The block of Midtown that is today’s focus has always been a mystery to one of our readers. “On the NW corner of 35th Terrace and Genessee is a nice, solid red brick four-unit apartment building,” Diane Capps wrote. “Near the top, on the front of the building is a limestone slab that is engraved with W.P. CHERRY BLOCK. I’ve always wondered about that!”
It is a short block with only a handful of buildings, lying between State Line Road and Roanoke Park. In addition to the red apartment building, the block holds a row of four bungalows on Genessee and a single small home facing Bell Street.
As part of our Uncovering History Project, the Midtown KC Post is examining each block in Midtown. A set of 1940 tax assessment photos is available for many blocks.
This week, we tackled the block between Genessee and Bell and between 35th Street and 35th Terrace (previously known as Christine Street).
Who Was W.P. Cherry and Why Was this his Block?
A 1907 Tuttle & Pike map shows the undeveloped block. To the south and east, new subdivisions were being laid out around Roanoke Park, which the city began acquiring in 1901. This block and the one to the west of it were as yet unsubdivided and were owned by W.P. Cherry.
The best evidence for why the apartment bore the name W.P. Cherry lies in the block’s ownership records. Sometime before 1907, a prominent businessman named William Prather Cherry came to own the entire block and the one just to the west.
Cherry, who lived from 1854 to 1921, came to Kansas City from Carthage, Illinois, with his wife, the former Emma Grigsby. Associated first with the Lombard Investment Company, W.P. became the owner of the Foster-Cherry Live Stock Commission, selling cattle and hogs in Kansas City’s booming stockyards. Cherry later formed a new company called Cherry-Tilden Live Stock in 1903, when the Kansas City Star called both Tilden and Cherry “men of means, ability, and influence.” When Cherry died, he was secretary of the Pioneer Trust Company.
There are no records showing the Cherry family, which included Emma and two daughters, ever living at the 35th and Genessee location. They appear to have lived at 29th and Prospect in 1907 and on Benton in 1910. Cherry and his wife, however, were active in real estate, buying and selling a number of properties in Kansas City between the mid-1850s and 1895.
This 1909-1950 Sanborn map shows the block after the apartments and small homes had been built.
Newspapers of the day give us little insight into the people who moved into W.P. Cherry’s block after it was developed. However, there is one tidbit of history: at 3504 Genessee in 1930, 27 different breeds of pigeon—both “fancies and utilities”—were for sale. The photos below show the other homes on the block as they looked in 1940.
Historic photos courtesy Kansas City Public Library/Missouri Valley Special Collections.
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