Long ago on independence square (Kansas City, St. Joseph: movies, schools, living)

[WCHS'59]

Grim Reaper, you and me both.


I was working evenings through my high school driving years and I suspect that was where I was at on Halloween nights.


For three years, my junior high school bus passed by that mansion every school day morning and afternoon. Every so often some of the kids would be saying that murders that went on there. My reaction was “yeah, right.” Later, I learned that really happened in 1909 but no one seemed to know what actually occurred.


It was not until the book “Deaths on Pleasant Street” came out in 2009 that I knew the entire story. As the author was describing the inside I was wishing I had gone in there before the 1960 razing and could have better visualized his descriptions.


The Community of Christ Church (then Reorganized Church of Latter Days Saints) bought the house at some point and sponsored the Halloween night haunted house. However, I think they stopped doing that shortly before the house was torn down because it was not safe for kids or anyone else.


I understand there is a DVD available with a reenactment of the doctor’s trial.

[WCHS'59]

I mentioned the Independence 1950s movie theaters in a previous post. Adding to that:

Besides the Electric (seating 500), Plaza (500), Granada (600), Englewood (670), and Maywood (unk) theaters, Independence also had the Byam (unk) Theater. It was located on Independence Avenue at Huttig Street in Fairmount and was independently owned rather than being part of Associated Theaters or Associated Enterprises. Seating capacity numbers is from Cinema Treasures.

There was also the Highway Forty Drive In at Highway 40 and Noland Road which had a 750 car capacity per Drive-ins.com. This may have been the first drive in that was built in the Kansas City area. Construction date was in 1942 and the location had to have been totally country at that time. However, Noland Road was US Highway 71 Bypass at the time and this would have been a major intersection even then. Unlike later drive ins that had a big screen supported by a bare steel structure, the Highway forty screen was embedded in a tall and narrow concrete structure.

From the highway, one could see a door in the side of the concrete building. When I was first told it was a movie theater where you watched from your car, I saw many cars entering the premises. I could not figure out how they could get all those cars inside that door. It was several years before we actually patronized the theater and then I saw what was going on.

When the theater went wide screen, the new screen was attached externally to the concrete structure. The theater went out sometime in the eighties and there is now a shopping area there. In its last years it showed adult fare that was really adult.

The drive in was considered as in Independence for many years but when Kansas City annexed the area a number of years ago, it became a business with a Kansas City address.

The Plaza Theater on Lexington across from the courthouse was the place to be every Saturday afternoon in the early fifties at fourteen cents per admission, a western double feature, and a chapter of a 15-part serial was the standard fare. Problem was we could not go every Saturday and would miss chapters of the serial. The Plaza sweetshop was right next door.

[WCHS'59]

For those who are interested in such things, there is what may be the world’s only hair museum located on south Noland Road. Admission is $5.

[WCHS'59]

Winstead’s Restaurant was on the 200 block of south Main. For some reason, I never did go in that place. Next to Winstead’s and fronting on Walnut Street was a stone and brick building that had all kinds of historical artifacts inside.

A man by the name of Raymond Blake built the building in 1940 but it was so overloaded with un-cataloged things it was not open for viewing. The man may very well have been eccentric but he always said he wanted to open someday.

He called the place the Tru-Bla-Ind Museum. That name stood for Truman-Blake-Independence.

I understand he died and the contents taken somewhere and sold at auction. A book store is in that building now. That book store sells all kinds of books related to the history of Independence. I purchased “The Battle of Independence” from there online.

The building has old rifles stuck in the concrete on the upper corners of the building. Those old rusty rifles are still there along with a wagon wheel or two.

BKeyart.com says that things like old millstones from grinding mills, Civil War rifles and sabers, Indian artifacts, corn grinders, ice skates, elephant vertebra, petrified wood, and other fossils were mortared into the building.

I have often wondered if those rifles or anything else exposed to the elements would have been otherwise valuable.

[WCHS'59]

Those who attended the old William Chrisman High School on Maple Street might be surprised to learn that a new hotel is across the street on the corner of Maple and Delaware--just half a block from the Harry S Truman house.


I dont know how long the 30-room hotel has been there but its discovery was new to me. The place advertises “a hidden treasure located in the heart of the historic district of Independence, MO.”


I was mildly shocked that a hotel was allowed to locate in this residential area.

[Mad Anthonie]

Wow WCHS 59, you are adding stuff faster than I can read and respond! I may have a photo or two of the C & J grocery building IF it was still standing in the early 1980s. My Beloved and I took photos of the entirety of Kiger and Lee's Summit Roads just before they were widened. We took numerous shots at major intersections looking each way, and then every few blocks looking each way. They are all in slides, so when time allows I'll scan some for posting.

Besides the Queen City Feed Store what else was in that section of buildings at 23rd & Kiger?

While working at C & J did you work with the Miner boy? I think his name was Jerry.

[WCHS'59]

Mad,

At one time across Kiger on the corner was a Dairy Treat or some such. It was not Diary Queen but a rival company. It had only a gravel parking area.

Mr. Brown ran a combination grocery store and hardware/filling station. He initially sold the grocery store to C&J keeping the hardware/service station portion. Later he sold the hardware/service station to C&J and they enlarged the grocery store into the hardware and took out the fuel pumps.

Mr. Brown then went across Kiger and built a hardware and a dime store and service station on that corner displacing the ice cream place, which was not that old. The service station was run by a fellow named Stan who was Mr. Brown's son in law. I use to go in the back of his station and would select the best discarded tire he had for $1 when I needed a tire for my car. All these buildings are now gone.

In back of C&J was an auto repair place, I cannot recall the name.

There was a farm implement place, Odell Tractor, further across Lees Summit Road on the Queen City Grocery side plus later a small drive in restaurant. At that drive in I could get the biggest tub of coke I had ever seen for 35 cents. There might have been a Sinclair station right on that corner come to think of it. It is gone. On the the Queen City side was a restaurant and a couple other stores.

The farm implement place is still there. The Queen City Grocery and station and the other stores were torn out to make room for a larger grocery store set much further back. I think it was Safeway to begin with but now is Price Chopper?

Working at C&J, I do not remember a John Miner but one of the workers at C&J who later became a manager married Mary Miner. Both this manager and the Miner girl were WCHS 59 also. I knew both but I dont recall if she might have had a brother.

Hope you can post those photos.

I was not around when Kiger and Lees Summit were widened. I think I might have been in Germany at the time but I recall coming home and having a nice drive from Highway 24 to Highway 40.

Down the street on Lees Summit Road was the Blevens Davis mansion on one side and the Drumm Farm on the other. Blevens Davis was a millionaire who seldom seemed to be at home but his housekeeper would shop in C&J.

I never did learn when the C&J building was torn down.

[WCHS'59]

Sally mentioned going to work at the Jones Store on Liberty Street across from the courthouse. Jones Department Store was a locally famous operation based in Kansas City since 1895. Macys in recent years has absorbed all the stores.

When the Jones Store opened on the square in 1950 or so it was the first store in Independence to have an escalator.

A waitress at the Café Verona at 206 west Lexington Street told me that their restaurant area was once the men’s department of the Jones Store. She said the men’s department connected internally to the main department store on Liberty. Something that I do not think I recall. Perhaps Sally remembers that.

Someone mentioned in an earlier post as to whether the Blue Ridge Mall killed business on the square. I never thought of it that way but the Jones Store on the square did die out not very long after the mall opened around 1959. There was a new Jones Store in the Blue Ridge mall.

The music store on north Union also moved out to the Blue Ridge Mall. That mall was at first an outdoor mall and it was extremely cold during the winter time walking between the stores. The wind seemed to fiercely whistle between all the buildings. Management eventually covered the entire mall providing heating and cooling. It seems to me that the mall property was actually located in three cities, Independence, Raytown, and Kansas City.

I recall there was an aquarium store in the basement of the mall and at one time featured a rather large shark in a big saltwater tank.

What goes around comes around and it looks like Independence Center may have helped kill the business at the Blue Ridge Mall.

A Wal-Mart now occupies the former Blue Ridge Mall.

[WCHS'59]

The most popular milk sold in the 1950s in the grocery store where I worked at 23rd and Kiger was Adams milk from the Blue Springs Adams Dairy.

The earliest I can recall is that a half gallon waxed carton sold for 37 cents. We also carried Borden's milk but Adams outsold it by quite a bit.

Later, I went to work at a grocery store in Fairmount and they only carried Foremost milk.

Adams seemed to have been restricted to the eastern Independence area.

I can just barely recall driving by the dairy and it was out in a country area rather remote at the time. I was dismayed when I first heard the company went out of business.

The last time I drove in that area, I was totally turned around.

[sally36]

WCHS59 Thank you SO much for all your wonderful feedback. i'm sorry I've been missing. Have been traveling ! I remember Slover's--there was a Slover's Park too, huh? I went inside McCoy school when I was back there in '04. What a blast. So s m a l l inside! Great fun to look thru the door window of my 1st grade classroom . In the early'50s we ate lunch that we brouight from home in the auditorium or ran uptown like you said to get hamburgers etc. Quaint, wasn't it? We didn't miss the modern convenience of a cafeteria at all !!So you had Ms. Booth , too. She was very sweet. She was also my Sunday School teacher so that was a blessing since I was very shy. I looked for the Natatorium too. I think I found where it was but some things had changed. Of course! You sure know a lot of background info. I enjoyed reading it, and again, sorry I've been amiss, remiss, and missing!