Long ago on independence square (Warrensburg, Jackson: dorm, shuttle, resorts)

[Mad Anthonie]

Originally Posted by MRG Dallas

Just got off the phone with the owner and she confirms there was the porch and the street facing dormers. She couldn't say much about whether there was much of an addition, nor did she mention when or why the porch was razed.

Nevertheless, I think we have our answer. She did say the Masonic Lodge was built in about 1950 (and is still there) and that would explain what appears to be the vacant lot to the south. She also said the house further south was pre-Civil War.

Great work! Did you also invite her to drop by this forum?

[WCHS'59]

This is a painting of the courthouse on Independence Square in the really old days. This would appear to be Main Street, unless someone can say differently.

[MRG Dallas]

Originally Posted by Mad Anthonie

Great work! Did you also invite her to drop by this forum?

I mentioned the site and threads and will send a link as well as the old postcard image. She said she had alot of postcards of the place.

[WCHS'59]

This is an LDS church formerly on the southwest corner of Pleasant and Walnut, at 302 S Pleasant, just down the block from our Pleasant Street house at 116/118 s and just up the street from the Swope mansion.

According to 1916 Sanborn, that brick structure in the rear is a printing plant of some type. I also see a brick building to the south of this church, and cannot recall what it might have been. The 1916 Sanborn shows a wood frame structure.

[WCHS'59]

I have mentioned this before but for some reason it slays me. A Chinese laundry in Independence. In a brick building, no less. I think this is 1892 on the east side of Liberty down from Maple .

The intersection to the right is Liberty and Maple. The future bank of Independence is on the lower corner with its unique entryway.

In the future, the rear of the Earle Hotel, and others, would occupy the laundry site and that complete side of Liberty from from Maple to the alley.

By the way, Warrensburg in the sixties on McGuire Street had what they called a Chinese Self Serve Laundromat, with the name Helpee Selfee.

[Mad Anthonie]

Originally Posted by WCHS'59

This is an LDS church formerly on the southwest corner of Pleasant and Walnut, at 302 S Pleasant, just down the block from our Pleasant Street house at 116/118 s and just up the street from the Swope mansion.

According to 1916 Sanborn, that brick structure in the rear is a printing plant of some type. I also see a brick building to the south of this church, and cannot recall what it might have been. The 1916 Sanborn shows a wood frame structure.

I don't recall if it was the westward or southward building, but I do recall that one of the extra buildings there was used as for temporary housing for some of their young missionaries. That would have been in the mid-to-late 1970s.

Originally Posted by WCHS'59

This is a painting of the courthouse on Independence Square in the really old days. This would appear to be Main Street, unless someone can say differently.

I concur, agree, and even think you are correct!

[Mad Anthonie]

Originally Posted by MRG Dallas

I mentioned the site and threads and will send a link as well as the old postcard image. She said she had alot of postcards of the place.

I hope she joins us and shares them, along with any knowledge or recollection of the olden days filed in her gray matter.

[WCHS'59]

Here is the Kansas City Southern train depot at Osage and Maple. The building was brick and had a wood frame covered walkway to the train or trains. Further north is a brick freight depot. The train may have backed in.

The passenger station site on this corner would later become a Montgomery Wards catalog office and the Jackson County Public Library, now known as Mid Continent Public Library. (and Cochran Music)

Across the street on the corner of Maple and Osage would later be a Western Auto Store.

Note the telephone company is a bit further west on Maple.

As a kid, I frequented the Jackson County Library but I never had a clue nor ever heard it was on the site of a train station.

Just a bit further east a few doors on Maple was the terminus station for the Independence & Missouri River RR, that came in from Wayne City Landing on the Missouri River. This RR was entirely horse powered and did not last very long because Wayne City Landing was lost to a changing river current.

[WCHS'59]

Here is the MoPac train station at Liberty and Short, in the general area where The Examiner is today located. This station was in existence at the same time as the KCS station at Maple and Osage.

This station is on the tracks coming in across Noland and Walnut from the east. At one time that line extended east to the rock mining off Truman Road and then further east to the general area of Lake City and hooked into a main line, which went on to Lexington, Mo.

At one time in recent years the line furnished coal to the Independence Power and Light plant at Truman and Mo-78.

Oddly enough, a passenger station at the site of the MoPac/Amtrak Station was also used by MoPac. This means MoPac had two passenger stations in Independence. Talk about aiming to please with service.

[WCHS'59]

This is an 1885 version of the MoPac/Amtrak station predecessor at Grand and Pacific. The line disappearing in the uppermost portion of the photo goes to a turntable, a huge rotating device that would turn locomotives around within a 100 foot or so radius.

This particular station is wood. When the rr decided years later to go with brick they initially decided to locate the station further west at Lexington where the tracks go under that street. The station waiting area would have been up on Lexington but train boarding would have been under the bridge at track level. The theory was then that the city was growing down Lexington and it was.

There were still a lot of businesses in that area when I was a child.