Do you know the history of this Southmoreland neighborhood block?

Warwick Boulevard 1894. Looking north from 41st Street. Courtesy Kansas City Public Library, Missouri Valley Special Collections.

Warwick Boulevard 1894. Looking north from 41st Street. Courtesy Kansas City Public Library, Missouri Valley Special Collections.

Last week, our Uncovering History story featured a block of the Southmoreland neighborhood around 43rd and Main. That prompted a question from a reader asking what history might be available on the 4100 block of Warwick. More about that shortly, but first the story of a neighborhood disagreement that landed residents of the block in court in 1908.

An undated photo of the block showing the street trees that many said were among the finest in Kansas City. Courtesy Kansas City Public Library, Missouri Valley Special Collections.

An undated photo of the block showing the street trees that many said were among the finest in Kansas City. Courtesy Kansas City Public Library, Missouri Valley Special Collections.

A neighborly dispute, 1908 style

It seems that the Otto L. Pfahler family of 4115 Warwick had a cow named Bridget, who produced milk for the family. That cow, a reporter said, was the family’s pride and joy. However, in Bridget’s declining years, the neighbors filed a lawsuit against Pfahler calling the cow a nuisance.

“This cow has been staked out in a vacant lot opposite my home morning and evening since May 19,” Battle McCardle, a neighbor, told the court. ”She makes life wreched by her constant bawling. Recently she bawled a whole night long. Her noise is worse than a locomotive. Sometimes the noise is so great Mrs. McCardle can’t keep up conversations with guests.”

“I can corroborate Mr. McCardle‘s statement,” another neighbor, W.L. Wilson, said. “Why, that cow has a regular buffalo ‘hollar;’ I would know her voice in a thousand.

“I have often wished the streetcars would keep up one continuous scream so I couldn’t hear her,” Mrs. McCardle added.

Then, the Star reported, Bridget’s friends had their turn and declared her a model cow. F.J. Bannister of 4112 Warwick and Charles P. Munday of 4143 Warwick said they hardly knew she was in the neighborhood, she was so quiet.

McCardle countered that Munday himself owned a cow, and alleged all the cow owners were sticking together.

The judge dismissed the case – according to the reporter – “curtly.”

What more there is to know about the 4100 block of Warwick

The 1907 Tuttle and Pike plat map of the block.

The 1907 Tuttle and Pike plat map of the block.

Just north of this block,  the L.A. Goodman home and orchards were well-known landmarks around the early 1900s. As the map to the right shows, Goodman’s property, surrounded by fruit orchards, dominated the area. In 1899, the Kansas City Journal rhapsodized about a party for 300 guests held on the property. “No lovelier spot could be found for an outdoor gathering than the fine grounds surrounding the Goodman residence at Fortieth and Warwick. In addition to the variety of flowers that are at home on the lawn, great jars of hollyhocks, daisies and other sweet old-fashioned posies stood on the verandas and in otherwise unoccupied nooks. A large canopy was garlanded with asparagus and evergreen, even the indispensible stay ropes becoming things of beauty, and under it the table was placed, bearing in its center a mound of sweet peas and roses, and serving as a depository of delicious refreshments. An orchestra played throughout the evening.”

Just south of the Goodman property at the northwest corner of 41st and Warwick, L.B. Price, founder Price Mercentile Company, built a large home in 1899.

Other early residents of this block included: E.C. Benedict, president of the Benedict Paper Company, at 4115 (before the Pfahlers); William Davis Foster, a doctor affiliated with the Kansas City Homeopathic Institute, at 4125; Alexander Rieger, a banker, at 4141; C.P. Munday (and presumably his cow) at 4145; Edward Wilder, Kansas City architect and co-founder of the firm Wilder and Wight which later became Wight & Wight, and later Hale Cook, attorney and former president of the Kansa City board of education at 4144; and Preston Dillenbeck, director of Kansas City School of Oratory, at 4108.

But we’d like to hear what you remember of this block. We’ll share your history and help to preserve it on our website.

Would you like us to focus on your block next week? Send us an email.

Pre-order our new book, Kansas City’s Historic Midtown Neighborhoods, now. Publication date is March 16. Let us know if you want us to come to your neighborhood association or organization’s meeting to share what we’ve learned about Midtown neighborhood history and tell your members how they can help preserve Midtown history. Order the book 

2 Comments

  1. Aimie Vormittag says:

    This is SO ineresting to read!! I currently live on this block at 4155 Warwick, and I have not heard any cows bellowing lately, so I’m glad! I would love to know who lived at 4155, and what year our home was built. Do you know the years this block’s homes would have been built? We purchased the home in 2010 and it is split up into 4 separate apartments, (we live in one and rent out the others) and I had been told it was built in 1910, but it seems it could have been earlier than that, if building was already being done here in 1899, with L.B. Price building on 41st/Warwick. I love our home and would LOVE to know more about its origin and past owners, I greatly enjoy the wonderful history of all these homes in Southmoreland, and the rest of KC. Thank you for all your amazing research!
    Aimie

  2. Aimie Vormittag says:

    Also, if the cow situation happened in 1908, it seems 4155 Warwick could have been built before 1910, as I have been told it was. Thank you again!
    Aimie

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