Midtown has more than two dozen unique neighborhoods and several commercial and cultural districts. No two are alike. They are all interesting.
The history of Midtown Kansas City is full of tales of fortunes made and lost in real estate, but the Plaza Westport neighborhood’s past tells a different kind of story. A real estate developer and builder there, Will Corbin, is remembered for finding a way to help working-class people in Kansas City afford the modern […]
Builder Helped Working People Buy Homes Read More »
Near the site where a Whole Foods store now stands at 51st and Oak Streets, a Kansas City grain executive named Edwin Shields once lived with his wife in a celebrated house known as Oaklawn. Shields occupied a large tract of land along with neighbor Herbert Hall that, by the time this map was made
Grain magnate Predicted Future of 51st and Oak Read More »
When you turn west on 39th Street from Southwest Trafficway these days, you pass a small shopping center and commercial buildings on your right as you drive toward State Line Road. One hundred years ago, that stretch of 39th Street from Summit to Roanoke looked much different. It had recently been developed as the Hamilton Hill
Homes Once Lined 39th Street West of Trafficway Read More »
In the early 1900s, the residents of a rapidly expanding Midtown worked at various jobs: they were salesmen, teachers, real estate developers, packing house employees, bookkeepers, and business owners. However, on one block, 47th to 48th between Charlotte and Campbell, one type of work predominated – local streetcar jobs. “Street railway” workers made up the majority
A 1920s Block Filled with Streetcar Workers Read More »
Like the rest of the J.C. Nichols-developed subdivision, this block of the Crestwood neighborhood (E. 54th to E. 55th from Cherry to Holmes) attracted middle- and upper-middle-class residents after development began in 1919. According to the National Register of Historic Places nomination, the homes reflect various historically based revival styles popular in America after World
Middle, Upper Class Families Were First Residents of Crestwood Block Read More »
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. At the beginning of the 20th century, small homes populated by working-class families lined the west side of Summit Street. Later, as
Plaza’s Nordstrom Block Has Seen Changes Before Read More »
Some blocks of Midtown Kansas City offer more insights into history than others. That is true of the block from 50th to 51st between Main and Walnut Streets. Two weeks ago, we offered the story of one house where prohibition agents discovered “one of the finest equipped distilleries ever found in Kansas City.” This week,
Family Once Owned This South Plaza Block Read More »
One of the greatest troves of Midtown history comes from the crime logs, which hold fascinating newspaper accounts of car wrecks, runaway wives, domestic robberies, suicides, murders, and other events. They sometimes offer the best window into a past that was not intentionally preserved. That is true of the South Plaza block from 51st Street
Prohibition Raid Found ‘One of Finest Distilleries’ in South Plaza Read More »
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
Black, White families, Shared Westport Block in Early 1900s Read More »
As well-to-do Kansas Citians moved south in the 1920s, several settled on a newly-developed block of the Rockhill neighborhood, from roughly Rockhill Terrace south to 45th Street. One of these new families, Alfred and Grace Schauffler, moved in around 1928, joining their well-off neighbors as commercial and civic leaders. All of the Rockhill neighborhood originally
How One Family Came to this Rockhill Block Read More »