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UNION STATION -
HISTORY
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| Kansas City owed its existence as a growing city because of the railroad. In 1866
Kansas City beat out Leavenworth for the railroad which connected the city to Chicago. The city became a major
cattle and grain shipping point and meatpacking center. The first Union Depot was built in 1878 located in the
West Bottoms. But within ten years the city outgrew the station, and in 1903 the train traffic came to a stop when
the West Bottoms were flooded. Rail executives decided to build a new train station on higher ground and in a more
central location. In 1906 everything came together. Twelve railroad companies united to form the Kansas City Terminal
Railroad (KCTR). They select Chicago architect Jarvis Hunt to design Union Station. |
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| Photograph from 1889 of O.K. Creek and unidentified building at 21st
and Wyandotte, future site of Union Station. |
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1908 POST CARD
This old post card from shows the "proposed Union Station, Kansas
City, Mo." with a design that was never executed. A clipping from The Star of Nov. 12, 1910, explains the
change: "W. S. Kinnear, president of the Kansas City Terminal, returned this morning with a secret of intense
interest to Kansas City."
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"While in Chicago he had a look at the correct perspective of the new Union Station. It was in the office
of Jarvis Hunt, the architect. Mr. Hunt has decided on the final architectural plan for the new station. The station
proper will cost $5.5 million. The Star printed a picture of the plans for the new station more than a year ago,
but they have been changed."
"The south front is to be plain and is not to have the big arches that were in former plans. The arches are
to give way to columns and the roof is to be flat instead of oval. The same is true of the roof that covers the
waiting rooms. The inside of the station and the trackage plans are to remain the same. It is an improvement over
the first plans. Everything is going forward satisfactorily and the contract will be let this winter for the building
of the station."
"The building of the new station is the largest single project ever undertaken for Kansas City." |
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| August 27, 1910 excavation began. Five lives were claimed during construction. Edward
Donahue & Joseph Berg were the first to die when their dynamite detonated prematurely. A few months latter
a construction superintendent was struck and killed by a rock fragment from a dynamite blast. He was sitting in
his office when the rock crashed through the roof and hit him. Construction took three years to complete. The station
cost nearly $6 Million and was part of a $50 million investment by KCTR that also included track additions, switching
towers, viaducts and bridges. |
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| On October 30, 1914 thousands pour into the Grand Hall to celebrate the opening of
Union Station. Just after midnight on the morning of November 1st, the first train, the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Flyer,
arrives at Union Station. |
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1914 POST CARD
Architectural details and coloring of the Union Station's great window,
the 90-foot ceiling with ornamental plaster and the station entrance make this attractive "Phostint"
postal card almost a work of art. Colors are softly muted browns, grays, yellows, blues and pinks.
The card was published by the Detroit Publishing Company for Fred Harvey, early restaurateur and gift shop owner
at the station. It was one of a set of 10 of the station, published around the time of the station's opening in
1914.
The legend on the reverse side of the card reads: "All the comforts and conveniences required by the traveler
are located in the main building of the New Union Station in Kansas City, centering in a large space known as the
Grand Lobby, from which the passengers have access to the waiting rooms...."
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"Adjoining the Grand Lobby are other waiting rooms for women, a smoking room for men, restaurants, telegraph
office, drug store, book store and news stand. The room has an area of 22,000 square feet. A circular pavilion
made up of booths for sale of railway and sleeping car tickets is a central feature of the Grand Lobby." Marilynn
Garst Mayer of Overland Park, found the card in an old trunk. |
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| In its prime years the terminal was a busy, bustling, buzzing kind of place with
crowds chattering and scurrying about. Union Station wasn't some club for the privileged few; it was a building
for everyone. To its patrons the place was "gorgeous," "fascination," "majestic"
and "awesome," as expressed in letters written about it. In 1917 rail traffic peaked during WWI with
79,368 trains passing through the Station, including 271 trains in one day. |
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1922 POST CARD
The Union Stationwas a center of activity during the Christmas rush
of bygone years.
Teams of Wells Fargo Express Company horses waited at the lower level
dock of the station as their drivers loaded parcels for the daily city-wide delivery from the express company's
shipping and receiving rooms.
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Twelve railroads entering Kansas City brought packages, crates and boxes in express cars from points all over the
United States and some foreign countries. During the Christmas rush additional wagon teams were brought into use
from the Wells Fargo barn, a large brick building between 2nd and 3rd streets, on the east side of Delaware.
There was great excitement when the familiar green-painted express wagon stopped in front of a house. When the
driver came up the sidewalk with the brown paper wrapped boxes, it meant that Christmas was near and that grandparents
and kin had not forgotten.
This early post card, a "Phostint" by the Detroit Publishing Company, is of a type cherished by collectors
because of its artistry of design and color. It was copyrighted by the Fred Harvey Company and sold from racks
at the station. This particular cad was mailed in 1922 to a woman on route No. 1, Carlton, Kansas. |
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| Union Station develops its own personality and character through unforeseen circumstances
which leads to its three legends, the Fred Harvey restaurant, the tradition of New Year's Eve "under the clock",
and the Union Station Massacre. The Fred Harvey restaurant offered good food, good service, reasonable prices served
up by the famous Harvey Girls. The year prohibition began, 1920, so did the New Year's Eve "under the clock"
celebration. On the last day of the year, a few hundred people gathered under the clock to count down the final
seconds before midnight. And as the '20s progressed, a New Year's Eve tradition was born. |
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1914 POST CARD
Interior view of the Fred Harvey Restaurant at the Union Station,
Kansas City, Missouri. The back reads, ''In the east wing of the Union Station, Kansas City adjoining the Grand
Lobby, is the Restaurant. The decorations and furnishings are in Louis XVI period..."
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"...correct in every detail and delicate in color and design. This light treatment is made perfectly feasible
by the system of ventilation employed. Cooled, filtered air is forced into the rooms in summer and warm air in
winter, so that all windows are permanently closed against the dust and smoke from outside. The Restaurant is under
the management of Fred Harvey.'' |
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Distant view, looking west, of station, tracks, and
surrounding hotels.
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| A crowd scene along Pershing Road between Union Station and north end
of memorial, on November 1, 1921. |
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| Daytime rally for Alfred E. Smith and Joe Robinson during 1928 presidential
campaign, outside entrance to Union Station. |
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On June 17, 1933 one of the most infamous dates in Kansas City history is the
Union Station Massacre. Convicted mobster Frank Nash, under escort by a team of FBI agents and police officers
was shot and killed outside the Station during a shootout.
Four law enforcement officers were also killed. There are marks on the front of the building that for years were
claimed as bullet holes from the shooting, but tests by Kansas City, MO. Police recently showed the marks could
not have come from bullets. However, the myth and the mystery of the incident live on. |
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Frank "Jelly" Nash--- Nash got his nickname because he was
a safe-blowing expert, and "jelly" was gangland slang for nitroglycerin.
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There were various theories that other mobsters had committed the crime, but the
only man ever charged was Adam Richetti who died in Missouri's gas chamber.
The five men that died as the result of the massacre are Kansas City Detectives Frank Hermanson and Bill Grooms,
federal agent Ray Caffrey, McAlester, Okla., Police Chief Otto Reed and Nash.
The shoot out took place outside the east front doors while the men where getting into their vehicle. Indirectly
another death at Union Station is connected to the massacre. Mike Fanning, a Kansas City cop was on duty when the
Massacre happened but he was not close enough to help... |
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| He was worried for the next year that his colleagues blamed him for the others deaths.
In November 1934 he got drunk and lost it. He went to Union Station with a gun and ended up killing a police officer
that was on duty there. |
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| In this 1930 photograph, a cannon is being shot by unidentified people
on grounds across from Union Station. The occasion for this cannon-firing is unknown...but it likely has something
to do with Liberty Memorial, a WWI memorial near Union Station. |
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SOME FAMOUS FOLKS PASSING THROUGH UNION STATION...
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| Fats Waller left a remarkable stamp on the history of Jazz but also
in the hearts of more than a few admirers... |
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In 1940s, Kansas City became an unwitting focal point of the jazz world. In 1943
the jazz legend Thomas "Fats" Waller died at Union Station. He was traveling by train from Los Angeles
to New York. His train pulled into Union Station when Ed Kirkeby, his manager, was awaked by Waller making a choking
sound. When he checked on him he could not wake him and when helped arrived he was already dead.
Throughout World War II, Union Station was the scene of emotional moments as members of the armed services left
for war and returned. With the start of the War, Kansas City's station experienced a huge upswing in travel. With
gasoline and rubber-tire rationing, trains were the only long-distance travel option. In 1945 passenger traffic
hits a record 678,363 travelers, many of them servicemen and service women passing through the Station on their
way home after World War II. |
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| Union Station and the Harvey House restaurant and shops are an around-the-clock beehive
of activity. This time masked the oncoming decrease in rail passenger travel. Every year after the war the train
traffic at Union Station declined as the airline industry increased. And in 1968 the Fred Harvey Company operations,
including the Westport Room restaurant and retail shops close. |
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In the early 1970s, Union Station was still technically a train station, barely.
Congress finally bowed to calls for a nationalized passenger train service and in 1971, Amtrak took over. This
left Kansas City with just five or six trains a day. |
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| This culminated a 96 percent decline in train traffic in a mere quarter-century for
Union Station. Something needed to be done with the Station. When the Terminal Railway consultant publicly unveiled
their idea of demolishing Union Station and replacing it with 20 apartment and office high-rises, it set off alarm
bells. The new Landmarks Commission asked for quick federal action to include it on the National Register of Historic
Places, which was granted in February 1972. Federal protection did not prohibit demolition but made it more difficult. |
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| Heavy water damage to the ceiling in the Grand Hall... |
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In 1974 Kansas City approves a development contract with Trizec, a Canadian redevelopment
firm, to develop the Station and surrounding property. Although Trizec constructs two office building, One and
Two Pershing Square, around Union Station, no improvements to the Station itself occurred. Union Station reaches
a low point, when its doors close. Two tenants hold out, Amtrak and the Lobster Pot restaurant. Except for the
sump pumps operation continuously 50 feet below the main floor to avoid basement flooding, all building maintenance
ends. Amtrak's ticket office stays within the Station, but inside an inflatable bubble tent in Grand Hall. But
in 1985 that comes to an end. The ticket office moves to what becomes locally know as the "Amtrak Shack,"
an office outside the Station, along Main Street. Since there were no improvements to Union Station the City sues
Trizec in 1988, seeking $90 million for failing to redevelop the Station. The Lobster pot closed in 1989, and the
Station sits empty for several years. Rain and winter freezes take a terrible toll, causing decay to the plaster,
steel structures and limestone walls. Large sections of the ceiling break apart, plunging to the floor. Understandably,
Union Station is categorized a dangerous building. |
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In 1994 the City and Trizec agree to settle their six-year lawsuit. Their agreement
calls for establishing a new nonprofit organization to own the Station. With the formation of this organization,
Union Station Assistance Corporation (USAC), the restoration effort begins. Voters in Jackson, Clay and Platte
counties in Missouri and Johnson County in Kansas approve a one-eighth of a cent bi-state sales tax in 1996 to
restore and redevelop Union Station and create a science museum. The tax raised $118 million toward the total $250
million project. The remaining money was raised through private donations and federal funds. The passage of the
bi-state tax is thought to be the first of its kind in the history of the United States.
In 1997 the renovations began. The reconstruction's main consultant was the Hines Interests Limited Partnership,
with Donald McCormick as the man primary responsible for balancing the repair needs with the budget ramifications.
In the final tally, all the structural repairs came to $3.3 million, less than the $4 million allowed and barely
more than half the original $6 million estimated. On November 10, 1999 Union station opened to the public once
again. The building had been restored to its former glory. With 180 freight trains passing the Station each day,
the city maintains its status as the second busiest railroad center in America. |
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| Scaffolding being errected in the Grand Hall to allow the restoration
and painting of the ceiling... |
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This section of our investigation report doesn't even scratch the surface
of Union Station's historical importance to our city...and our region. The renovated Union Station features restaurants,
retail stores, a theater, traveling exhibits, and Science City, ensuring that Union Station will continue making
history for many years to come.
See the Historic Images section of this investigation report for 114 images from the early years of Union Station's
operation.
-Mark Stinson |
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| Note: Some of the written materials on
the History of Union Station came from the following sources... Union Station's Website, KC Public Library, The Kansas City Star, The
Public Broadcasting System, and the book Union
Station Kansas City, by Jeffrey Spivak. |
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