This panoramic post card of downtown Kansas City, looking east from Broadway, was copyrighted by G. H. Otto in 1899, just a year after picture post cards became legal in the U.S. mails. Strict postal regulations had formerly prevented the issue of privately printed post cards, probably to protect the sales of government cards, legalized in 1873 and costing one cent for card and postage. An act of Congress May 4, 1898, finally legalized the picture post card and allowed the same message privileges and rates as the government cards. They were to be approximately the same size, quality and weight, and were to be inscribed Private Mailing Card. Kansas City was not slow to respond to the post card craze. The cards already had become popular in Europe with watering spas, palaces, views of natural grandeur, bathing beauties in bloomers and reproductions of the old masters pictured on them. While our first postal regulations were strict, we had no such regulations as the French who forbid the reading of post cards by postmen, forbid postmen from delivering obscene cards. Otto's cards, labeled Greetings From Kansas City, were printed in a series, three of which are at hand. His subjects, in addition to the Broadway scene, were City Hall and Market and Gladstone Boulevard. They were artist's sketches lithographed in black and white and with red for the many brick buildings, green for grass and trees, and a bit of blue for sky. Shown in the center of the card above are two buildings still standing on 9th Street. The New York Life at Baltimore and the New England Building at Wyandotte. At the top left the towers of the old Board of Trade Building can be seen at 8th and Wyandotte. Kansas City Star, April 27, 1974.
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