Car dealers once lined McGee Street in downtown KC. This place was part of that legacy

This postcard from around 1910 illustrates a major change taking place across America in the early 20th century. Gas-powered automobiles were fast supplanting horse-drawn carriages.

And the Holcker-Elberg Company, which built and serviced carriages at a number of different downtown locations since 1881, adjusted accordingly.

In 1908, the company moved into this 3-story brick structure at the corner of 16th & McGee Streets. The smaller wing behind it, the one bearing the sign “auto top department” marked the switch to making windshield, tops and bodies for cars.

By 1916, Otto Holcker and James Elberg had parted ways. The Holcker Company, which nabbed a deal with Peerless Trucks, turned its focus to building vehicles for the funeral industry, and later linked up with Dulco to sell their line of auto plastics..

Elberg’s efforts in automotive endeavors did not survive the Great Depression.

This was a time when Kansas City’s car dealers and ancillary industries swarmed into the area along McGee and Oak Streets as well as Grand Boulevard south of downtown.

After the Holcker Company moved to a new location, the building was occupied by a chandelier store, then a plating company. In the 1960s, it was purchased by Hicks Brothers Chevrolet, whose showroom across the street remained one of the last vestiges of the area’s auto trade.

Today, the northeast corner of 16th & McGee serves as a small, unremarkable parking lot across from another victim of technological change, the now-idled Kansas City Star printing press pavilion.

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Looking for more Kansas City history?

From the beginning, cars and crashes have gone together--even on Cliff Drive

As the automobile become commonplace, TWA started to revolutionize air travel. That led to this great Howard Hughes KC story

If you’re wondering how McGee Street got its name, here’s the answer