Long ago on independence square (Kansas City, Jackson: opportunity, daughter, surprise)

[Mad Anthonie]

Originally Posted by WCHS'59

Here are three tracks that went across Noland near Walnut as part of the Lexington Branch of the Missouri Pacific RR. I vaguely recall multiple tracks at a time before Noland was widened. There is a single track today This is a 1916 view and the alley has since been vacated. Up that rail line at Lexington Street was the where Home Products Company would later locate. They produced mattresses and maybe other things. They appeared to be a rather large producer. The building is still there. Their mattresses were available in the local stores and I think in their declining years one could buy a mattress direct from the plant.

Sometime after the coal building in that drawing was gone it was replaced by a full-service gas station. My grandfather ran the station for some years, and my parents met there.

[WCHS'59]

Help me out here. There are parking meters in this photo so this must have been the Herald Bookshop that was on west Lexington at Osage.

If so, then this store must have been torn down in the fifties to make way for the Central Professional Building.

This store looks somewhat modern though, so I am not sure where it was at.

[WCHS'59]

The location of this bank was at Independence Avenue and Huttig in Fairmount.

I banked here for a while and recall they had an elderly female teller (she looked old to me anyway) who was really intimidating and a stickler for presenting things to her in proper order for deposit or withdrawal. She was really vocal and would let you know you did not dot your i's or cross your t's properly. I always wondered why they kept her working with the public back in those days when service was a number one priority with businesses.

On one occasion I went in and was trying to avoid her cage but as luck would have it, she called me over from another line. I had a roll of silver dollars that I had wrapped in a universal wrapper and the wrappers did not fit very well. She told me they had to be wrapped in a wrapper meant for silver dollars and refused to take them for deposit and she would not take them loose. This was in the day when silver dollars were still being used as currency quite frequently.

[Mad Anthonie]

Originally Posted by WCHS'59

Help me out here. There are parking meters in this photo so this must have been the Herald Bookshop that was on west Lexington at Osage.

If so, then this store must have been torn down in the fifties to make way for the Central Professional Building.

This store looks somewhat modern though, so I am not sure where it was at.

In the 70s and up through at least 1988 (as listed in my Polk's) it was at 208 W Maple. It was one of my paper route customers.

[WCHS'59]

When I would drive to downtown Kansas City in the late fifties, I recall there were a lot of coal delivery companies still doing business along either Truman Road or Independence Avenue in Kansas City. There was one big company in particular covering what seemed to be one block that might have been called Sam’s Coal. I don’t remember any coal delivery companies in Independence although there must have been a couple.

The house we lived in had a gravity fed gas furnace but it had been converted from coal prior to the time we moved in, in 1948. However, we had some relation living on south Pearl Street and they were still having coal delivered. A truck would back up to an opened basement window and place a chute through it and push the coal down the chute into the basement. The stuff was really dirty and dusty and at our house I could see the coal stained walls next to the furnace in our basement.

[Mad Anthonie]

Originally Posted by WCHS'59

When I would drive to downtown Kansas City in the late fifties, I recall there were a lot of coal delivery companies still doing business along either Truman Road or Independence Avenue in Kansas City. There was one big company in particular covering what seemed to be one block that might have been called Sam’s Coal. I don’t remember any coal delivery companies in Independence although there must have been a couple.

The house we lived in had a gravity fed gas furnace but it had been converted from coal prior to the time we moved in, in 1948. However, we had some relation living on south Pearl Street and they were still having coal delivered. A truck would back up to an opened basement window and place a chute through it and push the coal down the chute into the basement. The stuff was really dirty and dusty and at our house I could see the coal stained walls next to the furnace in our basement.

We had one of those monster furnaces at the Delaware homestead. The remnants of the coal chute existed, and the coal room was a mess. Dad paid my brother and me some pittance to dig out the dirt and coal so it could be turned into a proper basement room.

[WCHS'59]

Originally Posted by Mad Anthonie

We had one of those monster furnaces at the Delaware homestead. The remnants of the coal chute existed, and the coal room was a mess. Dad paid my brother and me some pittance to dig out the dirt and coal so it could be turned into a proper basement room.

Monster is right. I recall looking inside one day and here was this quite small gas flame thing sitting all by its lonesome in the bottom and the middle of this big cavern with all kinds of room around it.

Sears replaced our furnace in the mid fifties and it was quite small in comparison but still large. I think the new one was forced air and the blower was rather huge. Every time I look at the size of our present day furnace I have to chuckle at its size in comparison to those old machines.

Those huge coal furnaces would require someone to feed it just like a wood stove. In our case if the furnace had still been coal fed, someone would have to go outside and then down some stairs and around to the basement door and go in and shovel coal and then retrace their steps. There would be no way a person would not have gotten dirty from coal dust, etc.

[SilverDoc]

Originally Posted by WCHS'59

When I would drive to downtown Kansas City in the late fifties, I recall there were a lot of coal delivery companies still doing business along either Truman Road or Independence Avenue in Kansas City. There was one big company in particular covering what seemed to be one block that might have been called Sam’s Coal. I don’t remember any coal delivery companies in Independence although there must have been a couple.

The house we lived in had a gravity fed gas furnace but it had been converted from coal prior to the time we moved in, in 1948. However, we had some relation living on south Pearl Street and they were still having coal delivered. A truck would back up to an opened basement window and place a chute through it and push the coal down the chute into the basement. The stuff was really dirty and dusty and at our house I could see the coal stained walls next to the furnace in our basement.

Ad from 1951 Gleam

[WCHS'59]

And, Coke is so refreshing, chuckle.

[WCHS'59]

Harry G. Barto, son of Charles Nelson and Janet Elizabeth (Cook) Barto, who was born at Lamoni, Ia., Aug. 30, 1895. He is owner of the Barto Grain and Coal Co., and they live at 900 W. Waldo, Independence, Mo.

From somewhere on the internet.