70 years ago, downtown KCK was a shopping, entertainment hub. How has it changed?
Editor’s Note: Past|Present is a new video series from The Star that travels through time to show how scenes Kansas City depicted in vintage postcards look today. Have a postcard you’d like to share with our team? Tell us about it here.
Years ago, the “other” Kansas City — the one in Kansas — had its own busy downtown. Though less grand than its Missouri cousin, a stretch of Minnesota Avenue west of 7th Street was lined for decades with shops, banks, theaters and eateries.
The addition of the towering Town House Hotel came in 1951, which attracted celebrities performing in the area like country singer Patsy Cline. She stayed there the night after her concert at Memorial Hall. Sadly, it was her last one. Cline died in a plane crash on the way back to Nashville
A view of the same scene in 2023 shows some storefronts and the tall tower still standing in the background — it’s now a home for seniors.
Looking for more Kansas City history?
- An amazing war story from WWII shows the difference a local company can make
- A tale of two Ed and Ben Asner, a pair of brothers from Wyandotte County
- Here’s how Johnson County got its name
- The Underground Railroad ran through this KCK town
- There’s a lot of KC below the surface to explore