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, […]
Westport’s Oldest Settlers Fiddled and Danced at Little’s Hall Read More »
Valentine Road between Broadway and Southwest Trafficway has been home to Kansas City pioneers, wealthy widows, churches, and modest apartment dwellers. It may also have been home to the first plus-size clothing shop in Kansas City in 1925. The street was originally called W. 35th Street and was part of the regular Kansas City grid
Valentine Road History: Mansions, Churches – and a Plus-sized Dress Shop Read More »
Midtown Kansas City has several important corners, often where major streets and streetcar lines intersect, including the intersection of Broadway Boulevard and Valentine Road. The southwest corner is well-known now as the site of the Uptown Theater. But before the Uptown was built in the late 1920s, an important—and widely forgotten—home belonging to L.A. Allen
Long-Forgotten L.A. Allen Home Stood at Valentine and Broadway Read More »
Laborers, most of them immigrants or the children of immigrants, were the first residents to occupy the block of the Volker neighborhood between Holly and Mercier from W. 40th to W. 41st. Some worked at the stockyards, but most were employed in Kansas City’s thriving railroad industry. Reader Andrew Findlay, who lives on the block,
This Volker Block Was Home to Hard-Working Laborers Read More »
Contrary to how some folks perceive the past, Midtown families did not always stay in one place for many decades. It was more typical for people to move in and out of homes, whether rented or owned, as family members died, married, or moved to another neighborhood. This was true of the block bounded by
Families Moved In and Out of this Midtown block Read More »
Midtown households in the 1930s were predominantly made up of typical nuclear families: a working father, stay-at-home mother, and several children. But a glimpse at the 1930 makeup of the Valentine neighborhood block from Pennsylvania to Jefferson between 37th and Valentine shows other trends: a proportionally large number of households headed by widows, families that
Valentine Block Was Home of School Board President Read More »
The block of South Hyde Park, bounded by Holmes, Kenwood, 41st, and 42nd, is now mostly single-family bungalows. However, from the 1920s to the 1940s, it also held a grocery store and was home to the Meiners grocery family. Census records illustrate how the block began to fill in during the early 1900s with families
South Hyde Park Block Once Had a Grocery Store Read More »
Like most of Midtown, people moved in and out of this South Hyde Park neighborhood from the time its small homes and apartments were built in the early 1900s. Owners and their families occupied some of the small bungalows; others were rented from real estate companies. Today, the block bounded by Holmes, Gillham and 43rd
Small Bungalows, Apartments Made Up South Hyde Park Block Read More »
Before the Walnuts, among Kansas City’s most high-end apartments, were erected in 1929, a large home stood on the same site at Fifty-first and Wornall. The mansion—also known as the Walnuts —became a famous venue for entertaining well-to-do city residents until a developer saw the site’s potential as a luxury residential hotel. Today, block between
Walnuts Apartments Replaced Famous Mansion of the Same Name Read More »
A few of the homes on the block between 51st and Rockhurst from Forest to Tracy, including one where an early crusader for the blind lived, have been replaced by buildings associated with Rockhurst University. However, most of the bungalows and other single-family residences stand as they have since the early 1920s, a decade after Rockhurst was established. This
Early Advocate for the Blind Lived on this Block near Rockhurst Read More »