Category: Commercial districts/areas
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Plaza’s Nordstrom Block Has Seen Changes Before
Change is happening on this Plaza block from 47th to 48th between Jefferson and Summit, the site of a new Nordstrom store. And it isn’t the first time the block has been transformed. Back at the beginning of the 20th century, small homes populated by working-class families lined the west side of Summit Street. Later,…
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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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In 1923, Work Began on First Block of Country Club Plaza
J.C. Nichols, certainly one of the most important residential developers in Kansas City, started developing this block of the Country Club Plaza in 1922. Nichols had been building residential neighborhoods to the south of Brush Creek since 1907, and he saw the need for an area to provide goods and services for the new residents…
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UMKC Block Includes Historic Carriage House Slated for Demolition Sept. 24
Before the establishment of what would become UMKC, the block bounded by 51st and 52nd between Rockhill and Holmes was home to one of Kansas City’s most splendid mansions. Walter Dickey, a prominent businessman, chose the site for his 25-room home on the crest of a wooded hill. The Dickey mansion, now used by UMKC as Scofield…
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Plaza homes replaced by “modern” apartments as Plaza developed
This block just north of the Plaza started out as a residential area, but as the Plaza developed over the early decades of the 1900s, several of its homes were replaced by “modern” apartments. At least one of the homes may have been moved to make way for multi-family structures, but both single-family residences and…
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Westport’s oldest settlers fiddled and danced at Little’s Hall
A careful observer of things in Midtown, Diane Capps, noticed the lettering on a window at 313 Westport Road and noticed the name “Little’s Hall” was embedded in the leaded glass. The first floor of the building is now used as an antique store, and the sign for a long-term tenant, the Broadway Hardware Company,…
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A Memorial Day Look Back at the Westport Cemetery
In the early 1800s, the graves of a riverboat gambler, a rugged Indian agent, and prominent early settlers shared space in a small plot of land now in the middle of the Westport Entertainment District. According to the Kansas City Times of May 30, 1970, “The Westport cemetery was established in 1835, when Edgar Price,…
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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 early 20th century streetscape
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…
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Do you remember this block of Westport Road from Broadway to Central?
Although Westport is best known for its role as a frontier trading outpost, few remnants of that pioneer past remain standing. The Westport we know today, including this block from Westport Road to Archibald and from Broadway to Central, was mostly built in the early years of the 20th century, with Westport Road making the…