Local History Blog

Strings of colored lights have been going up on the Country Club Plaza in preparation for the annual Evergy Plaza Lighting Ceremony, and on Thanksgiving night, the holiday season will officially get underway with the flip of a switch. Seasonal traditions on the Plaza are a cornerstone of Kansas City culture; without them, the city wouldn’t be the same. After reading our recent 1951 flood story, a reader thought about what it would mean if a flood hit the shopping district. She asked “What’s Your KCQ?,” a collaboration between The Star and the Kansas City Public Library, about the 1977 flood that damaged the Plaza and other parts of town.

Cool, crisp weather. Cheerleaders and marching bands. Big games, big plays, and occasional big hits. For many across the Kansas City metro area, fall wouldn’t be the same without high school football. The thought prompted a reader to ask What’s Your KCQ?, a partnership between The Kansas City Star and the Kansas City Public Library: Wasn’t there a time when football was banned in Kansas City high schools?Believe it or not, yes. There was a period in the sport’s early history when it had a bad reputation among the city’s educators and parents. The Friday night lights, wherever there were lights … went dark.

The artist, German-born William Weber, is the subject of our first “Art in the Archives” installment. His Civil War float may have been designed for either the Priests of Pallas or German Day parades of the early 1890s, which both took place in October and featured similar themes from history. As we will discover, Weber’s parade float designs are only a small part of his artistic legacy.

Start your engines! Classic sports cars and performing arts collide in this week’s installment of What’s Your KCQ?, a partnership between The Star and the Kansas City Public Library. This time we explore the Folly Classic Vintage Grand Prix, a short-lived vintage auto race designed to benefit the Folly Theater during the 1980s. Some readers may remember classic Ferraris, Jaguars, Maseratis, Porsches, and Alfa Romeos circling Liberty Memorial in this high-speed road race, all to help a restored theater repay its debts. But how did this unusual fundraiser come to be?