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A Memorial Day Look Back at the Westport Cemetery
Some of Westport’s earliest settlers were laid to rest in a small cemetery at Pennsylvania and Archibald, now part of the bustling entertainment district. Established in 1835, the last grave was added...
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Valentine mansion once housed pioneer family, children of working mothers
Once considered an important Westport “mansion of the gay nineties,” the Schaefer home stood at the corner of Pennsylvania and West 39th Street Terrace – previously known as Schaefer Street. After the...
View Article1905 Armour Boulevard apartments and workingmen’s cottages now gone
This archived story originally appeared in the Midtown KC Post July 25, 2016 1905 Armour Boulevard apartments and workingmen’s cottages now gone
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Glen Airy Place tucked away in North Hyde Park
Fewer than a dozen homes lined what was once known as Glen Airy Place in the North Hyde Park neighborhood, but the street still retains a tucked-away quality that sets it apart from other streets...
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Do you remember E. 31st between Charlotte and Campbell?
From the 1920s in to the 1940s, many folks in Midtown visited 31st Street near Charlotte to get their “alive until ordered” poultry and eggs. Several different poultry houses operated at this location,...
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Early advocate for the blind lived on this block near Rockhurst
The home of Catherine Hale, known for her work to help the blind in Kansas City, stood at the northeast corner of Forest and Rockhurst. A recent Google maps view of the block. A few of the homes the...
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Walnuts apartments replaced famous mansion of the same name
The Walnuts, three high-end residential hotel buildings, attracted the cream of Kansas City society in the 1930s. Before the three tall apartments were built, a large stone mansion, also known as the...
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Small bungalows, apartments made up South Hyde Park block
Confederate Civil War captain Richard McCarty lived in this South Hyde Park home at 4300 Holmes in 1919. The home, seen here in a 1940 photo, was owned in the 1920s by Erwin Le Roy Cottingham, a...
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South Hyde Park block once had a grocery store
In 1913, the five neighbors along this stretch of Kenwood from 41st street south made a big splash in the early summer. Mrs. C.M. Reiter began by planting pink Dorothy Perkins roses. The next year, her...
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Valentine block was home of school board president
In the 1930s in Valentine, most households were made up of single families headed by a working father, but it was not uncommon for homes to be owned by widows or for families to rent out rooms to one...
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Families moved in and out of this Midtown block
On this block of Valentine Road west of Southwest Trafficway, most families came and went quickly over the years. One family, the O’Mearas of 1209 Valentine, stayed for decades. Census records show...
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From the archives: Armour Boulevard history
Drugstore at the corner of Armour and Troost The same block today The businesses that once lined the southeast corner of Armour and Troost are mostly gone now, with the remaining ones boarded up. But...
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This Volker block was home to hard-working laborers
A couple sits on a front porch at 4012 Holly Street in 1940. The neighborhood had been home to railroad and stockyard workers as well as others during the previous three decades. Laborers, most of...
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Long-forgotten L.A. Allen home stood at Valentine and Broadway
The L.A. Allen home at the southwest corner of Valentine and Broadway as it looked in 1900. The site, now the location of the Uptown Theater, housed the large pioneer Allen family only for a short...
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Valentine Road history: mansions, churches – and a plus-sized dress shop
As Midtown was developing, there was tension along Valentine Road east of Summit between developers and those who wanted the area to remain single-family. Valentine Road between Broadway and Southwest...
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Westport’s oldest settlers fiddled and danced at Little’s Hall
If you look closely at the leaded glass on the old Broadway Hardware building on Westport Road, you can make out the name “Little’s Hall.” The location was a popular spot in the early 1900s, hosting...
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Swedish families settled and stayed for decades on this Volker block
Many Swedish immigrants and the children of Swedish immigrants were among the first residents of this Volker block. Several families stayed in their homes for decades, something that was fairly unusual...
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Plaza homes replaced by “modern” apartments as Plaza developed
While families came and went and homes were replaced with apartment buildings, the Charles McCallum family lived on this Plaza Westport block from at least the 1920s to the 1940s. McCallum was a...
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1932 arson destroyed fine old Broadway residential hotel
This early drawing of the McGee home, later the Rochambeau Hotel, is one of the few publicly-available images of the important mansion that stood at 37th and Broadway, near the site of the current...
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Corner of 39th and Pennsylvania was home to Westport pioneer family
The home of William and Susan Bernard stood near the corner of Pennsylvania and W. 39th Street in this photo from about 1920. Among the earliest homes in what is now Midtown were the those of wealthy...
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