The 20-story, 450-room Hotel Phillips was Kansas City's tallest hotel when it was finished in February, 1931. It had another distinction. The hostelry was completed and ready for occupancy according to contract in one year's time. This time included razing the former building on the site, the Glennon Hotel (where former President Truman had his haberdashery after his return from World War I) and excavating to much deeper levels for the larger building. Not a single day of work was lost because of weather or labor disputes. On completion The Star reported: Music was on tap in every room of the hotel from any one of the four local radio stations. Last minute jobs by decorators, plumbers, painters, carpet layers and men installing drapery fixtures were finished to gay music, with no complaints from the many subcontractors nor the Phillips Building Company. All seemed imbued with the same spirit, pride in finishing the new hotel in the contracted time of one year. Architectural plans for the hostelry were drawn by the firm of Boillot & Lauck. The lobby was unique, with black glass used effectively on the ceiling to give an impression of space. There were several dining rooms, and the Pioneer Room seating 300 was used for large dinners and meetings. Murals in the Pioneer Room were by Daniel MacMorris and depicted early settlers moving westward and bands of hostile Indians. Charles E. Phillips, president of the hotel company, had come to Kansas City when he was 15 from his farm home at New Cambria, Mo. He erected more than a score of hotel and apartment buildings here, naming several Plaza apartments for his favorite authors - among them the Robert Louis Stevenson, Mark Twain, Eugene Field, Robert Browning, and Jean Jacques Rousseau. After Phillips's death in 1955 three sons, Charles E. Phillips, Jr., Robert L. and Richard, continued the hotel's operation. Later two grandsons, Robert, Jr. and William, sons of Robert L. Phillips, had a part in the management. The hotel closed its doors April 30, 1971. Kansas City Times, February 5, 1972.
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