Kansas City's annual fall festival honoring the Goddess Pallas Athene was held every fall from October 1887 until October 1924. The festivities originated with the Flambeau Club, a public-spirited organization composed of the leading young businessmen of the town, eager to advance the interests of Kansas City.The feature of the week-long celebration was the Priests of Pallas parade, originally with horse- or mule-drawn floats lighted by lanterns. Later powered floats moved slowly along the route on street car tracks. The floats were beautifully decorated. Their imaginative designers and helpers spent most of a year at a street car barn constructing the huge masterpieces. Each year the theme changed. Floats were decorated accordingly. Grecian Myths was the 1887 and 1888 theme. Parade of Nations followed in 1889, then American History, 1890; Romances of the Ages 1891; Songs and Fables 1892; Prose and Poetry, 1893, followed by Mother Goose, Mysteries, A Trip to Mars, Animated Circus Parade, and Anderson's Fairy Tales, and others. The postcard pictured is from the 1910 parade, when the theme was Aerial Transportation. In later years a set of postcards was published picturing each year's theme. Collectors say the 1910 series of 15 cards is the most difficult to find today. But all are scarce. The town was crowded with visitors. Hotels and restaurants were jammed throughout the week. An Oct. 5, 1910, story in The Kansas City Star noted: Never before, it is said, have there been such crowds at the K.C. hotels as now. At the Kupper cots are being used in the writing room, the halls and lobby, and long lines of applicants for a place to sleep have been turned away. The rooms in the Sexton Hotel have been full since Sept. 1. The Savoy Hotel has done the greatest business in its history. Clerks at the Hotel Baltimore have been refusing rooms to hundreds this week. More persons have slept and eaten at the Coates House than ever before in a similar period. The postcard was furnished by Tom and Helen Allison. Kansas City Times, October 18, 1985.
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