Kansas City—Paris of the plains or cow town? This historic building is here for the cows

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Kansas Citians haven’t always enjoyed being called a “cow town.” But the Livestock Exchange Building at 1600 Genesee Street in the West Bottoms illustrates the economic impact of the stockyards on the young city’s growth.

The nine story building, just west of the state line, was completed in 1911. It contained 475 offices for firms engaged in buying and selling the cattle, sheep and hogs that occupied (at least temporarily) the stockyards’ 200 acres along the Kansas River.

That wasn’t all. The Livestock Exchange also housed a telegraph office, a bank, a post office, barber shop and numerous places to eat and drink.

Stockyards activity peaked in the 1940s, the same decade that the venerable Golden Ox Restaurant opened in the building. Later, it expanded into a small addition on the south side.

But the flood of 1951 and changes in the cattle industry started a steady decline that culminated with the closing of the stockyards in 1991.

Since then, the Livestock Exchange Building has continued to attract artists and others drawn to its large windows, spacious hallways and solid construction..

In 2017, the Golden Ox reopened with many historical touches intact, immediately next door to the new Stockyards Brewing Company.

Looking for more Kansas City history?

Why the state line was drawn the way it is through different parts of Kansas City

The West Bottoms once boasted “the wettest block in the world”

In the city’s earliest days, settlers called this area “the French bottoms”