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.
We’ve already featured the north side of West 39th Street between State Line and Bell, but a reader whose grandfather used to own some buildings there asked us what we knew about the south side of the block, where Jimmy’s Jigger sits today.
Records were sketchy before the 1950s, but the establishment was called Bigger Jigger 2 before it was Jimmy’s Jigger. The Accurso family owned several “Bigger Jiggers” across the city. Anthony Accurso sold this one to O. Jimmy Bowers in 1962. In 1959, the newspaper advertisement on the right shows music and dancing.
The earliest records of the block come from 1913 when 1819 West 39th housed the A. Morrison Jr. Farm Company is a Midtown dairy business supplying milk to nearby residents. In the 1920s, newspaper accounts listed 1819 West 39th as the Ever Ready Garage, where people who lived nearby stored their cars. It was damaged by fire in 1920. Later, in the 1940s tax photos, this building was the home of the Superior Meat and Sausage Company. That company, founded by 1926, later changed its name to Fritz’s Meat and Superior Sausage and moved in 1969.
At 1807 West 39th was a building that, at least for a while, served as a pool hall. On the corner of 30th and Bell in 1940, the photo is identified as J.A. Peterson, one of a chain of variety stores in Kansas City.
Photos courtesy Kansas City Public Library, Missouri Valley Special Collections.
The block in 1940.
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