Kansas City History
What’s the Oldest House in the Kansas City Area?
Retired teacher Del Candler can trace her ancestors’ arrival in Jackson County to the 1840s, and wondered what structures remain from that period and Kansas City’s origins. She asked curiousKC, “What is the oldest house still standing in the Kansas City area?” With help from the Missouri Valley Room at the Kansas City Public Library…
An Exchange of a Lifetime
By Debbie Coleman-Topi Amid the riots unleashed following the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., a spark of hope quietly ignited in the center of the country. That flicker was right here, in Kansas City, where Catholic leaders launched an experiment that confronted race head-on by bringing black and white students literally face to…
A Trip Back to a Childhood Spent in Westport Orphanage
By Tess Vrbin Joe Bessenbacher’s most vivid childhood memories include “a white triangular bonnet.” This piece of headgear is part of the habit that the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent De Paul wore. The order of nuns ran the Kansas City Orphan Boys’ Home, where Bessenbacher spent nine years of his childhood. Over time,…
Whatever Happened to Smaks?
The elephant on Johnson Drive stopped traffic. “My dad [Bill Fielder] had met a zookeeper and he asked him to bring over an elephant for the opening of Smaks,” Wes Fielder said. “You’d watch the cars out front and people would slam on their brakes to try to figure out what was going on.” The…
The Prudhomme Farm
Today their names grace our highways, city districts and restaurants. But before Chouteau was a trafficway, it was the name of an immigrant couple who used their honeymoon to discover new land. Before McCoy’s was a good place to get a beer, it was a family of missionaries whose son would use his business savvy…