January 2017

Current Home Depot Site Was Once Warner Plaza “Apartment City”

An “apartment city” that once stood where Home Depot is located today was billed as “an innovative approach to multi-use residential development.” Built in 1926, the Warner Plaza development included two seven-story buildings on Main Street near Thirty-third Street and a roadway also called Warner Plaza with a long row of apartment buildings on either […]

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Small Bungalows Lined Belleview, Jarboe in 1940

The West Plaza neighborhood is one of Midtown’s historic areas where working-class families owned and rented homes in these photos. This block of Belleview and Jarboe between 45th and 46th is a great example. Residents in these 1940s photos included streetcar and meatpacking workers, a movie theater projectionist, and the owner of a watch repair business.

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Black, White Families, Church, Businesses shared Westport block in Early 1900s

On one block of Westport around 1900, black families lived next to white families, and a church founded by a former slave and his brother stood just down the block from a grocery store in one of the oldest buildings in Kansas City. The block of Westport from Pennsylvania to Mill between 40th and Westport Road has seen

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On Westport Block, Frontier History Meets 20th Century

As one of the oldest parts of Kansas City, the block of Westport from Pennsylvania to Mill between 40th and Westport Road has seen several distinct stages of development. The area first came to life in the mid-1800s, when historic churches, courtrooms, wagon-making, and grocery shops mingled with small frame homes. Despite efforts to preserve

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