Peeking out from almost every Midtown Kansas City building, apartment, or home, there are layers of history built up like different styles of wallpaper and paint colors that change over the years.
So many things make Midtowqn unique, like:
- Colonnade apartment buildings
- Shirtwaist homes
- Rock walls
- The ghosts of lumber barons
- Business districts that came to life in the 1920s
- Architects making their statements
- Homes built for people riding streetcars to promised lands in the suburbs
Midtown’s history has always drawn people and continues to draw people who add new layers to its textured fabric.
Telling the big, complex, human story of Midtown is the long-range goal of the Midtown KC Post’s Uncovering History project.
We want to strip back the layers, to look underneath the places we live today at the mansions and bungalows, the dirt roads and grand boulevards, the greedy investors and dreamy architects whose plans and projects piled up to make Midtown the place it is today.
We’ve started the project and we need your help. We’ll do a lot of the work, but we hope you’ll bring us stories, relics, and details the historians may have missed.
Our Part
- We’ll add block-by-block histories that include photos, census records, maps and more.
- We’ll share information about historic designations and endangered properties.
- We’ll offer advice on how to learn more about the history of your family, your house or your neighborhood.
Your Part
- Share the history you have with others: Do you have old photos, letters or other Midtown history items you’d like to share? We’d like to post them on our website.
- Email the Uncovering History project with ideas and information.
- Leave your comments about specific blocks, people and properties.
- Join our email list, follow us on Facebook or Instagram, or drop by regularly.
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I own the Bohem building on the corner of 28th and Cherry. Where can I find history on this old historic building. Can you help?
Sincerely
Sue Moreno
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Have really enjoyed your history and photos of Midtown Kansas City where I grew up, but was away for 50 years for military, college, and career, etc. Your site has brought back many fond memories and has helped on my own research on our Family History.
Do you have volunteers that help in your research or other duties. I am back in the area again and would love to help you bring back the amazing history of MidtownKC. Leo
I love this stuff (history and architectural history). Please place me on your email list.
Hello Mary Jo!
I am part of the Jefferson Highway Association that actually goes through Kansas City and wanted to bring some awareness of our organization to the Kansas City Locals. Would love to get more interest in the JH in KC since it did go through downtown KC from about 1916 to 1926 before the US federal numbering system that began in 1926.
David C. Stearns Jefferson Highway Board of Directors
Why haven’t I subscribed before now? (rhetorical question 🙂
Thank you for your great work!
Hi,
I’ve been visiting your site last couple weeks. Bought your book, KC Historic Midtown Neighborhoods over the weekend as I was triangulating on a house for sale at 4325 McGee. Was able to pick on the history of many parts of the neighborhood, including the estate/block of W.A. Rule’s Oak Lawn residency, but was not able to find any records on the 3-4 homes that went up on the east side of McGee, south of 43rd. They were put up on top of his old estate but I haven’t yet found information on them.
Is there anywhere you could point me to, to track down this very specific area?
Thanks,
Scott
I just found your email today…sorry to be so behind.
I have attached what I think is the Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from 1940. There is an early map from 1909, but it does not include the block. My guess would be that the buildings were not there yet.
Another good source is the city directories, which, beginning in 1917, listed each house and who owned it. They are available on the Kansas City Public Library website through Ancestry.com. It can be tricky to find an address if you don’t have a name; you basically have to search until you find the listing of streets by name and then you can find out who lived at that address.
If you are still looking for information, I might have some other stuff. Let me know and I will look.
Thanks,
I am the widow of Frederick J. Collins who.was the grandson of George Schaefer.
I have a photo of the employees of The Campbell Baking Company in Dallas, Texas taken April 18, 1928. I inherited the picture from My dad. My grandfather was an employee and in the picture.
I have attempted to research the baking company to see where it was located in Dallas, and the history of the bakery.
Was this bakery a part of your Campbell Baking Company?