proposed Lincoln and Lee University that would be built on the battlefield of the Battle of Westport (biggest battle west of the Mississippi River). The university would be named for Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee and be built around a proposed national memorial to fallen Civil War soldiers. The school would eventually form the basis of what is the University of Missouri-Kansas City (and is not affiliated with the church).