The 5-story brick building pictured here was listed in the city directory of 1895 as the Navarro Block on the northwest corner of Twelfth and Baltimore. It was owned by the Herndon estate. There were apartments upstairs and shops below. Plans were made in June, 1919, to convert the building into a modern hotel, by the new owners, the Oppenstein brothers. E. F. Geraughty, an experienced hotel man, took a 10-year lease on the hostelry at an annual rental of $25,000. Glennon hotel was the new name. A Kansas City Star story publicizing the transaction said, Mr. Geraughty's lease does not embrace five storerooms on the ground floor, but gives him a first floor lobby and offices and 98 guestrooms. The rates of the new hotel will range from $2 to $5 a day. One of the ground floor store-rooms referred to was leased by two recently returned World War I veterans, Harry S. Truman and Eddie Jacobson. The 1920 city directory states: Truman & Jacobson, Inc., Harry S. Truman, Edw. Jacobson, men's furng. 104 W. 12th. The same directory has Glennon Hotel, E. F. Geraughty, Mgr., 108 W. 12th, indicating the hotel entrance was the next door west of the haberdashery. It was the day of silk shirts and silk underwear for men and the busy Twelfth street location made business good. It was especially good during the national American Legion convention in October, 1921, when hundreds of wartime buddies thronged through the store to buy from the well-stocked shelves and to renew friendship with the owners. One night during the convention, merry-makers made a long snake dance through the store, winding their way by a center cabinet in the store where Truman had placed the loving cup the men of his company had given him, inscribed To Captain Harry from Battery D. After about two years operation the postwar depression brought an end to the clothing shop. By 1922 Jacobson was selling shirts on the road and Truman had entered the political arena and had won his first victory for the office judge of the Jackson County court of the Eastern district. The Glennon hotel operated continuously for 10 years, 1920 to 1930, when it was razed to make way for the 20-story Phillips hotel, the tallest hotel in Kansas City when it was finished in 1931. (Three generations of the Charles E. Phillips family have operated the hotel). The old Glennon hotel has long since been forgotten. Perhaps it had little cause to make it remembered, unless of course, one notes that here was the place from which a Missouri farm boy took his first steps toward becoming President of the United States. Kansas City Star, September 5, 1970.
Reproduction (printing, downloading, or copying) of images from Kansas City Public Library requires permission and payment for the following uses, whether digital or print: publication; reproduction of multiple copies; personal, non-educational purposes; and advertising or commercial purposes. Please order prints or digital files and pay use fees through this website. All images must be properly credited to: "Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, Missouri." Images and texts may be reproduced without prior permission only for purposes of temporary, private study, scholarship, or research. Those using these images and texts assume all responsibility for questions of copyright and privacy that may arise.
