Vintage postcard of Barney Allis Plaza shows forgotten tower in downtown KC

Most of us know the downtown block between 12th and 13th Streets, Central and Wyandotte Streets as Barney Allis Plaza. But the small urban green space currently undergoing big renovations has quite a pedigree.

It’s where the Kansas City Convention Hall stood until a fire destroyed it in 1900.

Rebuilding began immediately, and was finished just three months later — in time to host the Democratic National Convention.. That feat helped popularize (but didn’t actually coin) the phrase “Kansas City Spirit.”

When the massive Municipal Auditorium opened one block to the south in 1936, Convention Hall was torn down.

In 1955, the city built an underground parking garage on the site, capped by what was originally called the Auditorium Plaza.

Here’s where Mr. Allis comes in.

The man who ran the Muehlebach Hotel from 1931 until 1962 was not your typical hotelier. Barney Allis started out selling newspapers on downtown streets, took up the printing trade for a while, then swerved into hospitality just as the ‘Paris of the Plains” was hitting its stride.

For decades the Muehlebach hosted everyone from high profile politicians and dignitaries to Elvis and the Beatles.

In April 1962, Allis suffered a heart attack and died a few blocks from the hotel. Later that year, the Auditorium Plaza was renamed in his honor.

Though this “chrome” postcard’s exact date is unknown, it does contain something that later cards with similar views don’t have —a very large smokestack in the center of the frame.

With help from Michael Wells in Missouri Valley Special Collections at the Kansas City Public Library, that mystery has been solved.

It’s not ventilation for the parking garage or an HVAC system for Municipal. Turns out it was part of a coal-powered Kansas City Power & Light facility at 1311 Wyandotte, built in the early 1900s by District Energy to provide steam heat for downtown buildings.

The smokestack’s exact date of departure is uncertain, but It was definitely gone by 1968, when a new Holiday Inn (now the Crowne Plaza Hotel) was erected on the corner of 13th and Wyandotte.

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Looking for more Kansas City history?

Westport or West Port, the bustling trail town was miles from the river.

How Charlie Finley and the Fab Four made music history on a September night in 1964

Here’s another one for the “haunted in KC” list--the Hotel Phillips downtown