John Simonson - Paris of the Plains

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2010 by John Simonson

All rights reserved

Cover photos courtesy of Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City,
Missouri. Map courtesy of author.

First published 2010
e-book edition 2012

ISBN 978.1.61423.276.6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Simonson, John.

Paris of the Plains : Kansas City from doughboys to expressways / John Simonson.

p. cm.

Many of these stories were first published at parisoftheplains.com or at kcfreepress.com--Preface.

print edition ISBN 978-1-60949-062-1

1. Kansas City (Mo.)--History--20th century. 2. Kansas City (Mo.)--Biography--Anecdotes.

3. Kansas City (Mo.)--Description and travel. I. Title.

F474.K257S56 2010

977.8411--dc22

2010035935

Notice:The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

For Kansas Citians: past, present and future.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

Its been said that journalism is the rough draft of history. Of course, some drafts are rougher than others. Journalists are professional truth tellers, but truth can be subject to differing points of view.

That said, the stories in this book are based on stories first told by journalists of their time, primarily by those working for the daily Kansas City Journal and Post, the daily Kansas City Star and Times and the weekly Kansas City Call, but also by those at national wire services, magazines and newspapers in cities and towns all over America. In most cases, Ive had the benefit of using additional archival sources to further inform the stories.

Except where I clearly signal my own imaginings, all dialogue comes from the news stories, either witnessed by reporters or confirmed for them by people present when it was spoken, and any thoughts attributed to people come from the reporters accounts. In all cases, accuracy has been my primary goal.

Many of these stories were first published at http://parisoftheplains.com or at http://kcfreepress.com.

ACKNOWLEDGEMEMTS

Many thanks go to the Kansas City, Missouri, Public Library, where the staffs of the Missouri Valley Special Collections and the Reference Desk have been enormously helpful.

I am grateful to Rebecca McClanahan for her mentoring and encouragement.

And special thanks go to my family, particularly to Susan, Eliza and Blossom.

INTRODUCTION

Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting!
Walt Whitman, Sun-Down Poem, 1856

A time traveler from the twenty-first century, Im standing on the observation deck of the Liberty Memorial, looking north across the monuments newly mown lawn toward the skyline of Kansas City, Missouri, circa 1950. It is summertime and, according to the clock on the Kansas City Southern Lines billboard, 10:49 in the morning.

I see some familiar landmarks: Union Station, for instance, and the Power and Light Building, city hall, Municipal Auditorium and the dome of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. And I see things that are missing from the twenty-first century: train sheds behind the station, the Jones Department Store, the hotels Continental and Kansas Citian, whole blocks of buildings and sidewalks and trees not yet obliterated by freeways.

Here, the H.D. Lee Company still has its headquarters in the nine-story brick building behind Union Station, and members of my mothers family still work there. From the Lee building, its a short walk in either direction to the former T.J. Pendergast Wholesale Liquor Company or to the second-floor office that belonged to Pendergast.

In 1950, Boss Tom has been dead five years.

Paris of the Plainssome could say thats pretty highfalutin for a rough-cut cattle town. Or they could point out a fudge on both ends: Kansas City is neither French nor on the Great Plains, which begin a hundred miles west.

The view from Liberty Memorial, circa 1950. Courtesy of Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, Missouri.

Years ago, journalists compared Kansas City to Paris because of a sin-soaked nightlife. It was during the citys jazz heyday, usually defined as the period between the wars, the Pendergast era of corruption and vice that ended after the Democratic political boss was convicted of income-tax evasion. Toms town became respectable. Some say, lifeless.

But while Paris of the Plains is a nickname of vague historical origin, from where Im standing this morning in 1950, its more than the sum of its parts. It feels as if it has transcended Boss Tom. The name sings, and the song is aboutlets sayje ne sais quoi.

I see clues in the signage visible on the skyline. People here drink Falstaff and Country Club (Kansas Citys Largest Selling Beer), but they also play Steinway pianos. They are high tech with their Admiral television sets, but they still travel by train with fantasies of the Old South (Southern Belle to New Orleans). Its a real city; its a state of mind.

And because Im a time traveler, I can see over the horizons of this city/ state, bracketed by old city limitsthe Missouri and Blue Rivers, Eighty-fifth Street and State Line Roadand by events symbolic of beginning and end: the birth of its great monument to a war to end all wars and the death of its street railway. It spans sixty square miles and almost forty years, a period of growth from just more than 300,000 citizens to just under half a million. Its an era when the promotional tagline changes from one of the most American citiesits boosters mean native-bornto the embodiment of aggressive Americanismas distinguished from Soviet communism.

And I can see beyond the muddy rivers, the sooty train sheds and the stinking stockyards. The perfumed ladies of this place shop at Harzfelds Parisian. A fine hotel serves a one-dollar Parisian Surprise Luncheon. Parisian girls dance in the dreams of soldiers returning home from the war. Heres a vaudeville theater resembling the Paris Opera House; a war memorial inspired by the great Parisian monuments; and a thousand-foot-tall television antenna known as the Eye-full Tower.

Its the town my family showed me as a young boya town of railroads, smokestacks and screened porches; cows and hogs; elm-canopied streets; and women in straw hats and old men in suspenders. Its got a zoo, a ballpark, an art museum, a fleet of cream-and-black streetcars and restaurants serving tomato aspic and gooseberry pie. It smells of lilacs and just-baked bread and something foul drifting in from the stockyards. Cicadas provide the soundtrack, accompanied by radio baseball and the clip-clip-clip of a lawn sprinkler.

Its also the town my straight-laced ancestors tried to ignorethe one Tom Pendergast helped createa place of need and greed, anguish and demonic joy. Its a black and white placethat is, a place for whites there and, over here, a place for blacks. Its also a blues place, and the soundtrack might include gunshots, blue notes from a saxophone or the distant whistle of a night train.