Corner Drugstore at 39th and Genessee Served the Neighborhood

Small corner stores with living quarters above are a feature of many neighborhood corners in Midtown, including the southeast corner of 39th and Bell in the Volker neighborhood. This corner shop housed several different drugstores in the early 20th century and has also been used as a neighborhood tavern. These businesses have shared the block between […]

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On Southmoreland’s Oak Street, Grocers, Railroadmen, and Salesmen Raised their Families

A well-known spiritualist, a pioneering druggist, and a grocer were among the early residents of the 4100 block of Oak Street in the Southmoreland neighborhood. Records indicate the home at 4120 Oak was for rent as early as 1894 by the Whipple Loan and Trust Company. By the 1900 census, grocer William Crute and his

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Middle-class Families Settled in Southmoreland on Hyde Park Avenue (McGee Street)

Railroad engineers, carpenters, and schoolteachers made up the middle-class neighborhood along the east side of the 4100 block of McGee in the early 1900s. Most of the block’s families had been born in the United States, although a handful had recently come from Ireland, Sweden, or Germany. Children attended the nearby Rollins school. One house

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Valentine’s Waverly Way Has Disappeared

Waverly Way – once a street lined with residences and apartment buildings in a thriving Midtown – has now disappeared. Even its name is gone. The street is now called W. 34th Terrace, sandwiched in between the vacant MGE Building at 34th and Broadway and the Metropolitan Community College Health Sciences Institute just to the south.

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Why Was There a Huge Steel Tank at 33rd and Harrison in the 1920s?

By Mary Jo Draper I recently stumbled upon a vintage postcard that showed a huge metal structure called “the tank” at 3310 Harrison. A little research turned up a fascinating story about the tank and the reaction of the neighbors in the North Hyde Park neighborhood when it was in place in the 1920s. The

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A Block Dominated by Churches in Old Westport

A recent historical survey of Westport suggested that the Our Lady of Good Counsel Church on this block of the Valentine neighborhood might be a candidate for the historic register. The church and the rest of the block help tell the story of how churches followed their congregations as residential development moved from downtown to the

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Do You Know the History of the Center City Neighborhood?

originally published April 6, 2015 In the early 1900s, developers such as the Cowherd Brothers were building “modern” middle-class homes across what is now Midtown. One area where development was occurring was today’s Center City neighborhood, from 31st to Armour Boulevard and Troost to the Paseo. Center City’s strategic location made it attractive to people looking

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A Glimpse of a Racially-Mixed Block of Westport in Early 1900s

It was unusual for black and white families to live on the same block as Midtown Kansas City developed, but that’s just what happened on a few Plaza Westport neighborhood blocks. For example, the block from W. 43rd to W. 43rd Street Terrace (or Steptoe Street) had almost two dozen homes in 1940; about half

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Westwood Park Homes Offered Fireplaces, Garages, and Rec Rooms

Many of the homes on this Westwood Park block, between Liberty and Terrace from W. 48th to W. 49th, were new in the early 1930s. They offered all the comforts many Midtown families sought, including newspaper ads to rent or sell modest bungalows that boasted fireplaces, garages, and recreation rooms. Today, the block bounded by

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