A motorist traveling on the Paseo today finds it difficult to believe so large a body of water as that pictured once occupied the center of this busy thoroughfare. The old post card, published in 1906 by the Elite Postcard Company of Kansas City and printed in color in Leipzig, Germany, shows the lake which was between 16th and 17th. A building behind the trees at the left is that of the De La Salle Academy and is still in use today as St. Joseph's parochial school. The bed of the old lake, now filled in and grassed over, is used by students of St. Joseph's as a playground and practice ground for athletics. Far beyond the lake at 14th and Paseo the Chace Elementary School stood. It was built in 1881 and was named honoring Kansas City's Republican mayor of 1877-1880, Charles A. Chace, who was also a prominent member of the school board. The school was razed in 1913. Paseo Lake was drained in 1907.The Paseo, one of Kansas City's first boulevards and noted for its fashionable apartments and residences at the turn of the century, remains Kansas City's longest boulevard, extending from Admiral Boulevard on the north far south past Swope Park to 79th, a distance of about 20 miles. Kansas City Star, March 12, 1977.
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