Welcome to KCHistory.org

Missouri Valley Special Collections

Explore thousands of digitized photographs and material related to the history of the Kansas City region. Learn about the collections and services of the Missouri Valley Special Collections, the Kansas City Public Library's local history archive.

Belvidere Hollow: KCQ unearths Kansas...

In the Historic Northeast, east of downtown and just beyond Interstate 29, lies Belvidere Park — what now may appear to be an empty space. But at the turn of the 20th century, the area was a...

A pool? A skate park? The real story...

A reader was intrigued by a handful of concrete structures resembling skateboard ramps on a grassy area off The Paseo, near 58th Street and Lydia Avenue — and reached out to What’s Your KCQ?, a...

Railroad tycoon envisioned a grand...

Today, Guinotte Avenue is a rather unassuming stretch of road running through Kansas City’s predominantly industrial East Bottoms. One hundred seventy years ago, however, the thoroughfare was the...

Searching for Vincent O. Carter

June Graham, Guest Author Vincent O. Carter working at his home in Bern. ©P. Kräuchi In June 2023, I travelled to Kansas City to research the early life of Vincent O. Carter, an African American...

This Week in Kansas City History

"Her inspiration certainly came from heaven"

May 1, 1894: Elizabeth Bruce Crogman, who in 1925 became founder of Kansas City’s Florence Home for Colored Girls to house unwed African American women who were pregnant, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The home functioned as the counterpart to similar organizations that served the area's white residents but denied care to young black women. Under Crogman's guidance through the 1940s, the Florence Home for Colored Girls eventually expanded to offer counseling, education, shelter, and medical care to dozens of Kansas City's impoverished black mothers and children.

Kansas City FAQs

Who was Jesse James and what was his connection to the Kansas City area?

Jesse James was born near Kearney, Missouri in 1847, the son of Zerelda Cole James and the Reverend Robert James, a well-respected Baptist minister who ran a prosperous farm, owned slaves, and was involved in the creation of William Jewell College in Liberty. During the Civil War, Jesse’s older brother, Frank, fought with Confederate forces under General Sterling Price, and when he returned from this service, both he and Jesse took part in the guerrilla warfare then raging in Missouri and Kansas.