Midtown Millionaire’s Row at 31st and Troost

When Kansas City pioneer Webster Withers moved his family to this block in 1883, he said he’d decided to move to “the country.” He built his mansion on forty acres of ground on a spot few would recognize today – 31^st Street and Troost Avenue.

“We were tired of town life,” Withers’ wife told the Kansas City Star in 1911, “and desired to get away out on a farm.”

The family had previously lived at 9^th and Cherry.  Withers was, at one time, the collector of Internal Revenue in Kansas City. His neighbors along Troost in the late 1800s included some of the wealthiest in the city. Another block resident, L.V. Harkness, was said to be the wealthiest man who ever lived in Kansas City. His father was a partner in the Standard Oil Company with John D. Rockefeller. No wonder Kansas City residents called the block “millionaire’s row.”

The Withers built a massive home featuring mahogany woodwork and hand-carved fireplace mantels in every room.  And for a while, the area must have suited him. But in what must have seemed to Withers like too short a time, civilization surrounded him.

Another newspaper story that year called 31^st and Troost “A Town Within a City,” said, “One could live and die without forgoing any of the luxuries or necessities of life—it has neither mayor nor council and is nameless, but there is no other lack.”

“But along this row of 2-story brick buildings that has very much the appearance of a Kansas or Missouri town, crowds of persons meet and walk up and down, particularly in summer evenings, long lines of electrics, runabouts, and motor cars line up at the motion picture theaters and now a real theater that will seat eight hundred persons has opened and vaudeville performances are to be given every night,” the paper reported.

“This country village, so-called, has grown within the last few years within the two blocks bounded by Thirty-first and Thirty-third streets and Troost and Forest Avenues. It began twelve years ago when the old Troost Avenue cable car line, which stopped at Thirty-third street, made that corner a meeting center, where one or two small stores were started.”

Quickly, the new suburbs built up to the east, south, and west, and the easy access to streetcar lines convinced many “country dwellers” like Withers to sell their property to commercial interests or for the new luxury apartment buildings that were popping up to meet a housing shortage.

In all of Kansas City, 31^st and Troost seemed to be about the choicest location. A photo of the same intersection in 1940 shows how much Wither’s “countryside” had changed.