Hyde Park History
Our story begins in 1833. John Calvin McCoy built the first General Store and Trading Post west of Independence, Missouri at what is now the corner of Westport Road and Pennsylvania Street. Westport was located along an Indian trace that ran from Independence to the Indian missions in the Kansas territory. Today, the diagonal Westport Road and Harrison Parkway follow that trace. By 1837 or 1838, McCoy had developed the trading post into the starting point for the Santa Fe bound. By 1848, with the California gold rush, the trickle of hunters, trappers, and emigrants became a torrent of fortune hunters eager to strike it rich. Estimates are that over 100,000 people went to California using the route of the Santa Fe Trail. Most of them stopped in Westport and what would later become Hyde Park.
Just east of Westport were natural springs and open grassland. This made it an ideal place for wagons to stop, refresh their livestock, and buy any last minute necessities before the long trek to California. You can still see where the Santa Fe Trail and the natural springs were located near the intersection the intersection of 39th street, Gillham Road and Harrison Parkway.
In 1857, Westport was incorporated with the boundaries of Brush Creek and Springfield Street (later 31st Street) on the south and north, the Missouri-Kansas state line and Woodland Avenue on the west and east. But even during the boom years, Westport started losing trade. McCoy and some of his influential friends moved to Kansas City.
By 1885, Kansas City was growing, and fast. Populations increased by over 35% in the last decade of the nineteenth century and then went up another 54% in the first decade of the twentieth century. Trains were moving people and the goods that they needed west. The new settlers on the Great Plains were shipping their cattle and grains back to the eastern markets. Kansas City became a trading hub for the rich western farmland and cattle ranches. Banks were multiplying, as the agriculture and building industries required money to expand. The Ozark forests provided the wood needed to build houses on the plains and Kansas City was ready to deliver that lumber to its destinations. By 1900, Kansas City was the largest city between St. Louis and San Francisco.
In the mid-1880’s, real estate speculation in Kansas City and Westport reached near-hysterical proportions. Land was sold and resold at fantastic profits. In 1887, real estate transactions in Kansas City totaled 88 million dollars. Real estate transactions would not reach that level again until 1946. In 1893, the proposed Parks and Boulevard system extended south of the Kansas City limits into Westport. Wealthy individuals including William Rockwell Nelson, several Amour families and August Meyer built houses in Westport. In 1897 Westport was annexed by Kansas City.
Among the subdivisions platted in 1886, one called Hyde Park was located in Westport. The original Hyde Park subdivision was located west of Gillham Road, outside the present day boundaries of the Hyde Park neighborhood. On the east side of Gillham Road, additional subdivisions were platted in frantic succession from 1886-88 with names such as Nicolett Place, Edna Place, Hampden Place, Regents Park and Troost Highlands. Kansas City’s first and only private street was laid out at this time when an upscale development called Janssen Place was platted. By 1894, Kansas City had its first golf course, the Kenwood Golf Links in Hyde Park. Until J.C. Nichols built his Country Club residential district in the 1920’s, Hyde Park was the largest planned development of single-family homes in Kansas City.
Hyde Park was greatly impacted by the land boom of the 1880’s. Fantastic speculation drove up land prices until the bottom dropped out after 1888 and development effectively halted for the next ten years. Although the first houses were built in the late 1880’s, less than 50 houses were erected by 1900. However, by 1907, when the housing market had recovered, that number of homes had increased fivefold. By the early 1920s, most of the houses in the area were built. Hyde Park houses first went up when Victorian and Queen Anne styles were the arbiters of good taste. Over the years, Dutch Colonial, Colonial Revival, Neo-Georgian, Craftsmen, Bungalow, Kansas City Shirtwaist, Tudor, and American Foursquare took their place among the Victorians. After World War II, modern styles and suburban ranch homes appeared on the streets of Hyde Park in limited numbers. Nevertheless, even today, a walk down any of the tree-lined streets is a step back in time; when sitting on the front porch visiting with strollers and neighbors, playing croquet, or simply reading a book beside the parlor fireplace passed for entertainment.
Kansas City’s early architects, making every effort to bring the current styles of the East Coast to the neighborhood, designed many of our buildings with large front porches and gabled or dormered roof lines. Brick or limestone are common cladding materials on the first floor of homes with wood lap siding, cedar shingles or stucco typically used on upper floors. The interiors sparkled with leaded, beveled glass doorways, windows, and sidelights. In the older Victorian homes, gasoliers and gas sconces were the lighting of choice. A coal-burning fireplace in most rooms provided heat. However, by the first decade of the twentieth century, electricity, central heating (usually hot water radiators), and indoor water closets were standard. Most homes had hot and cold water in the kitchen and a sink tucked away in a center hall closet, where a dusty visitor could freshen up. A bathroom with a toilet was on the second floor for the family and on the third floor for the maid. Bigger homes had more bathrooms, often shared between two bedrooms. Closets made their appearance in the bedroom, or dressing room in larger homes. Many houses featured built-in sideboards, cupboards, and bookcases. Hardwood floors throughout the house and small hexagonal tile in bathrooms and entry hall foyers was typical. Hardwood wall paneling, millwork, ornamental plaster designs, and crown moldings decorated the room. In the early twentieth century, Victorian wallpapers give way to painted walls, often in bold colors.
In 1908, Jesse Clyde Nichols announced the plan for a “high class district on scientific lines” in an area of 1,000 acres. In 1917, the Country Club District had expanded south to 65th Street, north across Brush Creek and across the state line to the west. The economy was strong, the middle class was growing, and people who had never owned homes wanted them. The Brookside neighborhood was born in 1919, Crestwood in 1922, the Plaza in 1923, and on it went. The district covered about 6,000 acres by the time Nichols died.
A housing shortage developed during and after World War II. All of Kansas City, except those areas with deed restrictions such as the Nichols developments, was rezoned multi-family. Many of the large old homes in Hyde Park were converted into apartments and sleeping rooms.
Starting in the early nineteen seventies, the low prices and unique architecture of these large, old homes began to attract the attention of a new breed of pioneers. These young professionals saw the potential in the beautiful, old houses in Hyde Park. They speculated in the declining neighborhood and sought to revitalize it. Between 1975 and 1977, an estimated one-third of the houses changed hands. As with all the generations who have lived here before, from the lumber barons and capitalists who started the neighborhood to the urban pioneers who revitalized it, the people who call Hyde Park “home” today know that this is a neighborhood truly like no other
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A very special thanks to Patrick Alley and Dona Boley for historical text about Hyde Park. More history and imagery can be found in their book, Images of America: Kansas City’s Historic Hyde Park.
