The holiday spirit is in full swing in Kansas City and, to help celebrate, we’re responding to a reader who asked about the origins of the lights on the Country Club Plaza – one of the most notable Christmas light traditions in the country.
Plaza lights postcard. Kansas City Public Library.It harkens back to Christmas Day in 1925.
The Plaza shopping center had been conceived by J.C. Nichols in 1912, when the area known as Brush Creek Valley was just an uninhabitable marsh with a nearby hog farm. Nichols, already a prominent real estate developer in areas south of Kansas City, believed that automobiles (and not electric streetcars) were the future of local transportation. The architects he hired, Edward Buehler Delk and George E. Kessler, therefore planned wide streets and allotted considerable space for parking.
Plaza lights postcard. Kansas City Public Library.The location, five miles south of downtown Kansas City, seemed to pose a challenge. In an era in which virtually all upscale shopping occurred in the heart of cities connected to surrounding residential areas by streetcar, would shoppers drive their vehicles to stores that were not downtown? When Nichols announced his plans in 1922, skeptics derided it as "Nichols’ folly."
The Country Club Plaza, which is now considered the nation’s first suburban shopping center, turned out to be spectacularly successful after its first buildings opened in 1923. The Plaza’s attractive, Spanish-style architecture, green spaces and scenic location drew plenty of customers.
In 1925, Charles "Pete" Pitrat, maintenance supervisor for the Nichols Company, hung Christmas lights on the Mill Creek Building for the first time. The display was hardly impressive by modern standards: a few strands of lights over a doorway with some small Christmas trees arranged along the sidewalk.
From those humble beginnings, Pitrat oversaw the installment of more lights each year. When the Plaza Theater opened in 1928, he marked the occasion by stringing several strands of lights to the rooftops of opposing buildings along 47th Street, creating an illuminated tunnel effect. Later, in 1929, lights were added to the edges and roofs, establishing the building outline pattern for which the Plaza lights have become known, and the first formal lighting ceremony was held.
Plaza lights postcard. Kansas City Public Library.This year marks the 91st official lighting of the Plaza Lights. And while we cannot gather by the thousands to witness the ceremonial flipping of the switch, the show must go on. Spectators wishing to see the lighting in person are welcome to do so. Just be at a safe and socially distanced viewing location on Thanksgiving night. Beginning at 6:00 pm, KMBC 9 will broadcast and stream an hour long ceremony that will feature performances by The Voice contestant and Country singer-songwriter Casi Joy and the Kansas City Ballet, videos of thanks to front line workers recorded by Kansas Citians, historical highlights from years past, celebrity messages and, of course, the flipping of the switch.
George Brett flipping the switch. The Kansas City Star.
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