Although many of their homes don’t survive, the turn-of-the-century residents of Armour Boulevard included many civic and business leaders of the early 1900s.
It was news in 1902 when E.H.L. Thompson took out a permit to build a home on the northeast corner of Armour and Kenwood, seen here as it had been designed. The house was to be built “in the English style” of dark brown brick with trimming of Carthage stone, with two stories and an attic.
In 1902, builder E.H.L. Thompson of the firm Pratt and Thompson planned to build a large home at 630 E. Armour. The plans announced called for a hall, big dining room, billiard room, kitchen, butler’s pantry, and servants’ dining room on the first floor, and five bedrooms and bathrooms on the second floor. The attic was to contain a ballroom and four additional bedrooms. The home is gone now, and a parking lot stands on the site.
Next door at 640 E. Armour, philanthropist, and president of the Niles & Moser Cigar Company, had another grand home, also taken down to make way for the Armour Tower Apartments around 1960. While he was known as a businessman in his day, Niles and his wife Emma are better remembered for donating land and building a mansion on East 23rd Street in 1924 to house homeless children. The organization that ran the home evolved into the Niles Home for Children.
The Rest of the Block from 34th to Armour, from Kenwood to Holmes
This block of Armour contained two large mansions that a parking lot and an apartment building had since replaced. The north end of the block was built out in large, sturdy homes after the turn of the century and has housed a variety of families for more than a century.
In the first decade of the 20th century, Armour was dominated by these large mansions owned by wealthy and well-known Kansas Citians. Beginning in the 1920s, many homes were replaced by large luxury apartments, meeting a demand for a new style of living.
However, the majority of buildings on the block were built for families in the early 1900s. In addition to Niles and Thompson, the earliest residents included Dr. John N.J. Pettijohn at 3416 Holmes. He served as chief surgeon for the St. Louis & San Francisco Railway Company.
The 1920 census for the block shows most residents owned their homes, although a few rented. Most were families with several children and often extended family members living in the homes. While families living in the fancier homes on Armour had servants, live-in help was rare in the homes at the north end of the block.
Holmes
- 3400 Holmes: Frederick Andrews owned the home, He was an investment salesman. He lived there with his wife, Carrie, daughters Catherine and LucyAllen; and step-mother Lavinia Curry.
- 3404 Holmes: Lewis G. Aines, who worked in a dairy, owned this home with his wife Martha, son Carroll, daughter Virginia, and roomers Marquerite Landrum and Sarah Wymore, both stenographers.
- 3408 Holmes: Charles Burrus owned this home where he lived with his wife Jessie, daughter Ruth and a servant named Anna Smith.
- 3412 Holmes: John F. Silver, a locomotive engineer, owned this home with his wife Mary, daughters Ruth and Mary, and sons John and William.
- 3416 Holmes: Widow Lucy Waggener owned this home, shared by daughters Winifred and Alberta and sons Charles and Denton as well as Lucy’s father Amon Vernon.
- 3420 Holmes: Ormond Kroh, an investment lender, owned this home with wife Bess and daughter Shirley.
- 3422 Holmes: Leonard J. Woodhouse, a grain commissioner, owned this home. He lived here with his wife Nora, daughters Mary, Elizabeth and Caroline, sons John and Charles, and father-in-law Howard Martin.
- 3424 Holmes: Furrier Max Kreitman owned this home with wife Gussie, daughter Ida, sons Bernie, Able and Meyer. Max was born in Russia and Gussie in Austria.
Kenwood
- 3401 Kenwood: Emily J. Kennedy, 64, rented this home with daughters Jessie, a teacher and Ida, a clerk; son John, a paint and varnish salesman; and two borders, J. Victor Chedister a teacher and William Walton, another paint and varnish salesman.
- 3405 Kenwood: Wilson S. Newberry, the manager of a rug company, lived here with his wife Florence.
- 3409 Kenwood: Fred J. WIllman and his wife Lizzie, German immigrants, owned this home and lived here lived here with their son Olga, the assistant cashier at a paint company and son George, a lithographer.
- 3411 Kenwood: Virgil McDaniel, the owner of a coal company, rented here with his wife Lillian and son Virgil.
- 3415 Kenwood: Clyde Cannefax, a stationary engineer, rented here with his wife Verna, son Warren, mother Josephine and sister Hattie Hunter, a practical nurse.
- 3419 Kenwood: Fred Witter, a cattle speculator, owned this home with his wife Bonn, daughters Anna, Georgie B. and Doris.
- 3421 Kenwood: Frances (or Francis) C. Lee, a railroad office clerk, owned this home with his wife Carrie. His cousin James C. shared their home.
- 3425 Kenwood: Naturalized Italian citizen Don Cibota, the manager of a produce company at the city market, owned this home with his wife Rose, sons Lawrence and Pete, daughters Katherine and Antoinette, and mother and father-in-law Antoinette and Pete Randazzo.
Armour
- 630 E. Armour was the home of building contractor E.H. Leo Thompson. He lived with his wife Cornelia, two sons Mason and L. Bernard, daughter Anna, a two servants, Lillie Gerkin and Katie Tuey from Ireland.
- 640 E. Armour: Frank C. Niles, a cigar wholesaler, owned this home with his wife Emma. Sharing the home were a nephew John S. Niles, and two servants, Jess and Frella McCollough.
The photos below show the rest of the homes on the block as they looked in 1940.
Several of the photos are missing.
Historic photos courtesy Kansas City Public Library/Missouri Valley Special Collections.