Download or read book Secret Kansas City A Guide to the Weird Wonderful and Obscure written by Anne Kniggendorf and published by Reedy Press LLC. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most visitors know all about Kansas City’s barbecue, jazz, and football success, but there are hidden gems and wild pieces of trivia around every turn in Missouri’s largest city. Is the giant Hereford bull anatomically correct? Can a seed that’s been to outer space still grow into a normal tree? And who really killed President William Henry Harrison? You’ll find answers to the questions you didn’t know you had in Secret Kansas City: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure. Learn why three completely unrelated groups have chosen Kansas City as the center of the world and the place you want to be when the world ends. Between these covers, you’ll also find castles, a horse buried in a cul-de-sac, a ghost who likes a good laugh, and the world’s longest snake. This is not a tour guide for outsiders; it’s a scavenger hunt—insiders only, please. Longtime Kansas Citian Anne Kniggendorf is at your service to bolster your love and boost your respect for this middle-of-the-map city. With her eye for the odd leading the way, you’ll have a great time discovering Kansas City.
Download or read book Kansas City Then and Now written by Darlene Isaacson and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Photographs of Kansas City landmarks, with vintage b&w photos next to new color photos. Features landmarks such as the Scout statue, Union Station, JC Nichols fountain in the Country Club Plaza, City Market, Coates House, Municipal Auditorium, Downtown's Boley Building, and much more.
Download or read book Wide Open Town written by Diane Mutti Burke and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2018-11-29 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kansas City is often seen as a mild-mannered metropolis in the heart of flyover country. But a closer look tells a different story, one with roots in the city’s complicated and colorful past. The decades between World Wars I and II were a time of intense political, social, and economic change—for Kansas City, as for the nation as a whole. In exploring this city at the literal and cultural crossroads of America, Wide-Open Town maps the myriad ways in which Kansas City reflected and helped shape the narrative of a nation undergoing an epochal transformation. During the interwar period, political boss Tom Pendergast reigned, and Kansas City was said to be “wide open.” Prohibition was rarely enforced, the mob was ascendant, and urban vice was rampant. But in a community divided by the hard lines of race and class, this “openness” also allowed many of the city’s residents to challenge conventional social boundaries—and it is this intersection and disruption of cultural norms that interests the authors of Wide-Open Town. Writing from a variety of disciplines and viewpoints, the contributors take up topics ranging from the 1928 Republican National Convention to organizing the garment industry, from the stockyards to health care, drag shows, Thomas Hart Benton, and, of course, jazz. Their essays bring to light the diverse histories of the city—among, for instance, Mexican immigrants, African Americans, the working class, and the LGBT community before the advent of “LGBT.” Wide-Open Town captures the defining moments of a society rocked by World War I, the mass migration of people of color into cities, the entrance of women into the labor force and politics, Prohibition, economic collapse, and a revolution in social mores. Revealing how these changes influenced Kansas City—and how the city responded—this volume helps us understand nothing less than how citizens of the age adapted to the rise of modern America.
Download or read book Gully Town written by G. P. Schultz and published by greg Schultz. This book was released on 1990 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In settings ranging from Kansas City's West Bottoms to Quality Hill, you'll follow the lives and fortunes of five very different men, the women they love, and the families they create, in G.P. Schultz's historic saga about the settlement and growth of one of America's great cities. You'll follow the adventures of Jack and Kevin, two spunky Irish orphans just off the boat and determined to make their fortunes in America. They arrive in Kansas City when it is a rugged town built along mountainous gullies carved in the mud along the Missouri River--thus earning it the name "Gully Town." For Kevin, early Kansas City affords the opportunity to fulfill his ambitions to be a newspaper reporter and to pursue his avid interest in women--until the captivating Mary, herself and Irish immigrant, steals his heart. Jack settles into the business community and his life takes a completely different turn as he helps create the Boss System of politics that continues to dominate the city for half a century. Red is a young man who witnesses the horror of Quantrill's famous raid on Lawrence, Kansas, in the early days of the Civil War and later participates in the Battle of Westport. Red finds the woman of his dreams in the beautiful Melissa--only to lose her when she learns of his past and flees, taking with her the secret that could save Red from a life of crime. Adam, schoolteacher, historian, state senator and newspaper columnist, chronicles the lives of his friends and the growth of Kansas City in the journal he faithfully keeps through the years. Through him, we learn about the turbulent political system that puts Jack on top--and frequently threatens his life. We experience such history making events as the great Centennial celebration in 1900, and the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904. As the next generation comes of age in a more civilized Kansas City it faces its own challenges. Michael, a product of Gully town's Little Italy, grows up in violence and becomes chief of the Kansas City underworld. Michael falls in love with the beautiful Beth, and must face the inevitability of his career in organized crime destroying the life they have built together.
Download or read book A City Divided written by Sherry Lamb Schirmer and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 2002-04-02 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A City Divided traces the development of white Kansas Citians’ perceptions of race and examines the ways in which those perceptions shaped both the physical landscape of the city and the manner in which Kansas City was policed and governed. Because of rapid changes in land use and difficulties in suppressing crime and vice in Kansas City, the control of urban spaces became an acute concern, particularly for the white middle class, before race became a problematic issue in Kansas City. As the African American population grew in size and assertiveness, whites increasingly identified blacks with those factors that most deprived a given space of its middle-class character. Consequently, African Americans came to represent the antithesis of middle-class values, and the white middle class established its identity by excluding blacks from the urban spaces it occupied. By 1930, racial discrimination rested firmly on gender and family values as well as class. Inequitable law enforcement in the ghetto increased criminal activity, both real and perceived, within the African American community. White Kansas Citians maintained this system of racial exclusion and denigration in part by “misdirection,” either by denying that exclusion existed or by claiming that segregation was necessary to prevent racial violence. Consequently, African American organizations sought to counter misdirection tactics. The most effective of these efforts followed World War II, when local black activists devised demonstration strategies that targeted misdirection specifically. At the same time, a new perception emerged among white liberals about the role of race in shaping society. Whites in the local civil rights movement acted upon the belief that integration would produce a better society by transforming human character. Successful in laying the foundation for desegregating public accommodations in Kansas City, black and white activists nonetheless failed to dismantle the systems of spatial exclusion and inequitable law enforcement or to eradicate the racial ideologies that underlay those systems. These racial perceptions continue to shape race relations in Kansas City and elsewhere. This study demystifies these perceptions by exploring their historical context. While there have been many studies of the emergence of ghettos in northern and border cities, and others of race, gender, segregation, and the origins of white ideologies, A City Divided is the first to address these topics in the context of a dynamic, urban society in the Midwest.
Download or read book Kansas City and How It Grew 1822 2011 written by James R. Shortridge and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2012-11-07 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Think of Kansas City and you'll probably think of barbecue, jazz, or the Chiefs. But for James Shortridge, this heartland city is more than the sum of its cultural beacons. In Kansas City and How It Grew, 1822-2011, a prize-winning geographer traces the historical geography of a place that has developed over 200 years from a cowtown on the bend of the Missouri River into a metropolis straddling two states. He explores the changing character of the community and its component neighborhoods, showing how the city has come to look and function the way it does—and how it has come to be perceived the way it has. Proximity to Great Plains ranches and farms encouraged early and sustained success for Kansas City meatpackers and millers, and Shortridge shows how local responses to economic realities have molded the city's urban structure. He explores the parallel processes of suburbanization and the restructuring of older areas, and tells what happens when transportation shifts from rivers to railroads, then to superhighways and international airports. He also reveals what historians have missed by tending to focus attention only on one side or the other of the state boundary. The book is a virtual who's who of KC progress: without selective law enforcement under political boss Thomas Pendergast, Kansas City would not enjoy its legacy of jazz; without the gift of Thomas Swope's namesake park, upscale residential expansion likely would have gone east instead of south; and without J. C. Nichols, Johnson County suburbs would have developed in a less spectacular manner. Its insight into important molders of the city includes nearly forgotten names such as William Dalton, Charles Morse, and Willard Winner, plus important figures from more recent years including Kay Barnes, Charles Garney, and Bonnie Poteet. With more than 50 photos and dozens of maps specially created for this book, Kansas City and How It Grew is unique in treating the entire metropolitan area instead of just one portion. With coverage ranging from ethnic neighborhoods to development strategies, it's an indispensable touchstone for those who want to try to understand Kansas City as both a city and a place.
Download or read book Tom s Town written by William M. Reddig and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 1986 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Pendergast machine rose to power riding the industrial and business boom of the 1920s, strengthened its grip during the chaos of the depression years, and grew fat and arrogant during the spending spree that followed. It fell apart in a fantastic series of crimes, including voting fraud and tax evasion, that shocked the nation and resulted in the incarceration of Tom Pendergast in a federal prison in 1939. Now available in paperback with a foreword by Charles Glaab, William M. Reddig's political and social history of Kansas City from the mid-1800s to 1945, focusing on the lives of Alderman Jim Pendergast and especially his younger sibling, Big Tom Pendergast, chronicles both the influence of the brothers on the growing metropolitan area and the national phenomenon of bossism. "The story of the Pendergasts has been told ... in many places and in many ways. It has hardly been told anywhere, however, with more fascinating detail and healthy irony than in this volume of William M. Reddig." --New York Times "Reddig has written his history of the Pendergast machine in a reportorial style which manages to combine plain city desk prose with a great deal of humor, irony, and insight. He has dwelt with obvious delight on the local characters, the factions, and feuds, and has given several brilliant personality sketches." --Saturday Review of Literature
Download or read book Storied Scandalous Kansas City written by Karla Deel and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-10-08 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Welcome to Kansas City—the best town this side of Hell. The Paris of the Plains. Home to the Wettest Block in the World. This collection celebrates a storied history of one notorious city. Meet the mobsters and victims, bootleggers, madams, political bosses and raucous entertainers who truly brought the party to the plains even during Prohibition. Witness the best parades, the wackiest costumes and the wildest scams. Kansas City’s sordid underbelly is full of surprises sure to delight and entice—the odd, macabre and delightful. ,
Download or read book Kansas City written by Andrea L. Broomfield and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-02-25 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While some cities owe their existence to lumber or oil, turpentine or steel, Kansas City owes its existence to food. From its earliest days, Kansas City was in the business of provisioning pioneers and traders headed west, and later with provisioning the nation with meat and wheat. Throughout its history, thousands of Kansas Citians have also made their living providing meals and hospitality to travelers passing through on their way elsewhere, be it by way of a steamboat, Conestoga wagon, train, automobile, or airplane. As Kansas City’s adopted son, Fred Harvey sagely noted, “Travel follows good food routes,” and Kansas City’s identity as a food city is largely based on that fact. Kansas City: A Food Biography explores in fascinating detail how a frontier town on the edge of wilderness grew into a major metropolis, one famous for not only great cuisine but for a crossroads hospitality that continues to define it. Kansas City: A Food Biography also explores how politics, race, culture, gender, immigration, and art have forged the city’s most iconic dishes, from chili and steak to fried chicken and barbecue. In lively detail, Andrea Broomfield brings the Kansas City food scene to life.
Download or read book Kansas City Noir written by Steve Paul and published by Akashic Books. This book was released on 2012-10-02 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of sinister stories set in Kansas City features contributions from such noted mystery authors as Daniel Woodrell, Nancy Pickard, and J. Malcolm Garcia.
Download or read book Early Kansas City Missouri written by Leigh Ann Little and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2013 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1821, François Chouteau set up a fur-trading outpost along the Missouri River, bringing the first settlement of Europeans to what would become Kansas City, named after the Kansa tribe of Native Americans who inhabited the area. At the center of a growing nation, the "City on the Bluff" would build and thrive as a river town, a gateway to the West, and a railroad hub, absorbing the influences of pioneers and immigrants traveling through or making it their home. Striving to become "A City Beautiful," its parks and boulevards drew attention from around the world. These are the beginnings of a town carved out of a hillside in the wilderness, transformed into an exciting metropolis that would eventually be called home by Walt Disney, Ernest Hemingway, Jesse James, and many others who left a lasting mark on history.
Download or read book Kansas City Then and Now written by and published by Kansas City Star Books. This book was released on 2003 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Photos and text of this book are about Kansas City in the 19th and 20th centuries. Scenes from the past and new photos show how these places have changed or have remained the same with little change.
Download or read book J C Nichols and the Shaping of Kansas City written by William S. Worley and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 1993-08 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reprint of the University of Missouri Press original published in 1990. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Download or read book Hidden History of Kansas written by Adrian Zink and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2017 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Series statement from publisher's website.
Download or read book A River in the City of Fountains written by Amahia K. Mallea and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2018-10-15 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Founded as a port at the confluence of two great rivers, Kansas City has the waters of the Missouri running through its bloodstream—threading expressways, delivering drinking water, carrying traffic and sewage, and emerging most visibly in the city’s celebrated fountains. Despite, or perhaps because of, the river’s ubiquity, the complex and critical nature of its presence can be hard to understand, which is precisely why Amahia Mallea’s enlightening book is so essential. Moving from the city’s center to the outer limits of the metropolitan area, A River in the City of Fountains offers a clear view of the reach and intricacies of the Missouri River’s connection to life in Kansas City. The history of this connection is one of science and industry working, sometimes at cross-purposes, to bend the river to the needs of commerce and public health. It is a story populated with heroes and villains, visionaries and robber barons, scientists and civil engineers, politicians and activists—all with schemes and plans and far-reaching ideas about what, and whose, demands the power of the Missouri should serve. And so, inevitably, it is a story of disparities: a story of, from one flood to the next, the haves staking out higher ground, leaving the have-nots to the perils of low-lying land. But what the book also shows us is a slow awakening to the ways in which all those vying for the river’s favor are inextricably connected by its course; here we see, finally, a growing awareness of the river’s essential role in the health and welfare of the whole urban environment. In the end, all citizens of Kansas City are both upstream and downstream; all are equally dependent on the health of the river. What this book helps us see is, at last, as much the city in the river as the river in the city.
Download or read book The Spiritual Roots of Kansas City written by Bill High and published by Signatry. This book was released on 2019-05-15 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One hundred years ago, Kansas Citians referred to their city as "the prophetic city." Why did this name fit the city? Use the lens of history to examine relevant topics facing the church today. Each chapter comes with discussion questions, making this book perfect for your classroom, small group, or Bible study.
Download or read book Racism in Kansas City written by G. S. Griffin and published by . This book was released on 2015-08-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: RACISM IN KANSAS CITY: A SHORT HISTORY BY G.S. GRIFFIN FOREWORD BY ALVIN BROOKS Anti-black racism still infects American society. African Americans are more likely than whites to be killed by police, to be pulled over, arrested, imprisoned, and executed. They are more likely to be turned down for a job, to be underpaid, or offered a bad home loan than equally qualified whites. Racism's effects are tragic. The killing of unarmed black men in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore, Maryland, triggered riots. A white terrorist massacred black worshipers in Charleston, South Carolina. Eight black churches were burned in the South in ten days. Kansas Citians, like so many others across the nation, wonder, "Could it happen here?" The answer lies in this study of Kansas City's darkest moments-slavery, the border war, the Civil War, bombings of black homes, lynchings, the segregation of neighborhoods and schools, the civil rights struggle, the Black Panther movement, the 1968 race riot, assassinations in the 1970s, the infamous Missouri v. Jenkins U.S. Supreme Court case, and the racial inequities that still plague Kansas City today. Threaded throughout Racism in Kansas City are stories of those who fought ardently against racist policies...and sometimes won. Racism in Kansas City, in the end, offers readers a hopeful message: with awareness comes understanding and then change.
