Find out how this historic church became an anchor for KC’s Rosedale community

You might say this house of worship started with a mill.

In the 1870s, the Kansas Rolling Mill brought a wave of workers to the small settlement along Turkey Creek in southern Wyandotte County.

Some were Catholic, and formed the Holy Name Church. Others built Baptist churches, while another group created the Henning Avenue Methodist Church..

In 1908, that congregation merged with the Rosedale Methodist Church and moved into their grand new limestone structure on Southwest Boulevard.

The boulevard, which connected Rosedale to Kansas City, was fast becoming a prime route for Sunday drives in the new age of automobiles. .

In fact, Rosedale was already something of a boom town, with a population pushing 2,000. The Rolling Mill had closed but other employers like Thor Iron Works, Geyser Mineral Springs and the Bell Hospital (which later became the KU Medical Center) were seen as signs of bigger things to come.

But the boom didn’t last. Rosedale (which became part of Kansas City, Kansas in 1923) slowly lost more and more residents. And those who stayed faced an array of social problems.

To help address those issues, remaining members of the United Methodist congregation took unusual actions. They shared space and devised strategies with both the Rainbow Mennonite Church and the Disciples of Christ Together, they called themselves the Sharing Community in Rosedale.

Among the alliance’s most enduring successes is the Whitmore Playground. The small recreational oasis adjacent to the old Methodist Church (now home to the Rainbow Mennonite Church) is still used by neighborhood families today.

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