Historic Overland Park
An illustrated history of the Overland Park area, paired with the histories of companies, families and organizations that make the region great.
An illustrated history of the Overland Park area, paired with the histories of companies, families and organizations that make the region great.
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HISTORIC<br />
OVERLAND PARK<br />
An Illustrated History<br />
A publication of the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> <strong>Historic</strong>al Society
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HISTORIC<br />
OVERLAND PARK<br />
An Illustrated History<br />
Published by the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> <strong>Historic</strong>al Society<br />
Co-sponsored by the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Chamber of Commerce Foundation<br />
<strong>Historic</strong>al Publishing Network<br />
A division of Lammert Incorporated<br />
San Antonio, Texas
❖<br />
A 1912 view of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> from a<br />
water tower west of the Strang Line<br />
Car Barn looking south across the<br />
new community.<br />
First Edition<br />
Copyright © 2004 <strong>Historic</strong>al Publishing Network<br />
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including<br />
photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to <strong>Historic</strong>al Publishing<br />
Network, 11555 Galm Road, Suite 100, San Antonio, Texas, 78254. Phone (210) 688-9006.<br />
ISBN: 1-893619-37-0<br />
Library of Congress Card Catalog Number: 2004116985<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>: An Illustrated History<br />
editors Norman Keech<br />
Florent W. Wagner<br />
contributing authors: Norman Keech<br />
Ross Marshall<br />
Ann Ogden<br />
Florent W. Wagner<br />
contributing writers for<br />
“Sharing the Heritage”:<br />
Eric Dabney<br />
Michael Reaves<br />
<strong>Historic</strong>al Publishing Network<br />
president: Ron Lammert<br />
vice president: Barry Black<br />
project managers: Lou Ann Murphy<br />
Pat Steele<br />
director of operations: Charles A. Newton III<br />
administration: Angela Lake<br />
Donna M. Mata<br />
book sales: Dee Steidle<br />
graphic production: Colin Hart<br />
Michael Reaves<br />
Craig Mitchell<br />
John Barr<br />
Evelyn Hart<br />
PRINTED IN SOUTH KOREA<br />
2 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
CONTENTS<br />
4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS<br />
5 CHAPTER I early inhabitants, explorers & Indian missions<br />
9 CHAPTER II overland trails in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
13 CHAPTER III bleeding Kansas<br />
15 CHAPTER IV settlers, 1860s to 1900<br />
21 CHAPTER V founding of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
35 CHAPTER VI development of the community<br />
49 CHAPTER VII 1940-1960: the war and township years<br />
63 CHAPTER VIII 1960-1980: incorporation & organization<br />
73 CHAPTER IX 1980-2000: maturity<br />
82 SHARING THE HERITAGE<br />
141 SPONSORS<br />
142 ABOUT THE AUTHORS<br />
Contents ✦ 3
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS<br />
Since the founding of the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Community, there had been no organized effort to identify, learn, or study the history of<br />
this area. In 1981, Mayor Eilert and other civic leaders incorporated the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> 2000 Foundation, a tax-exempt corporation<br />
to identify, preserve and display this history, educate the public about it, generally provide for the social and economic welfare of the<br />
citizens of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, particularly the historic center. The Foundation acquired the Strang Line Car Barn, the principal historic<br />
building in the downtown area, restored it with public and private donations, displayed some of the historic artifacts inside and<br />
concentrated on uncovering its history. The Foundation had a limited number of volunteer board members and no general<br />
membership. It realized that identifying and preserving the history of the area and educating the public about it was a bigger charge<br />
than it could handle with the limited Board. Foundation members instituted and served as incorporators of a new general membership<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> <strong>Historic</strong>al Society, another tax exempt corporation, which has taken over the task of identifying and preserving the<br />
history, displaying this history, and providing a resource center about this history and headquarters for the Society. This is done at the<br />
Strang Carriage House, 8045 Santa Fe Drive, downtown <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. A special thank you is owed to Virginia Owen. She diligently<br />
pursued the creation of the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> <strong>Historic</strong>al Society and obtained many of the charter members for the organization. Since<br />
the Society’s founding in 1994, she has created programs and delights in presenting programs to tell everyone about the quality of life<br />
in our community.<br />
The whole community is greatly indebted to Radah P. Cox, an early resident in the new community of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. After her<br />
family, home, and community interests, her passion revolved around collecting photos and historic documents of everyone and every<br />
place in the surrounding area that she could collect and preserve. She did an excellent job. When she passed on, her son George Cox,<br />
Jr., generously shared many of these photos and information with the Foundation at first, then with the <strong>Historic</strong>al Society. These<br />
photos and information have been invaluable. George Cox, Jr., also has spent many hours telling the history of the area to the<br />
historians of the <strong>Historic</strong>al Society and reviewing writings for accuracy. Next, George and Dorothy Breyfogle were very good at saving<br />
pictures and had a gallery in their home. At the death of the survivor, Dorothy, a binder of these photos was given to the <strong>Historic</strong>al<br />
Society, which helped fill in many blanks. Tom Porter, the son of Earl Porter of dairy fame, shared many photos and much information<br />
and reviewed the text of several chapters of this book for accuracy. Ann P. Ogden, daughter of Audley Porter, the other part of the<br />
Porter dairy, also supplied many photos and much information as well as authored the chapter of this book on the pioneer families<br />
and activities. Merle Davis, Lavern Ford, wife of Herb Ford, Sr., her son Herb Ford, Jr., Jo Ann Crouch, Robert Marty, the Docker<br />
family, and many, many more individuals have given hundreds of photos and much information to the Society.<br />
Phil Kline, Bob Anderson, Lyndus Henry, Ellis Witter, Robert Jennings and his son Jay, and the Frank Schepers family have been<br />
very generous with sharing their pictures and information. One of the principal visionaries of modern <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, businessman<br />
Matt Ross, provided many pictures and eight tape recordings of information for the Township period and early incorporation years.<br />
Don Pipes, City Manager for much of the incorporation period, spent hours being interviewed and reviewing writings for accuracy<br />
about events. Mayor Eilert provided the most essential element of support at crucial times in the undertaking of the publication of<br />
this illustrated history book as well as his seasoned expertise on the presentation of the material and correctness of information.<br />
Retired police chief, Myron Scafe, spent months interviewing people who made, or directed, the events making this history and quality<br />
of life since the incorporation of the City of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>.<br />
Many thanks to Ross Marshall, one of the premier experts on trails through this area, for his fine chapter on these trails. Norman<br />
Keech, a very knowledgeable historian on the American Indians and history at the time of Kansas statehood, succinctly details the life<br />
and myriad events of these periods in two chapters. Mary Kay Smith, a person with exceptional knowledge of Johnson County history<br />
has authored many booklets for the <strong>Historic</strong>al Society and has served as an advisor of this publication. Donald Inbody, past principal<br />
of the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Elementary School, has done much scholarly work about this school, creating a booklet on the topic for the<br />
Society, the basis of the text of this publication regarding this school. He also is the past editor of the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> <strong>Historic</strong>al Society<br />
Newsletter, writing many articles and providing much information about early <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> history by including mystery pictures<br />
for identification and information and in so many other ways. A special thank you also goes to Betty Dixon for the hours of expertise<br />
she has given to this publication. Many thanks is owed to all of these people, and others who have so generously provided information<br />
or artifacts for this publication.<br />
All pictures and maps shown in the history section of this publication are the property of the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> <strong>Historic</strong>al Society, unless identified<br />
otherwise in a caption about the artifact.<br />
4 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
EARLY INHABITANTS, EXPLORERS &<br />
INDIAN MISSIONS<br />
BY NORMAN KEECH<br />
The earliest food hunter-gathering immigrants came to the pristine North American continent<br />
from Asia by crossing the Bering Straits west of Alaska. The archeological evidence indicates this<br />
event occurred about 13,000 B.C.; other arguments place it at 40,000–25,000 B.C. The migration<br />
spread into the eastern regions of North America and moved farther to the South American<br />
continent. The date of their arrival in Kansas is set at approximately 9,000 B.C.<br />
“Protohistoric” refers to a time shortly before and after the arrival of European explorers in the<br />
New World. Tribes such as the Pawnee, Kansa, Wichita, Osage, and Comanche were known to<br />
inhabit Kansas at this time.<br />
In 1541, Francisco Vásquez de Coronado led an expedition into the region, which would<br />
eventually be named Kansas. Searching for the fabled Seven Cities of Gold in Cibola, he explored<br />
southern Kansas and pushed as far north as the present day town of Lindsborg and perhaps farther<br />
into eastern Kansas. This was the land of the Quivira and Wichita tribes. Disappointed that he found<br />
no gold, he strangled his Indian guide and returned to New Mexico. Indian village excavation sites<br />
have yielded fragments of chain mail and other pieces of armor indicating Coronado’s presence.<br />
Father Juan Padilla, who had accompanied Coronado’s expedition, returned to the Quivira Indians<br />
in 1542. After some time among the friendly Quiviras, Father Padilla determined to travel to a<br />
country farther east. Traveling with several companions, they had not gone very far when they<br />
encountered hostile Indians. Padilla’s companions escaped but he did not, being slain by many<br />
❖<br />
A re-creation of a Kansa Indian<br />
Community Lodge at the Deanna<br />
Rose Children’s Farmstead with an<br />
individual family tepee located beside<br />
the lodge.<br />
Chapter I ✦ 5
❖<br />
Shawnee Indian log cabin with Indian<br />
family. The Shawnee Indians hunted,<br />
fished, and planted corn, pumpkins,<br />
potatoes and other crops.<br />
arrows. Father Padilla was the first missionary<br />
and martyr west of the Mississippi River.<br />
In 1724, Captain M. Etienne Venyard De<br />
Bourgmont discovered a Kansa Indian village<br />
near present day Shawnee. The French<br />
trader/explorer established a trading post at the<br />
junction of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers for<br />
trade with the Kansa Indians.<br />
The year 1804 saw the Lewis and Clark<br />
expedition pass through northeastern Kansas,<br />
which was part of the Louisiana Purchase. Other<br />
explorers passing through Kansas were Zebulon<br />
Pike (1806), Stephen Long (1819-1820), and<br />
John Fremont (1842).<br />
The Kansa and Kaw names are from early<br />
French traders. The Kansa name was dropped<br />
when the Bureau of Indian Affairs started using<br />
Kaw to prevent confusion between them and<br />
other Indians located in Kansas. There are at<br />
least 40 ways to spell the Kansa name. The word<br />
means “People Of The South Wind”.<br />
The Kansa Indians lived in central Kansas along<br />
the Kansas and Saline Rivers. The tribe went<br />
through many hardships throughout their history.<br />
They ceded two million acres of land and relocated<br />
southeast of Council Grove when the eastern<br />
Indian tribes were being moved to Indian Territory.<br />
The Kansa tribe went from a population of<br />
3,000 in the eighteenth century to 600 in the<br />
twentieth century. William A. Mehojah, the last<br />
full-blooded Kansa, died in 2001. He graduated<br />
from Kaw City High School, received an<br />
associate degree in business administration from<br />
Haskell Institute, and also attended Idaho State<br />
University. After returning from World War II,<br />
he served in many leadership positions with the<br />
Bureau of Indian Affairs.<br />
Another Kansa Indian of note, Charles Curtis,<br />
was born January 25, 1860, in Eugene (now<br />
known as North Topeka), U.S. Kansas Territory,<br />
and was the thirty-first vice-president of the<br />
United States (1929-1933), serving with<br />
President Herbert Hoover. Charles Curtis was<br />
half American/English, one-eighth Kansa<br />
Indian/Osage Indian/Potawatomie Indian, and<br />
one-eighth French, but while in public office he<br />
never forgot his Indian heritage.<br />
By treaty with the Indians in 1825,<br />
thousands of Indians from the eastern part of<br />
the United States were to be resettled in “Indian<br />
Country”. The U.S. government gave the<br />
Shawnee Indians 1.6 million acres of land in<br />
eastern Kansas in exchange for their lands in<br />
Missouri, eastern Ohio, Indiana and western<br />
6 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
Pennsylvania. Originally, the Shawnee occupied<br />
Georgia and Tennessee.<br />
In 1827, Colonel Henry Leavenworth<br />
established Cantonment Leavenworth, the first<br />
permanent white settlement in Kansas, to keep<br />
peace in the Indian Territory and to protect the<br />
travelers on the Santa Fe Trail. It was to become<br />
part of the Fort Leavenworth-Fort Gibson<br />
Military Road running along state and territory<br />
borders from Fort Leavenworth to Fort Scott<br />
and on to Fort Gibson, Oklahoma.<br />
In 1828 the first band of Shawnee Indians<br />
arrived in Kansas, after wintering at Cape<br />
Girardeau, Missouri. No other people except<br />
Indians were to live in the Indian Territory<br />
with the exception of people working at the<br />
Indian Missions and their families or someone<br />
being the spouse of an Indian. The Shawnee<br />
Reservation extended from the Missouri border<br />
to as far west as Topeka and ranged from 25 to<br />
30 miles wide and Johnson County became<br />
their headquarters. Here they found an<br />
abundance of timber and free-flowing springs<br />
with gum trees lining the creeks, so they called<br />
their new settlement Gum Springs, later to be<br />
named Shawnee.<br />
In 1830 a log council house was constructed.<br />
Farming began in the area and the first wheat<br />
was grown in Kansas. Daniel Morgan Boone, son<br />
of Daniel Boone the famous Kentucky pioneer,<br />
was the first American farmer in Kansas.<br />
A smallpox epidemic killed some members<br />
of the Shawnee Tribe as well as people of<br />
the Kickapoo, Delaware, Munsee, and<br />
Wyandotte Tribes.<br />
The Shawnee Indian Methodist Mission and<br />
Manual Labor School was established in Turner,<br />
Wyandotte County, in 1830 by Reverend<br />
Thomas Johnson and in 1839 moved to its<br />
❖<br />
Above: Kansa Indian Charles Curtis<br />
served as vice-president of the United<br />
States during the Herbert Hoover<br />
administration.<br />
COURTESY OF THE KANSAS STATE<br />
HISTORICAL SOCIETY.<br />
Below: The Fort Leavenworth officer<br />
quarters. c. 1870.<br />
COURTESY OF THE KANSAS STATE<br />
HISTORICAL SOCIETY.<br />
Chapter I ✦ 7
❖<br />
Above: Reverend Thomas Johnson.<br />
COURTESY OF THE KANSAS STATE<br />
HISTORICAL SOCIETY.<br />
Below: Reverend Charles Bluejacket.<br />
COURTESY OF THE KANSAS STATE<br />
HISTORICAL SOCIETY.<br />
current location at 3403 West Fifty-third Street<br />
in Fairway. The Methodist Mission contained<br />
2,000 acres and 16 buildings, including mills,<br />
shops and factories where several thousand<br />
Indians were taught agriculture, manual trades<br />
and domestic arts until 1862 when it was closed.<br />
Methodist Missionary Thomas Johnson, who<br />
arrived in Kansas in November 1830, strongly<br />
believed in assimilating the Shawnee Indians<br />
into American society. His plan involved<br />
religious teaching, agricultural improvements,<br />
and creating boarding schools, which he<br />
believed would “civilize” the Shawnees by<br />
destroying their tribal bonds. He had charge of<br />
the school from 1830 to 1841 and from 1847 to<br />
1862. In 1855 and 1857 he served as president<br />
of the Kansas Territorial Council, which was the<br />
upper legislative body. He was shot and killed in<br />
1865 while living in Kansas City, Missouri.<br />
Johnson County was named for him.<br />
Reverend Charles Bluejacket who worked at<br />
the Mission came to the area in 1832, a boy of<br />
sixteen who had recently converted to<br />
Christianity in a mission school in Ohio. His<br />
qualities were immediately apparent and he was<br />
selected as an interpreter at the Shawnee<br />
Methodist Mission. Those who knew him<br />
described him as a faithful and courageous<br />
Christian, well bred, self possessed, intelligent,<br />
and a person of great character. He was also a<br />
chief of the Shawnee Tribe.<br />
The first Shawnee Indian Baptist Mission was<br />
established in 1831 through the efforts and<br />
influence of Reverend Isaac McCoy. Its location<br />
was at present-day Fifty-fifth and Walmer in<br />
Mission where a marker has been placed. In<br />
1833 Jotham Meeker came to the area from<br />
Michigan, bringing the first printing press to<br />
Kansas. He printed the first newspaper in the<br />
state of Kansas, the Shawnee Sun, which was also<br />
the first newspaper in the Shawnee language.<br />
The Mission was abandoned in 1855.<br />
Nearby, the Shawnee Quaker Mission was<br />
established in 1834 and remained open until<br />
1870. Its location was at present-day Sixty-first<br />
and Hemlock in Merriam where a marker has<br />
been placed.<br />
By 1854, a new treaty had been negotiated,<br />
with the Indians selling back to the United States<br />
all of the land with the exception of 200,000<br />
acres reserved for their homes, amounting to 200<br />
acres for each member of the tribe. In 1854 the<br />
Kansas Territory was opened for settlement. The<br />
Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed and signed by<br />
President Franklin Pierce. The Kansas Territory<br />
was opened up for white settlement.<br />
From November 24, 1854, to June 27, 1855,<br />
and from July 1855 to Spring 1856, the<br />
Shawnee Methodist Mission served as the<br />
capital of the Kansas Territory.<br />
8 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
OVERLAND TRAILS IN OVERLAND PARK<br />
BY ROSS MARSHALL<br />
Thousands of travelers in the nineteenth century crossed through today’s <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> as part of<br />
the westward movement of our nation. Instead of suburbs, residential streets and wide concrete<br />
highways, our city was once open prairie interrupted only by creeks, a few trees and the rutted<br />
wagon roads that carried trappers, traders, emigrant families, freighters and even missionaries to their<br />
destinations in Santa Fe, Oregon, California and other western locations.<br />
In recent years, several of the wagon roads that coursed through <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> have been<br />
designated by the United States Congress as National <strong>Historic</strong> Trails, under the 1968 National Trails<br />
System Act, because of their national significance.<br />
• The Santa Fe Trail: Designated by Congress in 1987, the Santa Fe Trail runs from Franklin,<br />
Missouri, to Santa Fe, New Mexico. It “officially” began in 1821 when William Becknell led a small<br />
trading party west from Franklin and ended up in Santa Fe, which was then a part of Mexico. Mexico<br />
had just won its independence from Spain that year and immediately removed the trade barriers that<br />
the mother country had erected for its former province. Although during most of its sixty-year useful<br />
life it was a commercial trade route, many emigrants also traveled this trail to the New Mexico<br />
Territory and California, and it was heavily used by the U.S. military in the 1846-48 Mexican War.<br />
• The Oregon Trail: Designated by Congress in 1978 in the first group of trails admitted under the<br />
1978 amendment allowing <strong>Historic</strong> Trails into the System, the Oregon Trail was first used by the<br />
mountain men in the fur trapper era in the 1820s-30s. Missionaries to Oregon traversed the trail<br />
in the late 1830s followed by the first substantial wave of emigrants as part of the Great Migration<br />
of 1843. Wagon trains would outfit and initially follow the Independence and Westport Routes of<br />
the Santa Fe Trail in April or May and begin the nearly two thousand mile trek to the Oregon<br />
Territory, arriving in September after a journey of four to five months. This migration was basically<br />
families who were drawn by the prospect of obtaining inexpensive fertile land, mostly in the<br />
Willamette Valley in Oregon.<br />
❖<br />
A view looking southwest from<br />
Metcalf just north of Johnson Drive<br />
toward Shawnee Mission North High<br />
School. The California Road from<br />
Westport to Lawrence crossed here<br />
heading west-southwest.<br />
Chapter II ✦ 9
❖<br />
Above: A view looking southwest from<br />
Antioch at about 150th Street. The<br />
Independence Route crosses here<br />
going southwest.<br />
Below: A view looking southeast at<br />
Oak <strong>Park</strong> Mall from Ninety-fifth and<br />
Quivira. The combined Westport<br />
Route courses to the southwest<br />
through this intersection.<br />
• The California Trail: Beginning with the<br />
Bidwell-Bartleson Party, who left from this area<br />
in 1841, emigrants began to respond to the<br />
opportunity to obtain large tracts of dry, but<br />
fertile, land in California, then still a province<br />
of Mexico. Mexico welcomed Americans, if<br />
they would become Mexican citizens and be<br />
law abiding. The news of the Donner-Reed<br />
Party tragedy in 1846 nearly halted overland<br />
emigration. But with the discovery of gold in<br />
1848, ’49ers filled the trail in an<br />
unprecedented migration to not only the new<br />
U.S. California Territory, but also to the<br />
Oregon Territory. This migration lasted for<br />
over thirty years, even past the completion of<br />
the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869.<br />
The fourth National <strong>Historic</strong> Trail in our<br />
metropolitan area is the Lewis and Clark Trail,<br />
designated by Congress in 1987. The Trail is<br />
defined as the route the Corps of Discovery<br />
traveled, under the leadership of Meriwether<br />
Lewis and William Clark, in 1804-06 to explore,<br />
survey, and record the vast lands and resources<br />
contained in the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, bought<br />
from France by President Thomas Jefferson. The<br />
route was almost completely on rivers; in our area<br />
they traveled the Missouri River. The bicentennial<br />
anniversary of this trail will be a national<br />
celebration during the years of 2003-2006.<br />
In the Kansas City area, the Santa Fe, Oregon,<br />
and California Trails followed the same routes<br />
from the outfitting points of Independence,<br />
Westport Landing, and Westport across the<br />
border into present-day Johnson County, Kansas.<br />
The Santa Fe Trail began first and its routes<br />
through our area were later used by the Oregon<br />
and California wagon trains. Just southwest of<br />
Gardner, Kansas, the Independence and Westport<br />
Routes met and near the same location, wagon<br />
trains to Oregon and California left the older<br />
Santa Fe Trail which continued on southwest, and<br />
headed northwest toward present-day Lawrence<br />
and Topeka.<br />
In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal<br />
Act of 1830, which called for the removal of all<br />
eastern tribes to the “Permanent Indian Frontier,”<br />
which was the land west of the western border of<br />
Missouri. This land throughout the great-plains<br />
west to the Rocky Mountains had been called the<br />
“Great American Desert” by early nineteenthcentury<br />
mapmakers. Present-day Kansas,<br />
including <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, was therefore Indian<br />
Territory until the passage by Congress of the<br />
Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which opened the<br />
territory to non-Indian settlement.<br />
During the prominent years of the wagon<br />
traffic through <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, the trail was free<br />
to follow the most natural way, sticking to the<br />
ridges and avoiding creeks as much as possible.<br />
After 1854, farms, fences, and county roads<br />
began to appear which affected the natural route<br />
of the trails. However, by the mid-1850s,<br />
Oregon and California travelers were going<br />
farther up the Missouri River on steamboats and<br />
the outfitting points moved from Independence<br />
and Westport to St. Joseph and Council Bluffs.<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> would see few additional<br />
emigrants to Oregon or California, but the Santa<br />
Fe wagons would continue to use the local<br />
routes to haul freight for another fifteen years.<br />
The Independence Route of the Santa Fe-<br />
Oregon-California Trails began in Independence<br />
and traveled south on the Blue Ridge. Near Red<br />
Bridge Road, after 1840, the trail descended this<br />
ridge, crossed the Big Blue River and entered<br />
10 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
Kansas near today’s 123rd Street. The route<br />
continued west-southwest for about three miles,<br />
entering the city limits of today’s <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
at about 139th and Nall. Four miles west at<br />
about 154th and Quivira at the old Morse<br />
village, the trail entered the city limits of Olathe<br />
and continued on toward the historic Lone Elm<br />
Campground near 167th and Lone Elm Road.<br />
The route continued on west-southwest to its<br />
junction with the Westport Route as mentioned<br />
above, near U.S. Highway 56 and 183rd Street<br />
southwest of Gardner, Kansas.<br />
The Westport Route of the Santa Fe-Oregon-<br />
California Trails traveled from Westport Landing<br />
situated along the Missouri River between<br />
Delaware Street and Grand Avenue, which<br />
included some of the original town lots of the<br />
Town of Kansas. The route went south down the<br />
Main Street-Grand Avenue-Broadway Street<br />
corridor to Westport. Two alternate routes from<br />
Westport were used. The north alternate went<br />
basically west on Westport Road, entering<br />
Kansas at about Forty-fifth Street and State Line<br />
Road. It continued west-southwest through<br />
Westwood, Roeland <strong>Park</strong> just north of Fairway’s<br />
historic Shawnee Indian Mission, through<br />
Mission and entered <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> at the<br />
eastern edge of the cloverleaf ramps at Metcalf<br />
Avenue and Shawnee Mission <strong>Park</strong>way.<br />
The south alternate of the Westport Route went<br />
south along the Wornall Road corridor and entered<br />
Kansas at about Sixty-ninth Terrace in Mission<br />
Hills. It passed through Harmon <strong>Park</strong> in Prairie<br />
Village and entered <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> at Eighty-third<br />
and Outlook. Continuing on west it met up with<br />
the north alternate just west of the Johnson County<br />
Library at about Eighty-eighth and Mastin. The<br />
combined route left <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> and entered the<br />
city limits of Lenexa at Ninety-fifth and Quivira.<br />
The Westport Route crossed Flat Rock Creek at<br />
103rd and Noland Streets, continued southwest<br />
along the I-35 corridor, passed just east of the<br />
Olathe Courthouse, passed through the Elm Grove<br />
Campground at Cedar Creek and U.S. Highway 56,<br />
and through the town of Gardner before meeting<br />
the Independence Route as described above.<br />
The California Road left Westport and linked<br />
up with the Oregon-California Trail at<br />
Lawrence. The California Road left the north<br />
alternate of the Westport Route at about 57th<br />
and Riggs in Mission and coursed west through<br />
a narrow neck of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> from Metcalf<br />
Avenue to Lowell Street along Johnson Drive.<br />
The trail continued on west through Merriam,<br />
past the Gum Springs in Shawnee and passed<br />
through Desoto on its way to Lawrence.<br />
The Fort Leavenworth Military Road was built<br />
by the United States Army in the late 1830s to<br />
carry patrols and supplies north and south<br />
between a string of forts along the edge of Indian<br />
Territory. The Road came from Fort Leavenworth,<br />
crossed the Kansas River at the Grinter House and<br />
Ferry at about Seventy-eighth Street in Kansas City,<br />
Kansas, passed close to Gum Springs (which is<br />
near Sixtieth and Goddard Streets) and entered<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> near Sixty-eighth and Antioch. It<br />
continued on southeast, crossing the north<br />
alternate of the Westport Route at about Seventyfifth<br />
and Lowell Street and the south alternate at<br />
Eighty-fourth and Lamar, leaving <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> at<br />
about Ninety-ninth and Mission Road. It followed<br />
very near the state line to Miami County and on to<br />
❖<br />
Above: A view looking west-southwest<br />
from Metcalf just south of Eighty-third<br />
Street. The South Branch of the<br />
Westport Route went along this line<br />
of sight.<br />
Below: A view looking south at the<br />
Johnson County Central Resource<br />
Library located at Eighty-seventh and<br />
Farley. The North Branch of the<br />
Westport Route goes southwest<br />
through that intersection. The South<br />
Branch goes through this parking lot.<br />
The two branches met just southwest<br />
of here.<br />
Chapter II ✦ 11
U.S. 69<br />
Lone Elm<br />
Campground<br />
❖<br />
LEGEND<br />
Santa Fe, Oregon,<br />
California Trail from<br />
Independence<br />
Leavenworth/Ft. Scott<br />
Military Road<br />
Santa Fe, Oregon,<br />
California Trail from<br />
Westport<br />
California Road,<br />
Westport to Lawrence<br />
Strang Line<br />
Interurban Railroad<br />
Olathe<br />
Above: A map of the historic trails<br />
through <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>.<br />
Right: The Daughters of the American<br />
Revolution in the middle and late<br />
1900s purchased and placed granite<br />
markers along the established route of<br />
the Santa Fe Trail. This marker was<br />
placed at Eightieth and Santa Fe in<br />
1906. It was moved to the northeast<br />
corner of this intersection when Santa<br />
Fe Drive was paved with bricks as<br />
part of the Kansas City-Olathe Road<br />
in the middle 1920s.<br />
Pflumm Rd.<br />
Pflumm Rd.<br />
Shawnee<br />
Lenexa<br />
Quivira Rd.<br />
Flat Rock Creek<br />
Campground<br />
Quivira Rd.<br />
U.S. 69<br />
Switzer Rd.<br />
Switzer Rd.<br />
Merriam<br />
I-35<br />
Antioch Rd.<br />
OVERLAND<br />
PARK<br />
Antioch Rd.<br />
179th St.<br />
183rd St.<br />
47th St.<br />
Mission<br />
Rosland<br />
<strong>Park</strong><br />
Fairway<br />
Johnson Dr.<br />
Prairie<br />
Village<br />
Mission<br />
Hills<br />
119th St.<br />
LEAWOOD<br />
Fort Scott and forts farther south. Some Oregon<br />
and California wagon trains (including Francis<br />
<strong>Park</strong>man’s in 1846) went from Westport to Gum<br />
Springs and north to Fort Leavenworth on the<br />
Military Road.<br />
The overland emigrants kept many diaries,<br />
numbering in the thousands, which give us an<br />
immense record of their travels and what they saw<br />
and experienced. In Johnson County, Kansas,<br />
such sites as the Quaker, Baptist and Methodist<br />
Shawnee Indian Missions were frequently<br />
mentioned, along with the Lone Elm and Elm<br />
Grove Campgrounds. However, few diaries failed<br />
to mention crossing the Missouri state line and<br />
entering into Indian Territory. Not only were they<br />
essentially leaving their country, but they were<br />
entering unknown lands with up to two thousand<br />
Metcalf Ave.<br />
Metcalf Ave.<br />
Nall Ave.<br />
79th St.<br />
87th St.<br />
95th St.<br />
Nall Ave.<br />
127th St.<br />
135th St.<br />
143rd St.<br />
151st St.<br />
159th St.<br />
103rd St.<br />
167th St.<br />
Mission Rd.<br />
I-435<br />
State Line Rd<br />
miles to go. This was a scary thing and was not<br />
taken lightly by the emigrants. They would see no<br />
organized non-Indian settlements until they<br />
reached Santa Fe, Oregon, or California, except<br />
for two or three U.S. Army forts.<br />
As the Independence and Westport Routes<br />
coursed through <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, the travelers<br />
were beginning to enter the so-called “treeless<br />
prairie.” As the trails left the grassy wooded<br />
lands near the Missouri border, no longer would<br />
they travel on the ridges to avoid the rivers and<br />
creeks. The routes became drier and needed to<br />
follow the rivers in order to have grass, water<br />
and wood, the three basic necessities for<br />
sustaining life on the trails.<br />
The overland wagon roads carried people<br />
with their hopes and dreams, and certainly their<br />
fears. Adventure, success and failure, and even<br />
life and death were a part of this vast westward<br />
movement. These historic trails are not just lines<br />
on a map or ruts across the landscape, but a<br />
reflection of the will of the human spirit to meet<br />
life’s challenges and achieve great things.<br />
The result was the assimilation into the United<br />
States of the Oregon, New Mexico, California and<br />
Utah Territories, along with all the rest of our<br />
western states. Vast new resources, lands and<br />
economic growth were added to our country<br />
which has enabled us to be the world power we<br />
are today, leading the pursuit of freedom,<br />
democracy and opportunity for the whole world.<br />
No other event in the history of the world<br />
compares to America’s westward movement<br />
whereby nearly half a million people traveled<br />
overland up to two thousand miles in order to<br />
establish new homelands. And it was completed<br />
in only about four decades! <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
shares in this marvelous national heritage.<br />
12 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
BLEEDING KANSAS<br />
BY NORMAN KEECH<br />
The Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 opened the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to settlement<br />
and gave the resident citizens the right to vote whether Kansas should be a slave state or free<br />
upon entering the Union. On March 1, 1867, Nebraska entered the Union under peaceful means<br />
as a free state. In order for Kansas to enter the Union, it was by far a more difficult matter. The<br />
border between eastern Kansas and western Missouri became a dangerous place to live. Kansas<br />
Jayhawkers and Missouri Bushwhackers raided both sides of the state line, creating a state of paranoia<br />
and confusion.<br />
Border Ruffians and Bushwhackers were Missouri’s pro-slavery guerrillas. They were noted for<br />
ambushes, plunder, arson and murder. In the 1850s, having crossed into Kansas, Border Ruffians and<br />
Bushwhackers promoted their cause and raided many communities.<br />
Samuel J. Jones, sheriff of Douglas County, Kansas Territory, led a large posse of men in an attack<br />
on Lawrence in 1856 under the guise of upholding the law. He also led other attacks on Free Staters.<br />
William Quantrill formed his own group of guerillas, which included the future outlaws<br />
Frank and Jesse James, Bill Anderson, and Cole Younger. Quantrill’s guerillas fought and slew<br />
Union soldiers and Free Staters along the Kansas and Missouri border. His most notorious attack was<br />
against Lawrence, Kansas, in August 1863 when he and 350 of his raiders killed 150 unarmed men<br />
and boys and burned most of the town. “Bloody Bill” Anderson eventually broke away from<br />
Quantrill’s force and led his own band of guerillas on looting and killing expeditions.<br />
On the Kansas side of the issue were the Abolitionists, Jayhawkers and Redlegs. They also were<br />
noted for ambushes, plunder, arson and murder, as well as creating havoc. Redlegs wore red leggings<br />
for identification.<br />
The abolitionist John Brown led several attacks on Kansas pro-slavers and Missouri Bushwhackers<br />
but is more known for his raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia. “Old John” Brown and his sons, using<br />
❖<br />
Bleeding Kansas. This mural is in the<br />
Kansas Capitol building and was<br />
completed in 1940 by John Stewart<br />
Curry. The central figure is John<br />
Brown who is surrounded by free-state<br />
and proslavery forces. The two figures<br />
at their feet represent the 1.5 million<br />
Civil War dead and wounded. During<br />
this turbulent Territorial era, Kansas<br />
became known as “Bleeding Kansas.”<br />
COURTESY OF THE KANSAS STATE<br />
HISTORICAL SOCIETY.<br />
Chapter III ✦ 13
❖<br />
The “Immortal Ten.” Dr. John Doy, an<br />
abolitionist and conductor on the<br />
Underground Railway, was taking<br />
thirteen men, women, and children,<br />
who were runaway slaves, north into<br />
Nebraska. The slaves, Doy, his son<br />
Charles, and a wagon driver named<br />
Clough encountered trouble when they<br />
were twelve miles outside of<br />
Lawrence, Kansas. They were taken<br />
prisoner by Benjamin Wood, mayor of<br />
Weston, Missouri, along with a<br />
professional slavecatcher named Jake<br />
Hurd, who led an armed posse. The<br />
wagon driver was soon freed, but Dr.<br />
Doy and his son were held in Platte<br />
City, Missouri, through the winter.<br />
Three of the black men were savagely<br />
whipped and sold back into slavery.<br />
The women and children also were<br />
sold. In St. Joseph, after months of<br />
delay, the Doys were finally charged<br />
with aiding a Missouri slave to<br />
escape. Charles Doy was acquitted,<br />
but his father was sentenced to five<br />
years at hard labor. In the meantime,<br />
anti-slavery leaders in Lawrence<br />
asked James B. Abbott, a supporter of<br />
the Underground Railroad, to lead<br />
fifty men on a raid to free the Doys.<br />
Abbott responded calmly, “I will try to<br />
find nine good men.” By deceiving the<br />
jailor, they effected the escape without<br />
firing a shot and returned with the<br />
Doys to Lawrence.<br />
COURTESY OF THE KANSAS STATE<br />
HISTORICAL SOCIETY.<br />
short-swords and their own brand of pike-like<br />
spears, were as bloody as any other participants.<br />
James H. Lane came to Kansas in 1855 and,<br />
being active in the U.S. military and<br />
government, became one of the leaders of the<br />
Jayhawks. He and Charles Jennison led men on<br />
many raids in Missouri burning and looting. At<br />
the end of the Civil War, Jim Lane served as a<br />
United States senator for two years after which<br />
he committed suicide.<br />
In 1858, Abraham Lincoln made political<br />
visits to the town of Leavenworth and<br />
northeastern Kansas to speak against slavery.<br />
Raids by initiative and retaliation raged<br />
along the border counties giving the name<br />
of “Bleeding Kansas” to the area; Johnson<br />
County was not to be left out. The town of<br />
Spring Hill was raided twice by Missouri<br />
Bushwhackers. Aubrey (the present day<br />
intersection of Metcalf and 199th Street) was<br />
raided five times. Quantrill’s guerillas raided<br />
Olathe once, in September 1862, and the town<br />
of Shawnee was raided twice, being virtually<br />
destroyed in October 1862. Gardner was<br />
raided twice.<br />
The village of Oxford was a community<br />
located at what is now 135th and Mission Road.<br />
In a fraudulent vote for or against slavery, over<br />
1,600 votes were cast out of a possible 200 votes<br />
in the whole township.<br />
On January 29, 1861, Kansas was admitted to<br />
the Union free of slavery as the thirty-fourth<br />
state. The state’s motto was “Ad Astra Per Aspera,”<br />
which is Latin meaning “To The Stars Through<br />
Difficulty”. In the year 2002, the statue of a<br />
Kansa Indian named “Ad Astra” was placed at<br />
the top of the Kansas state capitol building. He is<br />
shown shooting an arrow to the north star.<br />
On April 12, 1861, the Confederates fired on<br />
Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and the Civil War<br />
was started.<br />
During the Civil War the Shawnee Indian<br />
Methodist Mission, sometimes called “Johnson’s<br />
Mission”, served as housing for Kansas troops<br />
and a deployment area during the Battle of<br />
Westport in late 1864. The raids in the area had<br />
become so fierce that many Kansans and<br />
Missourians joined the army in the belief that it<br />
was safer than staying home.<br />
The Battle of Mine Creek was fought October<br />
25, 1864, near Pleasanton, Kansas. It was the<br />
largest battle involving Union and Confederate<br />
cavalry troops west of the Mississippi.<br />
In April 1865, General Robert E. Lee<br />
surrendered at Appomatox, Virginia, ending the<br />
Civil War. Johnson County finally had peace after<br />
years of “Bleeding Kansas” border wars. Soldiers<br />
and people who had moved away during the war<br />
returned to resume farming and business<br />
ventures. Immigration was also on the increase.<br />
14 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
SETTLERS, 1860S TO1900<br />
BY ANN OGDEN<br />
With the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, the area that was to become <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
was open to white settlers for the first time. Indians had long been in the area, and wagons going to<br />
the Spanish southwest for trade had been following the Santa Fe Trail since 1822.<br />
The winter of 1857-58 was the mildest on record, according to the “History of Johnson County”<br />
in the 1874 Johnson County Atlas. The ground didn’t freeze, allowing settlers to plow, break prairie and<br />
perform “other farm work with as much ease as in summer.”<br />
After this idyllic weather, settlers, including those who arrived after hearing glowing reports, were<br />
soon greeted with, in addition to pre-war political strife and anxiety, a severe drought. From June<br />
19,1859, no rain heavy enough to soak the soil fell until November 1860. Vegetation mostly dried<br />
up. The only food available for cattle and horses was hay first cut from prairie grasses, which had<br />
grown well in the spring, and then dried by the hot winds. Greatly discouraged, many left the area.<br />
However, weather conditions improved, and so did the outlook. The sectional map of Johnson<br />
County in the 1874 Johnson County Atlas described the county as “mainly a beautiful undulating<br />
prairie with abundant water, timber, and good building stone. It has four railroads in operation,<br />
affording excellent shipping facilities. Good Schools and Churches abound.” The population of<br />
Shawnee Township (later Shawnee and Mission townships) grew almost 150 percent, from 987 to<br />
2,451, in the ten years separating the 1860 and 1870 census reports. The county’s population stayed<br />
relatively stable at around 13,000 from the latter census through the rest of the 1800s.<br />
During that time, there was another disastrous period. The country was hit with a financial panic<br />
in 1873, and local crops were unusually light. This was followed in 1875 by another drought,<br />
❖<br />
The Louis D. Breyfogle, Sr. farmhome<br />
at Eighty-sixth and Metcalf. The<br />
Breyfogle children in the front yard<br />
are (from left to right) Elmora, Hilma,<br />
and Mary on steps, and Louis Jr., and<br />
George in yard.<br />
Chapter IV ✦ 15
❖<br />
Above: T. C. Porter farmhouse at<br />
Sixty-ninth and Mission Road. Porter<br />
came to Johnson County in 1858.<br />
Below: The John Goode farmhouse at<br />
Ninety-ninth was west of Metcalf<br />
about a quarter of a mile and was<br />
accessed by a farm lane to Metcalf.<br />
although a good wheat crop was harvested<br />
before the dry weather came. But this drought<br />
was accompanied by a grasshopper plague that<br />
came on suddenly, appearing first as a yellow<br />
cloud on the horizon. Masses of grasshoppers<br />
covered everything. They stripped the leaves off<br />
all the vegetation and devastated cornfields and<br />
pastures. The next year the grasshoppers<br />
hatched in large numbers but left in time for late<br />
plantings. Elizabeth Barnes, in <strong>Historic</strong> Johnson<br />
County described that season as “one of the most<br />
bountiful in the history of the state.”<br />
The area remained heavily agricultural for<br />
the remainder of the century. Farm work was all<br />
done using hand tools and wooden plows with<br />
metal tips. A team and wagon completed the<br />
basic farming essentials. Corn was the great<br />
staple, but wheat, oats, potatoes, other<br />
vegetables, and hay also were grown. Area<br />
orchards produced many bushels of fruit. Other<br />
farmers raised livestock, then drove the animals<br />
across the countryside to the Kansas City,<br />
Missouri, stockyards. Other important products<br />
were milk and butter. Without refrigeration<br />
as we know it, fruits and vegetables were<br />
preserved by drying and meats by drying or<br />
smoking. In the summer, milk and butter were<br />
kept cool in the well or a spring or with large<br />
blocks of ice that had been cut from streams in<br />
the winter and kept protected under thick layers<br />
of straw.<br />
Honey was another product. John Conser,<br />
whose name is prominent in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>’s<br />
history, won many blue ribbons for the honey<br />
his bees produced. He became a part of the<br />
community when he bought some 83 acres east<br />
of Metcalf (then known as Washington Cross<br />
Road) between Eighty-first and Eighty-third<br />
Streets shortly after the coming of the Kansas<br />
City, Fort Scott, and Gulf Railroad in 1867.<br />
That area around Metcalf was known as the<br />
Glenn Community, probably named after G. W.<br />
Glenn, who owned eighty acres west of Metcalf<br />
from Seventy-fifth to Seventy-ninth. From 1868<br />
to 1895 the Henderson family operated the Glenn<br />
post office from their farm home at about Seventyeighth<br />
and Metcalf. Mrs. Sara Henderson,<br />
postmistress, was assisted by her daughter, Ida.<br />
The Glenn post office received and sent out mail<br />
through the Merriam post office, which had access<br />
to the Frisco Railroad. Deliveries between the two<br />
postoffices were by horseback, and Glenn<br />
Community patrons picked up their letters and<br />
packages at the office, a wardrobe inside the<br />
Henderson farm home.<br />
16 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
In spite of their difficulties, or maybe because<br />
of them, settlers found time for social activities.<br />
Sunday School picnics, oyster suppers, barbecues,<br />
box suppers, and square dances were<br />
greatly anticipated. The charivari was a noisy<br />
occasion when the entire community gathered<br />
at the home of newlyweds. They arrived with<br />
refreshments while the couple slept, tooting<br />
horns, banging on pans, ringing cowbells—<br />
anything to waken the couple for their party.<br />
Sometimes gatherings were to exchange<br />
work, as in a house raising, or to help with<br />
plowing, planting, or harvesting. These were<br />
daylong activities, with the women working<br />
together in preparing huge noon meals and<br />
early suppers, while the men did the outdoor<br />
work. At quilting bees women gathered around<br />
a large frame and visited as they quilted the<br />
hostess’s hand-pieced tops.<br />
Education was important from the beginning.<br />
The earliest schools were the Baptist, Methodist,<br />
and Quaker missions for Indians. The first<br />
territorial legislature enacted laws in 1855<br />
providing for free schooling for children from 5 to<br />
21 years of age. In 1861, when the Wyandotte<br />
constitution was adopted, schools came under a<br />
county superintendent, with a state<br />
superintendent charged with general supervision<br />
of state school funds and educational interests. The<br />
framework for public schools was in place.<br />
However, the first schools in the area were<br />
voluntary and financed by subscription. The<br />
forerunner of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Elementary School<br />
was of this type. Ed Burke, an Irish immigrant<br />
and surveyor by trade, provided the land for<br />
and headed a group that established the<br />
Pleasant Prairie School.<br />
The school opened sometime around the end<br />
of the Civil War, approximately between Eightyfifth<br />
and Eighty-sixth streets at about Grant.<br />
Students paid $23 a year to attend, probably for<br />
eight months. The first teacher was Octavia<br />
“Tavie Ann” Porter, who rode to the school by<br />
horseback from what is now Sixty-ninth and<br />
Mission Road, about a ten-mile round trip.<br />
From about 1866 until 1873, the school met<br />
in a 16x24 foot building purchased in Shawnee<br />
and moved. In 1873 it was organized as School<br />
District 38 and on March 27, $1,500 in bonds<br />
was voted for a new building. Described as<br />
“roomy and comfortable,” the new frame<br />
❖<br />
Above: Wood frame schoolhouses such<br />
as this served the school children in<br />
Mission Township school districts from<br />
1865 to the 1910s.<br />
Below: Henry Coppock bought Indian<br />
Graham Rogers’ farm in the late<br />
1850s and made it into a show farm<br />
as documented in the 1874 Johnson<br />
County Atlas.<br />
Chapter IV ✦ 17
❖<br />
Elijah Chase, related to the Chase<br />
banking family of New York, came to<br />
Kansas to serve in the Quaker Indian<br />
Mission at Sixty-first and Hemlock.<br />
He taught the Indians at the Mission<br />
to plant row crops and introduced<br />
them to sweet potatoes. When the<br />
Mission closed, Elijah Chase stayed<br />
here building a substantial brick<br />
residence at Seventy-second just east<br />
of Antioch, which still stands today.<br />
building, with outdoor toilets behind it, housed<br />
eight grades. The school remained there until<br />
1909, when it was moved to its present location<br />
at Eighty-second and Santa Fe and renamed<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Grade School.<br />
Prior to 1888, students in the county<br />
attended as long as they were willing or able.<br />
Beginning that year, those who passed a<br />
countywide examination took part in a<br />
graduation ceremony and received a diploma.<br />
The first graduates of Pleasant Prairie were<br />
Grace, Lizzie, and John Breyfogle and Agnes and<br />
David <strong>Park</strong>, and the school board officers were<br />
L. W. Breyfogle, Archibald <strong>Park</strong>, and John Coe.<br />
School District 1 grew from Scarritt’s Chapel<br />
established in 1857 as a church and school<br />
south of 103rd Street, approximately at Metcalf.<br />
As farm boundaries and regular roads became<br />
more prevalent, children could no longer ride<br />
across the open land and distances became too<br />
great, according to Linwood School: A Century of<br />
Spirit. As a result, Scarritt School split in 1868.<br />
The new school, “The Little Brown School<br />
House” built on the northeast corner of Ninetyninth<br />
and Mission Road, was the first in Linwood<br />
District 1 and also was used for church services<br />
and community activities. When the building<br />
burned in 1883, it was replaced with a larger one<br />
and the name Linwood was adopted. On<br />
February 8, 1893, another fire took that building.<br />
It was insured for $600, and the furniture for<br />
$200. With no suitable room available, the<br />
patrons decided at a meeting February 11 at the T.<br />
S. Staver home, to dismiss the teacher, Mr. W. O.<br />
Staver, paying him $80 (two months wages), and<br />
to start school a month earlier in the fall.<br />
In The Settlement of the Stanley Area, Ernest<br />
Kellogg recalled the first school he attended in the<br />
spring of 1868 as “a log cabin located on the<br />
southeast corner of the farm owned by J. L.<br />
Young…. In those days our school laws provided<br />
for a spring or summer term of three months. In<br />
time for the fall term of 1868, which lasted four to<br />
five months, a building was erected in the area of<br />
Stanley…. (It) was of box construction, broad<br />
boards nailed up and down on the frame. The<br />
room was open from floor to roof, no inside walls<br />
or ceiling... Miss Victory Quarles was our first<br />
teacher, sister of W. T. Quarles.”<br />
In all the area schools, teachers were paid a<br />
higher monthly wage for the fall-winter term<br />
than for the spring one. This two-term system<br />
lasted until about 1888, when it was replaced<br />
with a single term of eight months.<br />
Churches ranked alongside schools in<br />
importance. However two that later formed the<br />
basis of present-day <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Presbyterian<br />
Church might not have come to Kansas had<br />
it not been for an incident of the Civil War.<br />
A war department order forbade ministers<br />
from conducting services in Missouri unless they<br />
first took an oath of allegiance to the Union. Many<br />
who were loyal to the Union refused, considering<br />
“the order unjust, uncalled for, and an affront to<br />
18 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
❖<br />
Left: The Antioch Cumberland<br />
Presbyterian Church at Seventy-fifth<br />
and Antioch in the old Quaker<br />
cemetery, was built in 1873.<br />
Below: The Corinth Cumberland<br />
Presbyterian Church at Eighty-third<br />
and Mission was built in 1872<br />
Chapter IV ✦ 19
❖<br />
The John Marty farmhome at<br />
Seventy-fifth and Santa Fe, was built<br />
about 1900. American Legion Post<br />
370 stands at this location today.<br />
the church,” as Edgar A. Porter stated in a<br />
<strong>Historic</strong>al Sketch of the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> First<br />
Presbyterian Church celebrating the Church’s<br />
twenty-fifth anniversary in 1936.<br />
In this group was the Reverend J. W. Morrow,<br />
minister of the Westport Cumberland<br />
Presbyterian Church, which had two elders<br />
living on Mission Road: T. A. Lewis at Sixtyseventh<br />
and Thomas Carson Porter at Sixtyninth.<br />
The church began meeting in a nice grove<br />
between the houses in good weather, and<br />
alternating between the homes in poor weather.<br />
Following a series of revival meetings in<br />
1869 at the Dyche School, now Corinth,<br />
Morrow organized a church out on the prairie in<br />
1870. With one hundred charter members, the<br />
new Corinth Cumberland Presbyterian Church<br />
erected a substantial brick (not stone, as<br />
mistakenly pictured and noted in the 1874<br />
Atlas) church, 33 by 56 feet, at a cost of $4,600<br />
the following year. Made on the three-acre site,<br />
the first bricks were not fired right, and they<br />
had to be done over. The church was dedicated<br />
January 7, 1872, free of debt.<br />
On the third sabbath of February 1872,<br />
Reverend Morrow began a series of meetings at<br />
Marty School (about Seventy-fifth and Lowell),<br />
“which resulted in much great good, with<br />
twenty-nine accessions to the church,”<br />
according to the 1874 Atlas. The new members<br />
had been Quakers, closely associated with the<br />
Quaker Mission near Sixty-first and Hemlock,<br />
but were without a church then. They did have<br />
The Pioneers Cemetery at Seventy-fifth and<br />
Antioch, on land that had belonged to Elijah<br />
Chase. Chase, a descendent of the New York<br />
banking family, taught agriculture at the Quaker<br />
Mission. In the second in the series on Johnson<br />
County landmark homes in The Sun<br />
Newspapers, Audley Porter reported that Chase<br />
passed up the opportunity to select a site for his<br />
uncle, Ezra Cornell, to establish an agricultural<br />
school here. Cornell University later was<br />
founded in upstate New York.<br />
On September 14, 1873, the Antioch<br />
Cumberland Presbyterian Church dedicated its<br />
new 28-by-46-foot frame building, costing<br />
about $2,000, on the two-acre cemetery site on<br />
Antioch. The two churches shared the minister<br />
on alternate Sundays, with the fifth Sunday of<br />
any month being a vacation for the churches<br />
and the minister. About a quarter-scale replica<br />
of the Antioch church now stands there.<br />
Both the Antioch and the Corinth cemeteries<br />
not only have graves of many well-known<br />
pioneer families, but also are still being used.<br />
20 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
FOUNDING OF OVERLAND PARK<br />
BY FLORENT WAGNER<br />
At the beginning of the twentieth century the area around Seventy-ninth Street and the old<br />
Military Highway was the location of many successful farms, a general store and a renowned honey<br />
producing farmer. The general store was at the northeast corner of Seventy-ninth and the Military<br />
Highway. It was run by Grant Conser, who handled every need of the surrounding farmers for<br />
machinery, equipment, household goods, clothing and a general store line. Grant’s father, John<br />
Conser, continued to own a small acreage at Eighty-third Street directly south and was still known<br />
far and wide in several adjoining states for his prize winning honey.<br />
Conway Holmes ran a very successful Guernsey dairy farm. The Gruber, Hoge, Marty, Proctor,<br />
Breyfogle, Henderson, Metcalf, Watson, Jessup, Barthol, Goode, Coe, Phillips, Moody, Wedd, and<br />
Voigts families ran some of the most successful farms in Johnson County. A. M. Wood, a farmer from<br />
LaHarp, Kansas, moved to the area in 1908. Wood went into the real estate and insurance business<br />
in the new community founded in 1906. His sons continued in farming.<br />
In 1903, Grant Conser started the Home Telephone Company. He had seven or more lines that he<br />
operated from his general store. When he moved to Eightieth and Santa Fe Trail Boulevard, the telephone<br />
company was still in the store. Another competing telephone company called the Enterprise Telephone<br />
Company was also started in the area. This company was bought out by the Home Telephone Company.<br />
The Home Telephone Company continued to operate in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> until it became part of the AT&T<br />
system, ultimately becoming part of the SBC System. The Home Telephone Company operated out of a<br />
two-story house on the north side of Eightieth Street east of a lumber company across the street from the<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> State Bank. This two-story house was moved in 1953 or 1954 to the northwest corner of<br />
Eighty-fifth and Metcalf where it stands today. Ida Morrison, Mildred Docker and many other<br />
switchboard operators gave exceptional service to the telephone subscribers for years.<br />
❖<br />
Eightieth and Santa Fe did not exist<br />
in the early 1900s when William<br />
Strang bought the first six hundred<br />
acres for his new town. It was all<br />
pasture and crop land with a few<br />
hedges serving as farm boundaries.<br />
Chapter V ✦ 21
❖<br />
Right: A 1902 plat map of Mission<br />
Township, Johnson County, Kansas<br />
showing the land owned by various<br />
farmers and landowners. The outlined<br />
area on the left side of the map<br />
represents the six hundred acres<br />
William B. Strang purchased to build<br />
his new Community in 1905.<br />
Below: When Grant Conser’s first<br />
store in downtown <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
burned in 1911, Conser moved the<br />
Home Telephone Company office and<br />
switchboard to a two story house he<br />
built on the north side of Eightieth<br />
Street catercorner across the street<br />
from the Bank.<br />
Opposite, top: The construction of the<br />
Missouri and Kansas Interurban<br />
Railway Company line in 1905-06.<br />
Horses and mules graded the roadbed<br />
where oak ties were laid and seventypound,<br />
iron rails were spiked to the<br />
ties. The man on horseback at<br />
the right may have been William B.<br />
Strang, owner of the Line, supervising<br />
the construction.<br />
William B. Strang, a railroad developer and<br />
builder, living in New York City, was visiting his<br />
mother in Kansas City during the 1903 major<br />
flood of the Kansas River in the business and<br />
residential areas of the city. Strang decided he<br />
would build a new community that would be<br />
flood free, easily connected to Kansas City and<br />
Olathe by an interurban line he could build, and<br />
the community would serve as Strang’s home<br />
and retirement.<br />
For two years William B. Strang had looked<br />
all over the Kansas City area and finally decided<br />
on the land around Seventy-ninth and the<br />
Military Highway. In November 1905, Strang<br />
optioned 240 acres from Frank Gruber, forty<br />
acres from John Marty, and 320 acres from<br />
Charles O. Proctor, south of Seventy-ninth to<br />
Eighty-seventh Street west of the Highway.<br />
Strang had already started building an<br />
interurban railroad line from the Frisco tracks in<br />
the center of Lenexa back northeast to where he<br />
optioned this six hundred acres of land, and on<br />
northeast along the Santa Fe Trail to Kansas City,<br />
Missouri. Some of the farmers along the route<br />
like John Marty, gave Strang an easement across<br />
their land provided he built anything but a steam<br />
locomotive line.<br />
Railroad builders of this era had three types of<br />
power to move the big railroad engines and heavy<br />
cars - steam, the major, long over-the-road force;<br />
gasoline, which had great power at high speeds<br />
but required excessive gearing and clutching to<br />
start heavy loads; and electricity, either a third rail<br />
or overhead trolley. The third rail was expensive<br />
Opposite, middle: The “Ogerita”. the<br />
Strang Line’s first self contained<br />
railroad car, with gasoline engine tied<br />
to a generator in the car, feeding<br />
electricity to batteries on the car,<br />
drawing electricity to drive motors<br />
on the wheels of the car. Strang<br />
incorporated many innovative<br />
patents he owned building this car, the<br />
forerunner of our modern diesel<br />
locomotive.<br />
Opposite, bottom: The “Marguerite,”<br />
named for Strang’s wife, Margaret, a<br />
larger more conventional selfcontained<br />
car. Note that there is no<br />
overhead trolley or wire, but large<br />
muffler pipe on top of car.<br />
22 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
and very dangerous at intersections and if<br />
contacted with either side rail. The overhead<br />
trolley required expensive copper wire. Strang<br />
had been working with several electrical<br />
manufacturers and the J. G. Brill Company of<br />
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a division of the<br />
Pullman Company to develop a special railcar.<br />
This car contained an engine connected to a<br />
generator, which ran the electricity to batteries in<br />
the car and drew on these batteries to run electric<br />
motors on the wheels of the car. Strang patented<br />
a number of innovative ideas on such a railcar,<br />
including using the battery energy to start the<br />
gasoline engine. Many of his ideas and principles<br />
are used on our modern diesel locomotives.<br />
Strang made history when he brought his first<br />
car, named the “Ogerita” for one of his nieces,<br />
from Philadelphia to <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> in February,<br />
1906. He stopped at all of the major railroad<br />
centers along the route through Pittsburgh,<br />
Toledo, Chicago, and St. Louis to Kansas City to<br />
show his innovative new railcar to railroad<br />
owners. The car was very efficient averaging a<br />
cost of forty-three cents per mile to operate and<br />
performing excellently for all to see.<br />
Strang used the “Ogerita” to help build the<br />
track for the Missouri and Kansas Interurban<br />
Railroad Company connecting to the Frisco<br />
Railroad by a siding at Lenexa, Kansas. The<br />
railroad bed was graded adjoining the Frisco tracks<br />
on the south as both lines headed east from<br />
Lenexa. As the Frisco tracks curved north, the<br />
“Strang Line” as the line was popularly known,<br />
continued more east, located between Eightyeighth<br />
and Eighty-ninth Streets when it crossed<br />
Switzer Road, continuing on largely straight east<br />
until about one-half mile west of Antioch where<br />
the line curved more northeast along the old Santa<br />
Fe Trail public road. Incidentally, Strang had the<br />
old public road vacated and replatted to run<br />
adjoining his line on the north and west of the line.<br />
The “Strang Line” curved slightly northeast to<br />
straight north between Seventy-ninth and<br />
Eightieth Streets continuing north on John Marty’s<br />
property to Seventy-first Street, then curving a<br />
little west between Seventy-first street and Sixtyseventh<br />
Street, going straight north from Sixtyseventh,<br />
crossing the old Highway 50 and on to<br />
Sixtieth Street. There the line curved northeast and<br />
crossed the old Military Highway about Fifty-ninth<br />
Street, just north of Johnson Drive, wound along<br />
the ridge between Fifty-eighth and Fifty-third<br />
Street and Lamar where it crossed in a northeast<br />
direction continuing northeast to Fifty-first Street<br />
about Beverly Street, straight east along Fifty-first<br />
Street across Roe then winding along the ridge to<br />
Forty-seventh and Wyandotte County Line,<br />
crossing the northwest corner of Forty-seventh<br />
Chapter V ✦ 23
❖<br />
Above: The Strang Line’s “Ogerita”<br />
pulling two open-air trailers hauling<br />
patrons to a festive occasion in<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>.<br />
Top, right: A Strang Line map of the<br />
interurban line in Kansas and<br />
Missouri.<br />
Below: The Strang Line Car Barn at<br />
Seventy-ninth and Santa Fe about<br />
1910. The original building was 60 by<br />
100 feet, shown on the right half of<br />
the picture. A 40-by-60-foot addition,<br />
shown on the left of the picture, was<br />
added in 1908 to house two Buckeye<br />
electricity generators.<br />
and Mission Road, winding northeast through<br />
Rosedale to Forty-first and State Line. Kansas<br />
University Medical Center was not there in 1906,<br />
but Strang built the Olathe Boulevard on the north<br />
side of his line, which is the south boundary of the<br />
Medical Center today. Strang engineered his line to<br />
hug the ridge between Brush Creek on the south<br />
and Turkey Creek on the north thereby avoiding<br />
any bridges or culverts on his line that might be<br />
washed out by a flood.<br />
In August 1906 the Strang Line received the<br />
second of its new cars, the “Marguerite” named<br />
for William B. Strang’s wife, Margaret. It was 62<br />
feet long and heavier than the “Ogerita,” a real<br />
workhorse for the line. In the spring of 1907, the<br />
“Geraldine,” named for another niece, arrived. It<br />
was a general trolley car. That fall the fourth car,<br />
the “Irene”, was delivered to the Strang Line.<br />
This was the first railroad car with steel siding<br />
and carpeted floors with wicker and plush<br />
seating, a drawing room rolling down the rails.<br />
The Strang self-contained cars performed<br />
very economically, but if the cars were heavily<br />
loaded or pulling open trailers as they often did<br />
to auctions and special activities, the cars stalled<br />
and delayed everything. The gasoline engines<br />
needed maintenance and few mechanics were<br />
available. Finally, in the winter of 1908-09 the<br />
line was converted to an electrified overhead<br />
trolley line at a cost of $800,000.00. Strang had<br />
gas wells on property he owned. He piped this<br />
gas into the car barn he had built at Seventyninth<br />
and Santa Fe. This car barn built in 1907-<br />
08 was 60 feet wide by 100 feet long. Then in<br />
1908-09 Strang added a 40 by 60 feet addition<br />
on the south end of this Car Barn to house two<br />
50,000 Watt Buckeye generators. These provided<br />
electricity to the Line as well as to churches<br />
and schools along the Line and residences on<br />
the east side of Olathe. Strang’s gas wells continued<br />
to serve the generators until about 1915<br />
when they were exhausted. The Strang Line<br />
contracted with a new electric company, which<br />
later was merged into Kansas City Power and<br />
Light Company, to buy electricity. This became a<br />
major impetus for Kansas City Power and Light<br />
Company to enter the Johnson County market.<br />
They got an easement along the Strang Line<br />
right-of-way, which became one of their major<br />
high-lines into Johnson County. Kansas City<br />
Power and Light serving the east side of Olathe<br />
today may have resulted from Strang’s activities<br />
with the power company. The power company<br />
had so much activity in the Johnson County<br />
area that the Kansas Division of Kansas City<br />
Power & Light Company moved from<br />
Wyandotte County to <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> in 1924.<br />
24 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
❖<br />
Above: William B. Strang, railroad<br />
developer and builder who lived in<br />
New York City in 1900s. He came to<br />
the area to found a flood free<br />
community and retirement for himself.<br />
When the Strang Line converted to the overhead<br />
trolley, three of the first cars were sold to<br />
other lines. The “Marguerite” was converted to a<br />
freight car by Ben Sopher, a contractor in Lenexa.<br />
The “Marguerite” served the Strang Line for the<br />
rest of the Line’s life, hauling freight or pulling<br />
freight cars like coal, lumber and grain cars.<br />
The Strang Line made its first official run as an<br />
interurban line May 20, 1906. The Strang car left<br />
Lenexa, made a short stop at <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, and<br />
arrived at Forty-first and State Line 27 minutes<br />
later. It took twenty-three minutes coming back<br />
to Lenexa. The fare from Lenexa to Kansas City<br />
was fifteen cents round trip. In 1909 at Forty-first<br />
and State Line, tracks were built to the Kansas<br />
City street car line at Thirty-ninth and traveled on<br />
City street car tracks to downtown Kansas City.<br />
The Strang Line then started pushing south<br />
toward Olathe, Kansas. The road bed was graded<br />
adjoining the Frisco right-of-way on the east<br />
side of the Frisco tracks from 110th to 127th,<br />
then straight ahead as the Frisco curved west,<br />
the Strang line going south to 135th Street,<br />
there turning west on the south side of Santa Fe<br />
Street. In the fall of 1906 the Strang Line’s<br />
southern depot was at about Santa Fe and<br />
Ridgeview. A carriage hauled patrons to downtown<br />
Olathe. In 1907 Strang got permission to<br />
cross the Frisco tracks and go west on <strong>Park</strong><br />
Street one block south of Santa Fe Street to the<br />
Strang station in a restaurant building just west<br />
of Johnson County Court House. A “Y” turnaround<br />
was the end of the line just across a<br />
courtyard from the Olathe Santa Fe Depot.<br />
William Strang realized he needed something<br />
to attract people to the new community he was<br />
building. At the same time he was building<br />
the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Depot he built a dance hall<br />
he called Santa Fe Trail Hall. In August 1906,<br />
after the opening of his <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Depot,<br />
Strang platted six subdivisions in this new<br />
community, <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. The subdivisions<br />
were <strong>Overland</strong>, <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, <strong>Overland</strong> Lots,<br />
Left: Two Buckeye electricity<br />
generators inside the forty-foot south<br />
addition to the Strang Line Car Barn,<br />
operated by gas from wells on some of<br />
the six hundred acres Strang<br />
originally bought. Tom Linn, Leo<br />
Davis, and other electrical engineers<br />
are in front of the generators.<br />
Below: The “Marguerite” was<br />
converted to a freight trolley car when<br />
the Strang Line was changed to a<br />
trolley line. The “Marguerite” was<br />
stopped across Eightieth Street and the<br />
farmer backed his wagon up to the<br />
car to unload his grain or produce<br />
directly into the freight car.<br />
Chapter V ✦ 25
❖<br />
Above: Margaret Strang, wife of<br />
William B. Strang.<br />
Top, right: Tom Riley and his “righthand”<br />
man, Bill George at the Olathe<br />
Strang Line Depot. George ran the<br />
right-of-way maintenance crew for the<br />
Strang Line.<br />
Below: A view of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
suburban homes on large half-acre or<br />
acre lots, with room for a barn and<br />
chicken house for a cow and chickens.<br />
Opposite, top: A Fourth of July<br />
celebration at <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> in<br />
1906-1907. Note the man on the<br />
right with a walking-stick cane<br />
containing a U.S. Flag.<br />
Opposite, middle: Strang Line Depot<br />
at <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> when first built in<br />
1906.<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> Summit, <strong>Overland</strong> Hill and <strong>Overland</strong><br />
Heights. The subdivisions carried restrictions<br />
about the minimum costs of a house, hooking<br />
on gas lines when they became available, and<br />
the location and size of outbuildings on a lot<br />
other than the principal residence. Strang created<br />
one of the first suburban communities in the<br />
metro area. He had some small lots in the downtown<br />
area, but he generally wanted to sell a family<br />
a half an acre or acre lot to have room for a<br />
barn and chicken house with plenty of garden<br />
room. The idea was to ride the Strang Line to<br />
shopping or work in the downtown metro area<br />
and home on a high, cool ride to their residence<br />
in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> where they could live in parklike<br />
surroundings, raise their own vegetables,<br />
have fresh milk and butter and fresh eggs and<br />
home fed chicken dinners.<br />
William Strang built Santa Fe Trail Hall, and<br />
started promoting dances every night of the<br />
week and especially Friday, Saturday and<br />
Sunday. He had his real estate agents at every<br />
dance urging visitors to locate in his new community<br />
by buying lots here. The land and lot<br />
sales were handled by a separate corporation,<br />
called the Strang Land Company. William B.<br />
Strang and his wife Margaret were the major<br />
owners and controllers of this company, but<br />
Thomas Riley was the vice president in charge.<br />
The Land Company held its first auction with<br />
one free lot in September, 1906, with Col. Andy<br />
James as auctioneer. Many auctions were held in<br />
the next few years. These were major public<br />
events with a festival atmosphere. One weekend<br />
$30,000.00 of land and lots were sold.<br />
William Strang bought other land along his<br />
railroad line and platted more subdivisions—<br />
Southridge, Morrison Ridge 1 and 2, Tower<br />
Grove, Eleanora Heights, Milburn, MoKaw<br />
Highlands, Shawnee, and many others,<br />
including Westlake. He needed riders for his<br />
interurban line to be successful. His<br />
developments increased the price of land in<br />
northeast Johnson County from $250.00 per<br />
acre to $500.00 per acre and even up to<br />
$1000.00 per acre for some land. The main<br />
growth in the northeast part of the county<br />
centered around the Strang Line and another<br />
interurban called the Hocker Line which went<br />
as far west from Kansas City as Zarah, Kansas.<br />
The interurbans were an easy, faster means of<br />
transportation to the metro areas, the rail route<br />
transporting passengers from Kansas City to<br />
Olathe in about an hour and from Kansas City<br />
Opposite, bottom: Strang Line<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Depot with Santa Fe<br />
Trail Hall in the center between tracks<br />
and Santa Fe Trail Drive, with the<br />
first commercial store building under<br />
construction, on the left.<br />
26 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
to <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> in about thirty minutes. The<br />
horse and buggy or wagon took about three<br />
hours to get from <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> to the city.<br />
The Strang Line Depot in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> and<br />
Santa Fe Trail Hall were completed as the first<br />
buildings in the new community. At the same<br />
time a rock building was being built on the<br />
northwest corner of Eightieth and Santa Fe Trail<br />
Road which became a grocery, confectionary and<br />
tobacco shop and part of it housed the Strang<br />
Land Company office. These businesses were<br />
lighted by gas, but heated by wood or coal in potbellied<br />
stoves or furnaces. The Depot and later<br />
Strang Line office is hidden inside the Suburban<br />
Decoration shop today with their west show<br />
room built over the railroad-loading platform.<br />
Santa Fe Trail Hall was first located north of<br />
Eightieth Street in what is now the center of<br />
Santa Fe Street. It was 27 feet wide by 60 feet<br />
long. By 1909 it was moved on the east side of<br />
the Strang Tracks, directly north of the Depot<br />
and a bandstand was built in its place. In 1913<br />
this building was torn down and the maplespring<br />
dance floor was moved to a new pavilion<br />
Strang built in the new Aviation <strong>Park</strong> and Field<br />
at the southwest corner of the new community.<br />
Strang quickly talked Grant Conser into<br />
locating his general store in the new community<br />
at the northwest corner of Eightieth and Foster.<br />
Conser built a wood frame two story building<br />
here in 1907. Conser had also purchased other<br />
lots around downtown <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, some on<br />
Santa Fe, and some on the new Conser Street.<br />
George Howell, a very successful blacksmith<br />
moved his business to <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. Nearby a<br />
stable was built. A restaurant was built to feed the<br />
people not bringing a picnic lunch to the<br />
auctions, festivals and attractions Strang<br />
promoted. Strang built a grandstand and baseball<br />
diamond by his trolley line car barn at Seventyninth<br />
and Santa Fe. Baseball was the relatively<br />
new game at this time and was threatened with<br />
fines as a violation of the Blue Laws, if played on<br />
Sunday, but soon it was declared not to be such a<br />
violation by the Supreme Court. William B.<br />
Strang being always an entrepreneur and<br />
promoter, had his real estate agents at these<br />
activities trying to sell lots, and that they did.<br />
By early in 1910, A. M. Wood had built a two<br />
story building on the southwest corner of 80th<br />
and Foster to house his real estate and insurance<br />
business, grocery, office supplies and gift stores<br />
on the main floor with dentist office and rooms<br />
upstairs. In 1910 Strang convinced the Post<br />
Office Department to open an <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
office, which first was located in the northwest<br />
corner of the Wood Building, later across the<br />
Chapter V ✦ 27
28 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK<br />
street in the Conser Building. A feed store was<br />
started, and plumbing, decorating, and carpenter<br />
shops were opened. In 1910 the <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> Bank was incorporated with William<br />
Strang, prominent farmers and Olathe bankers<br />
and businessmen as incorporators. The bank<br />
started building a brick building at Eightieth<br />
and <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Boulevard directly across<br />
and east of the Strang Depot. Formal dedication<br />
was held in July 1911, with gifts of cigars for<br />
the gentlemen and fans for the ladies.<br />
When a new community is started, the most<br />
important thing is to attract people to buy lots<br />
and build homes. William Strang was a promoter<br />
par-excellence. Dances and baseball games<br />
drew crowds. Auctions of lots and festivals drew<br />
large attendance of local farmers and other community<br />
residents as well as large numbers from<br />
both Kansas Cities when the Strang Line offered<br />
one low price for a round trip ticket to <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> and back home as well as admission to<br />
some activity or event.<br />
The newest exciting thing for people was<br />
aero activities—ballooning and aeroplaning.<br />
The promoters of the Kansas City Priest of<br />
Palace Festival tried to get Charles Hamilton,<br />
who flew the plane that had won the<br />
International Air Race at Rheims, France to<br />
come to their festival. Hamilton flew this plane<br />
from his farm near St. Joseph, Missouri. He<br />
asked the festival promoters $1,000 per day to<br />
bring and fly this plane at the festival. The promoters<br />
would not pay this amount. William<br />
Strang convinced Hamilton to load his plane on<br />
a freight car, and bring it to the Strang Car Barn<br />
in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. He then reassembled the<br />
plane and Strang promoted the first public<br />
flight west of the Mississippi River from a field<br />
east of the Car Barn. This flight was made<br />
December 23, 1909. Flights were promoted<br />
from this field for the next two weeks, until<br />
Hamilton’s engine broke.<br />
A hangar was constructed by the grandstand,<br />
which had been used for baseball fans, just east<br />
of the Car Barn. This airfield served for the next<br />
year for many aviators, both demonstrating<br />
their flying machines and for cross-country<br />
flights. Aviators in Wright Brothers’ planes, Bob<br />
Fowler, Perry Rogers, Charles Hamilton, and<br />
DeLoyd Thompson all brought their machines<br />
to <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, Kansas. The record for
❖<br />
Opposite, top: Santa Fe Trail Hall was<br />
built west of the Strang Line tracks,<br />
then torn down and moved directly<br />
east across the tracks. At the far left is<br />
Claude Mill’s house and in left<br />
background is the Tom Linn Victorian<br />
residence.<br />
Opposite, middle: George Howell’s<br />
blacksmith shop opened in the new<br />
Community before 1910.<br />
attaining 500 feet above the ground was<br />
established at the field east of the Car Barn in<br />
1909, but it was not given official recognition<br />
because Charles Hamilton was not a member of<br />
the Kansas City Aero Club, and after his falling<br />
out with Kansas City about the Priest of Palace<br />
Festival, the Kansas City Aero Club would not<br />
certify the record.<br />
“Aeroplanes” of the 1910 era were very<br />
flimsy, light vehicles built of bamboo and<br />
rubberized silk on the wings, with small engines<br />
and a limited amount of gas carrying capacity.<br />
They could only carry enough gas for ten<br />
minutes flying time and the maximum speed<br />
was 45 to 50 miles per hour. They could fly<br />
about 4 miles each flight and every time they<br />
went up, something on the plane would break.<br />
Aviators traveled with their mechanics and if the<br />
plane got up and down without a major crash,<br />
while the pilot regaled the audience with flying<br />
stories, the mechanic tried to get the plane<br />
flyable again. If the mechanic was successful,<br />
the aviator tried to get the plane in the air again,<br />
but wind drafts and other conditions might not<br />
always accommodate this.<br />
Over the winter of 1910-11 Strang moved<br />
the grandstand and built a hangar in a vacant<br />
area south of the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> School. Strang<br />
had an 80 acre tract that he developed into<br />
Aviation Field and <strong>Park</strong> running south of the<br />
Interurban Line to 87th Street from Lowell on<br />
the west to Foster on the east. He built an open<br />
grandstand south of the covered grandstand on<br />
the west side of the field. Early in 1913, Strang<br />
Opposite, bottom: The A. M. Wood<br />
building located at the southwest<br />
corner of Eightieth and Foster, while<br />
the building was under construction,<br />
1910. Wood is pictured with one of<br />
his sons.<br />
Above: <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> State Bank was<br />
chartered in 1910 and opened its new<br />
building in July, 1911. The William B.<br />
Strang residence was just down the<br />
Street on Eightieth, east of the Bank,<br />
on the left of the picture.<br />
Bottom, left: Hot-air balloon rising<br />
over <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> field with<br />
parachutist and his parachute below,<br />
which he could release from the<br />
balloon when he reached a certain<br />
height, and slowly descend to the<br />
ground.<br />
Bottom, right: Charles Hamilton’s<br />
Curtiss Pusher bi-plane flying over<br />
the snow at the field east of the Strang<br />
Line Car Barn on December 23,<br />
1909, the first public show of an<br />
aeroplane west of the Mississippi<br />
River. The record for attaining 500<br />
feet above the ground in a manned<br />
flight was set right here from this field<br />
at this time.<br />
Chapter V ✦ 29
uilt South Killarney Lake at 87th and Foster. At<br />
the same time he built West Killarney Lake at<br />
78th and just east of Antioch. This lake later<br />
became Young’s Lake and Pool.<br />
Santa Fe Trail Hall was torn down and the<br />
maple-spring dance floor was moved to a new<br />
pavilion building at the north end of Aviation<br />
<strong>Park</strong>. It had a stage, large windows that raised to<br />
the ceiling, porches on three sides and two<br />
spotting towers. A baseball field was laid out in<br />
front of the grandstands. Tents were located<br />
down by South Lake and Strang Land Co.<br />
started advertising events promoting the park.<br />
One could stay in the tents Friday night, hunt,<br />
fish, swim and play all day Saturday, go to a<br />
dance or stage show Saturday evening, stay in<br />
the tents that night, attend baseball games<br />
Sunday morning and enjoy an air show—hot<br />
air balloons and aeroplanes—that Sunday<br />
afternoon. After the airshow they could hop on<br />
one of the Strang trains, a trolley car pulling<br />
several trailers, going home Sunday evening<br />
relaxed and refreshed for work Monday.<br />
The U.S. Army held maneuvers at Strang<br />
<strong>Park</strong> some years—the Red and Blue Armies<br />
simulated engagements in the area. Army Air<br />
Corps pilots were trained at this field in the<br />
middle 1910s. The Johnson County Fourth of<br />
July Celebration moved from Olathe to Aviation<br />
<strong>Park</strong> in 1913. The park was contracted to the<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> Exposition Company in 1915 to<br />
build a two mile oval auto race track with a<br />
three-quarter mile horse race track inside, an<br />
80,000-seat grandstand with meeting and<br />
convention accommodations underneath, but<br />
this was never built in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. In 1919<br />
the eighty acres were contracted to an aviation<br />
company. They were going to get a mail contract<br />
and build a 75-passenger, four-engine plane.<br />
These plans fell through and the <strong>Park</strong>land was<br />
platted as <strong>Overland</strong> Acres in 1920, a new<br />
residential subdivision.<br />
Early in 1910 the Conser store burned and<br />
Grant Conser immediately rebuilt, this time of<br />
brick with some nice decorative brick accents.<br />
The building still stands today. It is known as<br />
the Dragon Inn. When it was rebuilt, it served as<br />
Conser’s General Merchandise Store on the main<br />
floor, with professional offices, rooms and<br />
Conser Meeting Hall on the second floor.<br />
A stable in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> was closed. In 1911<br />
the first stone commercial building burned. It was<br />
rebuilt as a two-story brick building. A grocery<br />
store and drug store were on the ground floor and<br />
dentist offices and apartments were on the second<br />
floor. The building was now owned by Herman<br />
Voigts and remained in the Voigts family until<br />
1998. In 1911 Homer Breyfogle bought a lot on<br />
Santa Fe Trail Street and built a hardware store for<br />
Frank Keyser and wife. Keyser sold the hardware<br />
store in 1914 to Leonidas Cave, a two term sheriff<br />
30 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
❖<br />
Opposite, top: Aeroplane hangar built<br />
by William Strang north of the<br />
grandstand Strang had built just east<br />
of the Strang Line Car Barn in the late<br />
1900s. The area east of the Car Barn<br />
served as the first airfield west of the<br />
Mississippi River.<br />
Opposite, middle: A Wright Brothers<br />
Model “B”, a pusher type of aircraft<br />
with the propellers behind the wings, at<br />
Aviation <strong>Park</strong> and Field about 1912.<br />
of Johnson County who lived in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
and worked as a conductor on the Strang Line<br />
before he was elected Sheriff. Lon Cave returned<br />
to <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> at the end of his second term,<br />
owned the hardware store for a year and a half<br />
and sold the business to Frank Schepers who ran<br />
it as a hardware and tire store and garage for some<br />
years. Business was booming in the new <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> community. The aviation activities and other<br />
promotions brought thousands of visitors, and<br />
with the Strang Land Company agents circulating<br />
in the crowds, many people went home lot<br />
owners in this new park-like community.<br />
A Presbyterian church had been founded in<br />
1872 at the intersection of Seventy-fifth Street and<br />
Antioch Road. This church was having difficulty<br />
in 1910 and 1911. Another presbyterian church<br />
at Corinth, Mission Road at Eighty-third Street,<br />
had difficulties. The Antioch Church closed and<br />
in 1911 many members started a new <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> Presbyterian Church, meeting a few times in<br />
homes, then the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Grade School and<br />
finally meeting in Conser’s Hall as membership<br />
grew. The Corinth Church joined their <strong>Overland</strong><br />
brethren that same year. This church grew and<br />
they were able to erect their own church building<br />
at 8109 <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Boulevard in 1913. They<br />
met there for seventeen years, then built a larger<br />
church just north across Eighty-first Street on<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Boulevard in 1930. Reverend<br />
Waters shepherded the congregation for many<br />
years beginning in the 1930s, to the 1960s,<br />
through hardship and great growth.<br />
In 1913, a flying school, aeroplane repair<br />
hangars and an aviation mechanics school were<br />
established at Aviation Field. Male and female<br />
instructors were available to encourage<br />
everyone to learn to fly. Robert Fowler was in<br />
charge of the school and demonstrated his flying<br />
prowess at air shows all over the Midwest.<br />
Opposite, bottom: A photo taken from<br />
about two blocks east of Robinson at<br />
about Eighty-fifth Street and showing<br />
the first <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> School,<br />
Aviation Pavilion, and Grandstand.<br />
Left: Aviation Pavilion built by<br />
William B. Strang in 1913 at Aviation<br />
<strong>Park</strong> and Field. It had a stage, large<br />
windows that rose into the ceiling,<br />
verandas on three sides and spotting<br />
towers on the north end.<br />
Bottom, left: Grant C. Conser’s first<br />
wood frame store burned down in<br />
1910 and was rebuilt as this two story<br />
brick building at Eightieth and Foster.<br />
Conser’s <strong>Overland</strong> Mercantile<br />
Company was on the ground floor.<br />
Bottom, right: A 1915 picture of the<br />
Voigts Building, built after a 1911 fire<br />
had burned the first rock store<br />
building in the community.<br />
Chapter V ✦ 31
❖<br />
Top: Tom Riley, General Manager of<br />
the Strang Line, standing by the<br />
granite marker installed by the<br />
Daughters of the American Revolution<br />
in 1907 to mark the known route of<br />
the Santa Fe Trail. This marker was<br />
first west of the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Depot,<br />
then moved in the 1920s, when Santa<br />
Fe Street was improved, to the<br />
northeast corner of Eightieth and<br />
Santa Fe Street, where it still stands.<br />
Middle: The First <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
Presbyterian Church building was<br />
erected in 1913.<br />
Bottom: Homer Breyfogle bought the<br />
tract of land just north of Howell’s<br />
Blacksmith shop and built a 25-by-<br />
100-foot store which Frank Keyser and<br />
his wife rented for a hardware store in<br />
1911. Keyser sold the hardware store<br />
to Lon Cave who later sold it to Frank<br />
Schepers. Schepers later sold the<br />
hardware part of the business, but<br />
retained the tire sales and garage and<br />
built a large garage five or six doors<br />
north for this business.<br />
Newspaper articles extolled a fine mechanic<br />
shop and airplane factory at Aviation <strong>Park</strong> and<br />
Field. Training pilots for the Army Air Corps<br />
was ending. Barnstorm aviators were very active<br />
in the late 1910s.<br />
The Strang Line was so successful in 1913<br />
that the Strangs gave the general manager, Tom<br />
Riley, affectionately known all along the Line as<br />
“Captain Riley”, a $300 gold watch—the<br />
equivalent of a year’s wages for many people.<br />
The Line provided free passes to all clergy, the<br />
high school bands and athletes, and maybe too<br />
many as the government railroad authorities<br />
stopped the Strang Line from giving so many<br />
passes. Scheduled runs accommodated most<br />
patrons and a special run left <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> at<br />
5 p.m. for entertainment venues in Kansas City,<br />
Missouri, particularly since Kansas was dry at<br />
this time, even before Prohibition.<br />
Ed Blair’s book, Johnson County, published in<br />
1915, reported that <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> had “natural<br />
gas, electric lights, septic tank sewerage, twenty<br />
miles of graded streets, shade trees and about<br />
100 buildings.” The community had a lumber<br />
yard, bank, two restaurants, drug store, two<br />
general stores, hardware store, coal and feed<br />
store, feed barn and livery, blacksmiths, real<br />
estate and insurance offices, an attorney, a<br />
physician, Home Telephone Company, post<br />
office and barber shop.<br />
The second church in the community was<br />
started by the Baptists in 1914. They purchased<br />
some lots at the southeast corner of Eightieth<br />
and Conser. They met first in Conser’s Hall, then<br />
in the late 1910s started building on the<br />
purchased lots. The basement area of what<br />
would be their church served the congregation<br />
for years. They did not have the building wired<br />
for electricity. However, when the <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> Elementary School burned in 1920, some<br />
of the lower grades used the church’s basement<br />
room as classrooms and the rent provided the<br />
funding to add electricity.<br />
One of the important elements of any<br />
good community is a good school or schools.<br />
There was the Marty School, District 61 at<br />
Seventy-fifth and Lowell, but Strang could<br />
not convince this school district to move to his<br />
new community.<br />
District 61 was founded in 1868 as a<br />
subscription school on an acre donated by Jacob<br />
Marty. But there was another district, District<br />
38, called Pleasant Prairie School, located at<br />
Eighty-fifth and Grandview. This District had<br />
been founded in 1865. Both were still one-room<br />
wood frame schools in the early 1900s. Strang<br />
donated land and District 38 moved to his new<br />
32 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
community in a new stone two room building,<br />
just as District 61 moved west to Seventy-fifth<br />
and Grandview, building a new two room stone<br />
and frame building subsequently called Antioch<br />
School. There was no indoor plumbing - toilets<br />
were outdoors in two wooden structures behind<br />
the buildings. In the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> School,<br />
District 38, water came from a well in the front<br />
yard. A two-room addition to the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
School was completed in 1916. Enrollment<br />
gradually increased from 78 students in 1913-<br />
1914 to 122 students in 1921. A high school<br />
was started in 1916 with 10 students.<br />
In 1895, George Metcalf, a cattleman and<br />
entrepreneur, who had established banks in<br />
several states decided to locate close to the<br />
Kansas City metropolitan area. He selected<br />
eighty acres at the northeast corner of Seventyfifth<br />
and the Military Highway running a halfmile<br />
east on the north side of Seventy-fifth<br />
Street. He built a comfortable house on this<br />
eighty acres and commuted to his office in<br />
Kansas City, possibly many times by the Frisco<br />
Railroad roughly two miles west of his farm. He<br />
was involved in many of the activities and clubs<br />
of Kansas City and very possibly met William<br />
Strang through such clubs. Whether he was the<br />
one to get Strang to buy the six hundred acres at<br />
Seventy-ninth and the Military Highway is not<br />
known. But one thing is clear - that William<br />
Strang liked Metcalf very well because he named<br />
the street on the eastern boundary of his new<br />
plats in 1906 “Metcalf Avenue.” In addition, the<br />
Strang Line built a waiting station called<br />
“Metcalf” just north of Seventy-fifth Street on<br />
the Strang Line. Strang preferred larger lots in<br />
his new suburban community and in 1908<br />
Metcalf platted his eighty-acre farm into<br />
approximately three acre lots. Other developers<br />
who platted their farms created and sold<br />
small lots such as one would buy in the cities at<br />
that time.<br />
In 1908, A. M. Wood bought one of these<br />
three-acre lots. He later sold it and moved to<br />
Seventy-ninth Street. Other lots were sold by<br />
Metcalf and in 1913, Dr. L. L. Uhls, one of the<br />
foremost physicians of Kansas, ex-president of<br />
Kansas State Medical Society, and superintendent<br />
of the Kansas Hospital for the Insane at<br />
Osawatomie, left the hospital and bought ten<br />
acres of land from Metcalf on both sides of<br />
Seventy-fourth Street and Metcalf. As soon as he<br />
had the first building completed he opened his<br />
❖<br />
Left: The first <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
Elementary School, a rock building<br />
built in 1909 on land donated by<br />
William B. Strang to the Pleasant<br />
Prairie School District No. 38. This<br />
school had been in the vicinity of 85th<br />
and Grant since 1865 when this<br />
subscription school was started.<br />
Bottom, left: Aviation <strong>Park</strong> and Field<br />
office built about 1913, converted to<br />
the headquarters of the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
Movie Company in 1916. The office<br />
was located at about Newton and<br />
Santa Fe. The building later served as<br />
the Morrison home when a second<br />
floor was added to the structure.<br />
Below: George Metcalf, a retired<br />
banker and cattleman who bought<br />
eighty acres at northeast corner of<br />
Seventy-fifth and old Military<br />
Highway. Metcalf Avenue may be<br />
named in his honor.<br />
Chapter V ✦ 33
❖<br />
Above: An <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Movie<br />
Company photographer at Aviation<br />
<strong>Park</strong> in 1916.<br />
Below: The movie production of<br />
Where Pigeons Go to Die showing<br />
some props built by the lake at<br />
Ninety-fifth and Metcalf. Michael<br />
Landon is in the center, with his<br />
director’s chair with other<br />
production members.<br />
COURTESY OF THE CITY OF OVERLAND PARK.<br />
hospital and sanitarium. He added buildings,<br />
built his own story and a half home and beautified<br />
and improved the grounds. He ran a very<br />
successful hospital and sanitarium here for years.<br />
In the middle 1910s, William Strang built an<br />
office for Aviation Field and <strong>Park</strong>, located at<br />
about Newton and Santa Fe Streets, where the<br />
Armed Services Recruiting Station is today.<br />
Aviation Field and <strong>Park</strong> records and supplies<br />
were handled at this office. When the aviation<br />
activities waned, Strang converted this office to<br />
the headquarters of the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Movie<br />
Company. Some aviation training films had been<br />
shot in <strong>Overland</strong> when the Army Air Corps<br />
aviators were training at Aviation Field. The<br />
brillant blue skies and bright sun greatly<br />
facilitated movie making. Strang wanted to<br />
make <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> the “Universal City” of the<br />
movie industry. He shot one movie with<br />
available props of an automobile, railroad<br />
handcar, trolley and area church, about getting<br />
the groom to the church on time for his<br />
wedding. Strang starred two of his nieces as<br />
nurses in the next film about an aviator crashing<br />
and the two nurses rushing up to save the<br />
aviator, but the actor aviator was so shy, the<br />
nieces started laughing so hard that they could<br />
not complete the shooting of the movie that day.<br />
This movie never got completed. The film and<br />
movie equipment were stored in Strang’s<br />
Carriage House and hauled out to the dump in<br />
1934, when Tom Riley bought the area known<br />
as the Santa Fe Commons from Mrs. Strang’s<br />
heirs, after her death.<br />
The next movie shot in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, Where<br />
Pigeons Go to Die, starred Michael Landon and<br />
was filmed at the west side of the lake at Ninetyfifth<br />
and Metcalf in 1989. Much more movie<br />
production activity was promoted at the turn of<br />
the twenty-first century.<br />
In 1915, William Strang planned to build a<br />
larger estate closer to his <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Depot.<br />
He enlarged this Depot and moved the Strang<br />
Land Company into a new office there. He built<br />
a carriage house and garage just three hundred<br />
feet south of the Depot. However, Strang’s<br />
health was failing and he never started building<br />
a larger mansion by the carriage house.<br />
Aviation activities declined in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
because the aviators were busy preparing for<br />
World War I. The war started. The United States<br />
joined the war, which interrupted many things.<br />
After the end of World War I, some of the<br />
leading aviators, who served as Air Corps<br />
officers, returned to <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> and used<br />
Aviation Field as their location for barn storming<br />
flights that became a leading entertainment in<br />
the 1920s.<br />
34 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
DEVELOPMENT OF THE COMMUNITY<br />
BY FLORENT WAGNER<br />
At the beginning of the third decade of the twentieth century the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Community was<br />
firmly established as an important trade and residential community for much of northeast Johnson<br />
County. The Mission Township area of the County ran from State Line Road on the east to Antioch<br />
Street on the west, the county line on the north to 107th Street on the south. The Strang Line<br />
bisected this area and subdivisions had been developed all along the line. But away from the Line,<br />
most of the land was used for agriculture-grain, hay, dairy and cattle farms abounded.<br />
One night toward the end of January, 1920, the 1909 <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Elementary stone<br />
schoolhouse burned. The community quickly pulled together and found places for classes. The<br />
elementary students met in the basement of the Baptist Church. The high-school students met in<br />
Conser’s Meeting Hall and rebuilding of the school started immediately. The new brick building was<br />
ready for use in the fall of that year. It had two stories and a basement with limited indoor plumbing.<br />
The elementary school was on the first floor, high school on the second floor, and eating space and<br />
gym in the basement. Sometime in the late 1920s an annex was built to accommodate increased<br />
enrollment. Even after discontinuance of the high school in 1927 after the Shawnee Mission Rural<br />
High School was opened in 1922, enrollment continued to increase. Enrollment had increased to 307<br />
in 1928-1929. In 1921, Mabel Harrison came to the school as a teacher and within a few years she<br />
became principal and continued in that position until her retirement in 1958.<br />
In late fall of 1920 the A. M. Wood building burned. A wood frame and stucco building, it<br />
was completely destroyed. Wood sold the building’s land to John and Mary Knox who built<br />
❖<br />
A picture of downtown <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
looking north from just south of the<br />
Strang Line Depot, c. 1910. From left<br />
to right are the first rock store, stable,<br />
blacksmith shop, Leo Davis’<br />
Dreadnought Tire store, Strang Line<br />
Car Barn in far background,<br />
bandstand, Lon Cave’s house,<br />
restaurant, Santa Fe Trail Hall, and<br />
the Depot.<br />
Chapter VI ✦ 35
❖<br />
Above: The <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
Elementary School burned on<br />
January 20, 1920.<br />
Below: The brick school built when<br />
first rock school burned in 1920. It<br />
accommodated the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
High School on the third floor, the<br />
elementary school on the second<br />
(main) level, and gym and hall at the<br />
ground level.<br />
a brick building similar to Wood’s. Grocery<br />
and retail stores occupied the first floor<br />
and the second floor was used as a hotel.<br />
Wood had purchased lots south of the corner<br />
building on Foster Street and around a<br />
curve on Santa Fe at Eightieth Street. A small<br />
building was built which may have served as a<br />
restaurant south of the hotel. Then additional<br />
buildings were erected by others and later<br />
bought by Wood. These buildings served<br />
as grocery, drug, and dry goods stores and<br />
Wood’s real estate and insurance office in the<br />
1920s through the 1950s. Wood was the<br />
landlord of these buildings until his death<br />
in 1960.<br />
William Strang’s health was failing and he<br />
made more and more efforts to treat his illnesses<br />
including frequent trips to Excelsior Springs,<br />
Missouri. He was at the Elms Hotel at Excelsior<br />
Springs on January 13, 1921, when he had a<br />
massive heart attack and died. His death was a<br />
great blow to this community and the town<br />
closed down as did the Strang Line for his<br />
funeral. He was buried in the Lenexa Holy<br />
Trinity Catholic cemetery and Mrs. Strang<br />
started planning for a mausoleum for his<br />
memorial there, probably the only mausoleum in<br />
northeast Johnson County at the time.<br />
The <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Community was now firmly<br />
established—a new school, many businesses, a<br />
bank, two churches and a lumberyard, many<br />
professionals, such as doctors, dentists, carpenters,<br />
stonemasons, engineers, plumbers, building<br />
contractors, plasterers, painters and decorators.<br />
Many residents found the quality of life in this<br />
community to be much improved over life in the<br />
big cities. With good transportation by the Strang<br />
Line these residents and businesses could easily<br />
commute to the cities for shopping, jobs, and city<br />
products and goods, which could be sent to<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> on the Strang Line that afternoon.<br />
The line pioneered home and business pick up<br />
and delivery of freight. The line bought some Ford<br />
Model T pickups to handle their pickup and<br />
delivery business. The franchise area was all of<br />
Mission Township and part of Oxford Township to<br />
Stanley, Kansas.<br />
36 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
Disaster struck the Strang Line on February<br />
11, 1925, when a huge fire destroyed the Strang<br />
Line Car Barn and most of the line’s cars,<br />
trailers, equipment and parts. Only three cars<br />
survived—two passenger cars and the<br />
“Marguerite.” Tom Riley, the general manager,<br />
contracted with the Kansas City Transit Co. for<br />
cars and maintained the regular schedule the<br />
next Wednesday morning and thereafter. Tom<br />
Riley ordered new cars from the J. G. Brill<br />
Company, of St. Louis, Missouri, a third<br />
generation of cars, larger and more modern but<br />
still painted the Strang Line bright red. These<br />
new cars served the line until its end in 1940.<br />
Mission Township had no high school until<br />
1916 when a small one started at <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong>. Many students of the area rode the Strang<br />
Line to high school in Rosedale or Olathe, or<br />
even Kansas City, Missouri. Finally the<br />
township residents voted a bond issue to build<br />
a high school at about Fifty-ninth Street and the<br />
north end of Santa Fe Street adjoining the<br />
Strang Line tracks. Every afternoon the Strang<br />
Line would back a car up to the Shawnee<br />
Mission Rural High School to pick up students<br />
when classes were dismissed for the day.<br />
Shawnee Mission Rural High School opened in<br />
the fall of 1922.<br />
About this same time a new barrel-roofed<br />
building was built north of the hardware store<br />
to house the Groom Ford dealership. Frank<br />
Schepers had sold the hardware business but<br />
❖<br />
Above: The Strang Mausoleum in the<br />
Lenexa Catholic Cemetery. This was<br />
the only mausoleum in northeast<br />
Johnson County when it was built.<br />
Both William and Margaret Strang are<br />
buried here. Margaret ordered the<br />
mausoleum with bronze gates, which<br />
were stolen during World War II and<br />
replaced with the iron gates. Margaret<br />
also ordered the marble statues and<br />
architectural elements from Italy to<br />
distinguish the mausoleum.<br />
Left: A third-generation bright red car<br />
of the Strang Line at Main by the<br />
Union Station in the 1930s.<br />
Chapter VI ✦ 37
❖<br />
Above: Frank Schepers <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> Garage was built in the early<br />
1920s and served his tire and auto<br />
repair business until purchased by the<br />
Kansas City Power and Light<br />
Company for their garage.<br />
Below: A Ford Model “T” pickup used<br />
by the Missouri and Kansas Railroad<br />
Company to handle the Strang<br />
Line’s pick-up and delivery of<br />
freight service.<br />
COURTESY OF JOHNSON COUNTY<br />
MUSEUM SYSTEM.<br />
kept the tire and car repair part of the business<br />
and built a similar barrel roofed building toward<br />
the middle of the block between Seventy-ninth<br />
and Eightieth Streets on the west side of Santa<br />
Fe Trail Street. He also bought three acres of<br />
land, a triangular-shaped tract west of the<br />
corner of Metcalf, Eighty-third Street and<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Boulevard. Frank Schepers built<br />
his home on part of this tract but reserved the<br />
Metcalf and Eighty-third Street part for a<br />
Standard Oil service station he was building,<br />
possibly the first auto service station in Johnson<br />
County. Prior to this gasoline and fuel were sold<br />
at the hardware and tire stores. This station had<br />
the first free standing fuel pumps with the<br />
lighted crown globe on top. It was a one-room<br />
building with a covered area over the pumps.<br />
Another building was added on the north, then<br />
rebuilt and enlarged and then a new modern<br />
station was constructed in 1951 and continued<br />
as a Standard Oil station until in the 1980s.<br />
In the middle 1920s, Herb Ford, Sr., a<br />
contractor and builder from western Johnson<br />
County, Kansas, moved his business and family<br />
to <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. He became an excellent<br />
builder of houses, commercial and public<br />
buildings, churches, and schools throughout the<br />
area. He was a close friend of J. C. Nichols, a<br />
commercial and residential developer of Kansas<br />
City, Missouri, and built many buildings and<br />
houses for him.<br />
More and more people moved to the<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Community in the early 1920s.<br />
Some new churches were started. The Christian<br />
Science group was started in 1923 and built the<br />
basement where they met for eighteen years<br />
until the wood frame church was built above it<br />
in 1941. The Scientists rented several different<br />
business buildings for reading rooms during the<br />
years. St. Mark’s United Methodist Church<br />
started building their first Church in 1923, in<br />
the Tower Grove Subdivision, a Strang<br />
subdivision at the north end of the Community<br />
at Sixty-fourth and Floyd Street. The<br />
38 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
congregation moved to Sixty-fourth and Santa<br />
Fe Street in the 1950s into a large complex with<br />
classrooms and supporting offices, and meeting<br />
rooms surrounding the church.<br />
The year 1924 was a banner year for the<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Community. Elizabeth B. Arthur<br />
started the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Herald, a weekly<br />
newspaper for the area. She first used the Strang<br />
carriage house at 8045 Santa Fe as a newspaper<br />
office. Sometime later the office moved to a<br />
wood rectangular building southwest across the<br />
street near the corner of Santa Fe and Conser<br />
Streets. Some years later the newspaper was sold<br />
to the Neff family who moved it to their<br />
publishing office in Mission. The name was<br />
changed to the Johnson County Herald.<br />
This same year Kansas City Power and Light<br />
Company decided to move their Kansas division<br />
to the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Community. They built a<br />
retail office 25 feet wide by 100 feet deep on the<br />
west side of Santa Fe Street in the middle of the<br />
block between Seventy-ninth and Eightieth<br />
Streets. The power and light company was<br />
building lines all over the area emanating from<br />
the Strang Line right-of-way, which served as the<br />
easement for one of their main high lines. They<br />
expanded their buildings and offices and by 1926<br />
they had seventy-six employees working there.<br />
They bought Frank Schepers’ tire store and<br />
converted this to a garage. In the 1930s they<br />
filled in the vacant space between their original<br />
office and the Groom Ford dealership, then built<br />
a larger garage west across Foster. We believe<br />
possibly every third family in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> had<br />
one or more family members working for Kansas<br />
City Power and Light Company, either directly or<br />
through service for them. In 1939 a new canopy<br />
united all their buildings on Santa Fe. At the top<br />
of the roof they placed a neon sign advertising the<br />
Kansas City Power and Light Company, which<br />
could be seen from Seventy-fifth Street and State<br />
Line Road. In 1961 the Kansas City Power and<br />
Light Company moved their offices, garages and<br />
pole and equipment yards to a much larger<br />
location at Eighty-seventh and Nieman.<br />
❖<br />
Above: The first Standard Oil service<br />
station in Johnson County, built by<br />
Frank Schepers in the 1920s at<br />
Eighty-third and Metcalf, a one room<br />
building with cover over the service<br />
area and three gas pumps with<br />
crown globes.<br />
Below: First Church of Christ Scientist<br />
frame church built in 1941 above the<br />
basement church they had used since<br />
1923, when they were started in<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>.<br />
Chapter VI ✦ 39
❖<br />
Above: Kansas City Power and Light<br />
Company offices and garage in the<br />
1930s at 7924 Santa Fe. They<br />
continued to enlarge this facility,<br />
moved the garage west across Foster<br />
Street, and served Kansas Division<br />
customers here until 1961.<br />
COURTESY OF KANSAS CITY POWER AND LIGHT<br />
COMPANY ARCHIVES.<br />
Below: The so-called “Flat Iron”<br />
building at the intersection of Santa<br />
Fe and Conser. It was first a<br />
commercial building, then in the late<br />
1920s, it served as the office for the<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Herald for some<br />
time until the Herald was sold to the<br />
Neff family.<br />
Several young men of the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
Community served in World War I. One of these<br />
young men, Dwight Cowles, the son of L. C.<br />
Cowles who had a small acreage south of<br />
Eighty-third Street, was the first <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
citizen killed in World War I, in Belgium. The<br />
1920s were prosperous and patriotic times<br />
and the American Legion was expanding. A<br />
group of citizens requested that a post be<br />
established in the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Community<br />
and a charter was granted to the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
Dwight Cowles Post 370 in 1923. They<br />
purchased a little house on the east side of<br />
Foster Street just south of Seventy-ninth Street,<br />
a parking lot today. This served as the “Legion<br />
Hut” for many years until about 1953 or 1954<br />
when the American Legion built a much larger<br />
building at Seventy-fifth and Conser Streets on<br />
the old John Marty farm.<br />
The “Legion Hut” was moved by a group of<br />
sportsmen to about 167th and Antioch as a<br />
private club.<br />
A carnival was held late each summer on the<br />
vacant ground around the Legion headquarters<br />
to raise funds for the Legion and other<br />
community services. One of the community<br />
services was the volunteer fire department. It is<br />
believed that a volunteer fire department was<br />
organized about 1919. An old Model T Ford<br />
pickup was modified by Frank Schepers, George<br />
Cox, Roscoe Campbell and Herman Lee, to<br />
accommodate two 50-gallon chemical water<br />
tanks, some hose, a ladder, and a few tools. The<br />
original truck was kept at Schepers’ automobile<br />
service garage near 7918 Santa Fe from 1922<br />
until about 1930. George Cox was the first chief<br />
of this volunteer fire department.<br />
Some of the volunteer members in the 1920s<br />
were J. C. Mills, George Cox, Roscoe Campbell,<br />
Frank Schepers, Jim Morrison, Jim Broockerd,<br />
Herman Lee, and Ren Brown, among many<br />
other citizens and business owners.<br />
Margaret Strang’s brother, George Riley<br />
Morrison, was living in the Frank Gruber<br />
farmhouse at Seventy-eighth and Antioch when<br />
William Strang built a sixty-five-acre lake Strang<br />
called West Killarney Lake on the Gruber farm<br />
between Seventy-seventh and Seventy-eighth east<br />
of Antioch. This farm was part of the original six<br />
hundred acres Strang purchased when he founded<br />
his new community. The Morrison family<br />
continued to live on this farm near the Lake after<br />
Mr. Strang died. In 1924 this farmhouse burned to<br />
the ground and Mrs. Strang built living quarters<br />
40 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
for the Morrisons on a new second floor above the<br />
Aviation <strong>Park</strong> and Movie Company office. Mrs.<br />
Strang sold the Lake and land immediately around<br />
it to the J. H. Young family. They maintained the<br />
Lake and it became one of the local favorite<br />
swimming, fishing and ice-skating places in the<br />
community. In the 1930s Young built a regular<br />
swimming pool south of the Lake. This pool<br />
operated for years, even after the Lake dam<br />
flooded out many times and finally about 1957,<br />
was not rebuilt. The Young Family sold the pool<br />
and seventeen acres around it, for $17,000, to the<br />
City of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> in 1962, when the City<br />
rebuilt the pool and surrounding park, which<br />
continues to be used and known today as Young’s<br />
<strong>Park</strong>, at Seventy-seventh and Antioch.<br />
Another lake was built on the west side of<br />
Antioch on this same drainage area called<br />
Nagawicki Lake. It had some cabins around it<br />
and a recreation hall. This lake and facilities were<br />
later purchased by the Nazarenes, as a retreat for<br />
their members and for some Boy Scout activities.<br />
When the Voigts building burned in 1927,<br />
Dr. C. A. Abbott, the dentist whose office was in<br />
the building, took more interest in fire<br />
protection, and in 1930 was named chief of the<br />
fire department and insisted the department get<br />
better and proper fire trucks and equipment,<br />
which it did. Bingo games at the carnival and<br />
the annual firemen’s dance were the principal<br />
fundraisers for the volunteer fire department.<br />
The Strang Line refinanced their debt in July<br />
of 1919 with two mortgages on the Line assets,<br />
one for $500,000 and a second mortgage for<br />
$300,000 on the same assets. They had issued<br />
bonds to obtain the funds. For some reason the<br />
Strang Line did not pay interest as required on the<br />
second mortgage bonds from January 1927 until<br />
the second mortgage was foreclosed, February,<br />
1929. The line’s assets were sold on the Johnson<br />
County courthouse steps April 13, 1929, to a<br />
Henry C. Flowers for a purchase price of $50,000,<br />
subject to the first mortgage. Flowers really<br />
represented Thomas Riley, the general manager of<br />
the line, and some of his friends. Now Tom Riley<br />
and his friends owned the Strang Line. Tom Riley<br />
was appointed to continue as general manager,<br />
and the line continued to offer regular passenger<br />
schedules from Olathe to Kansas City and return<br />
as well as freight hauling. The line brought a<br />
refrigerator car to haul perishables to the Kansas<br />
City market from farmers along the route in 1931.<br />
The freight service became a more important part<br />
of the business as passenger usage decreased<br />
during the Depression. This refrigerator car and<br />
the Marguerite were the only freight cars the<br />
Strang Line ever owned. The Marguerite was used<br />
to move thousands of freight cars along the line<br />
particularly coal, feed, and building material cars.<br />
Building materials were hauled to the<br />
lumberyards along the line and to help build a<br />
new Bell Memorial Hospital at Thirty-ninth and<br />
Rainbow Streets, which became part of the Kansas<br />
University Medical Center. The Marguerite also<br />
❖<br />
Above: Dwight Cowles, son of L. C.<br />
Cowles. Dwight was the first<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> citizen killed in<br />
Belgium during World War I, at the<br />
Battle of the Bulge.<br />
Below: This small house was<br />
purchased by American Legion Post<br />
#370. The Legion added to the house<br />
and this served as its headquarters<br />
from 1923 to the middle 1950s.<br />
Chapter VI ✦ 41
❖<br />
Above: A Model “T” pick-up, such as<br />
the one on the right, was modified by<br />
the four men shown in this picture to<br />
become <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>’s first fire<br />
truck with two 50 gallon chemical<br />
water tanks, some hose, ladders and<br />
tools. The men who did this work<br />
were Frank Schepers, Herman Lee,<br />
Roscoe Campbell, and George Cox.<br />
Cox became the first Volunteer Fire<br />
Department chief.<br />
hauled many hundreds of coal cars for coal yards<br />
along the Line. There may have been a coal-fired<br />
electricity generating plant located about Fortieth<br />
and State Line.<br />
In 1923, Mrs. Strang sold the Aviation<br />
Pavilion to L. C. Cowles, a farmer. He opened a<br />
feed mill in the building and bolted milling<br />
machines to the maple floor. Cowles ran the mill<br />
for a short time, then sold it to a Lenexa family,<br />
who, in 1926 sold the mill to some new<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> residents—R. M. Jennings and<br />
his wife, Ola. The Jennings family ran the<br />
business as the Aviation Mill feed and coal store<br />
and sold general merchandize such as seed,<br />
garden tools, and paint. The feed store<br />
continued for years and was modernized<br />
extensively in the 1930s. Some hay was stored<br />
in the building which combusted and burned<br />
the building down in February, 1943. The land<br />
was vacant thereafter for a number of years.<br />
In the 1920s the Hodges Brothers<br />
lumberyard in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> was moved from<br />
Robinson and Santa Fe Street to Seventy-ninth<br />
and Santa Fe Street, immediately east of the<br />
Right: Young’s Lake washed out many<br />
times in the 1940s and 1950s until<br />
1957 when the lake was not rebuilt.<br />
COURTESY OF SUN PUBLICATIONS, INC.,<br />
JOHNSON COUNTY... PICTURES FROM THE PAST.<br />
42 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
Strang Line Car Barn and tracks. A new brick<br />
building was built for the office and retail<br />
showroom and larger sheds for lumber and<br />
building supplies between Seventy-ninth and<br />
Seventy-eighth Streets, north of the new office.<br />
Sometime in the 1920s and 1930s the<br />
Cowley Lanter Lumber Co. built a lumberyard<br />
and office just east of the Strang Line right-ofway<br />
north of Eightieth Street across the street<br />
from the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> bank.<br />
In the mid-1920s the old Kansas City-Olathe<br />
Road was paved with paving bricks. On July 4,<br />
1925, a contest was held between two of the chief<br />
bricklayers. A man named Jim Brown, an<br />
American Indian, laid seven thousand bricks in<br />
six hours. His competitor laid six thousand bricks<br />
in the same period of time. About 1927, American<br />
Indian Jim Brown was hired by John Breyfogle to<br />
lay bricks on Metcalf Avenue, which was Highway<br />
69, from about Sixty-third and Metcalf to<br />
approximately the south end of Oxford Township.<br />
After World War I, Kirk Wood returned from<br />
the War. During the war, Kirk’s brother, Frank,<br />
had purchased some dairy cows and was milking<br />
them. Kirk and Frank went into business<br />
together as the Wood Brothers Dairy. In the l930s<br />
they had seven milking hands, seven or eight<br />
dairy delivery routes and with the two brothers,<br />
some farm laborers and office help easily<br />
supported twenty or more families. Their dairy<br />
was located on the north side of Seventy-ninth<br />
Street between Nall and west of Lamar Street, one<br />
of the largest dairies in Johnson County.<br />
The T. C. Porter family had been dairying at<br />
Seventy-first and Mission Road for years. They<br />
were a pioneer family in Johnson County.<br />
Porters sold their Mission Road farm to J. C.<br />
Nichols in 1928 and over the next several years<br />
moved their dairy to Ninety-first and Antioch<br />
Road. Two brothers, Audley, with some college<br />
courses, and Earl, who had graduated from<br />
Kansas State University, applied new<br />
technologies to farming (they built terraces on<br />
the newly acquired land including the only<br />
terraced pastures in Johnson County) and built<br />
the most modern barns and milking houses.<br />
They ran a very successful dairy business for<br />
many years.<br />
On March 20, 1932, two Hoge brothers,<br />
Wilbur and Royce, who were farm boys from<br />
❖<br />
Above: Dr. C. A. Abbott at the wheel<br />
of the 1930s <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Fire<br />
Truck. Dr. Abbott took over the<br />
department as chief and insisted that<br />
the department get better equipment<br />
than the old Model “T” which had<br />
been converted to a fire truck.<br />
Below: The Aviation Pavilion was<br />
converted to a mill, feed, and coal<br />
store in 1923, then bought by the<br />
R. M. Jennings family in 1926 and<br />
continued as a mill, feed and coal<br />
store until it burned in 1943.<br />
Chapter VI ✦ 43
❖<br />
Above: “Indian Jim” Garfield Brown,<br />
a prize-winning bricklayer, laid bricks<br />
on both Kansas City-Olathe Road and<br />
Metcalf Avenue, maybe as far south<br />
as the south edge of Oxford Township.<br />
COURTESY OF THE SUN PUBLICATIONS, INC.,<br />
JOHNSON COUNTY…PICTURES FROM THE PAST.<br />
Right: The Wood Brothers Dairy<br />
milkmen are pictured with the two<br />
Wood brothers, Kirk and Frank, in<br />
front of the Dairy’s delivery trucks, on<br />
the farm on Seventy-ninth Street. The<br />
Wood brothers are also pictured with<br />
their route delivery men, in front of<br />
seven or eight trucks.<br />
the area, obtained their college education and<br />
mortuary training and started the Hoge Funeral<br />
Home on Santa Fe. They rented Charles<br />
Pinkham’s house on the west side of Santa Fe.<br />
They purchased the house, expanded it, closed<br />
in all the porches and finally outgrowing the<br />
house, tore it down and built a new and modern<br />
funeral home in 1966. This funeral business was<br />
purchased by the McGilley Funeral Chapel<br />
System in June 1977, and continues to serve the<br />
community today.<br />
During the summertime in the 1930s, people<br />
did not have any extra money to spend. These<br />
Depression years were extremely hard times.<br />
The children were out of school and some of the<br />
business people of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> conceived the<br />
idea of showing movies on Saturday evenings.<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> had no movie house but the<br />
movies could be shown on the sides of buildings<br />
that had a vacant lot next to their building.<br />
Hodges Lumber Company supplied long<br />
planks, which were set on building blocks for<br />
seats. This may have been done, first on the<br />
south side of the Knox building. Certainly the<br />
wall on the north side of the Kansas City Power<br />
and Light garage and sometimes one of the walls<br />
of the Hodges Lumberyard buildings may have<br />
been used for this purpose. Many a Tom Mix or<br />
Mary Pickford movie entertained the children<br />
and adults.<br />
Perhaps these movies of rodeos and carnivals<br />
impressed some of the area children. Henry<br />
44 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
Harpool worked at the Kansas City stockyards<br />
and lived in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. He started riding<br />
with some of the children on Sunday afternoons<br />
in the early 1930s. He taught the children how<br />
to rope stock and do some rodeo tricks and kept<br />
expanding the tricks he taught them as the<br />
group of children grew. The whole group<br />
numbered about 35 children from 8 to 18 years<br />
of age and they decided to call themselves the<br />
Santa Fe Trail Riders. Henry Harpool brought<br />
some of the leading rodeo movie stars and trick<br />
riders who were in Kansas City out to<br />
demonstrate new tricks to the children. The<br />
children practiced summer and winter even<br />
practicing roping in the Porter dairy barn.<br />
The Santa Fe Trail Riders became so good<br />
they were invited to put on shows and won<br />
many prizes in the area. Loula Long Combs<br />
invited the group to her farm for a show. Some<br />
of the members were Bobby Cox, Hans Prinds,<br />
Shorty Prinds, Tom Porter, Clinton Daly, Mary<br />
Mills, Jane Abbott, Betty and Debbie England,<br />
Lawrence and Chester England, and J. W.<br />
Stoker. These and many other children were<br />
some of the very successful prizewinners. J. W.<br />
Stoker went on to become one of the most<br />
successful professional trick ropers in America<br />
and has been inducted into the National<br />
Cowboy Hall of Fame.<br />
Metcalf Avenue became U.S. Highway 69,<br />
one of the major highways running north and<br />
south in the middle of the United States.<br />
In the late 1930s, two lodging places were<br />
established on U.S. Highway 69—Long’s tourist<br />
court at Seventy-eighth and Metcalf and Annette’s<br />
tourist cabins at Eighty-first on Metcalf—both on<br />
❖<br />
Left: An aerial view of the Porter<br />
Dairy Farm at Ninety-first and<br />
Antioch. Ninety-first Street is the<br />
wider, gravel road on the left of the<br />
picture; Antioch is the thin line across<br />
the center of the picture. Note:<br />
modern barns, buildings and<br />
terraced pasture.<br />
Below: Charles Pincomb house<br />
purchased by Royce and Wilbur Hoge<br />
for their funeral home.<br />
Chapter VI ✦ 45
❖<br />
Above: J. W. Stoker went on from the<br />
Santa Fe Trail Riders to national fame<br />
for trick roping, and has been<br />
inducted into the National Cowboy<br />
Hall of Fame.<br />
Below: Santa Fe Trail Riders.<br />
the east side of Metcalf to catch the incoming<br />
traffic to the metropolitan area.<br />
North of these two tourist stops was located<br />
the Wagon Wheel Restaurant on the east side<br />
of Metcalf in the Seventy-seventh to Seventyeighth<br />
Street block. This restaurant was owned<br />
and run by Herb Wisner. It was a sit down<br />
to table with menu establishment, the first of<br />
its type since the Strang era restaurant on Santa<br />
Fe. There’d been for years an ice-cream-soda<br />
fountain type of establishment in part of<br />
Fern Jessup’s drug store, and later in Swarner’s<br />
drugstore, on the northwest corner of Eightieth<br />
and Santa Fe, in the Voigts Building. A<br />
soda fountain was located in Horning’s Drug<br />
Store when it opened. Strang’s original restaurant<br />
located on the east side of Santa Fe Street north<br />
of Eightieth was still in business in the 1930s.<br />
Charles Fatino became the general manager<br />
of the Milburn Country Club in the 1930s. The<br />
depression caused enormous hardships for the<br />
club. At times Charlie Fatino lent his own<br />
money to keep the club going.<br />
Many professionals had come to <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong>, such as doctors and dentists, including Dr.<br />
C. A. Abbott, Dr. Donald Young, Dr. Larry Leigh,<br />
Dr. R. D. Grayson, Dr. Rhodes, and Dr. Tolle.<br />
They had offices at one time or another in various<br />
buildings: the Conser Building, Knox and Voigts<br />
buildings, and residences in the area, and all<br />
seemed to have plenty of business and were well<br />
liked in the community. A wholesale greenhouse<br />
was built by the Lotz family on the southwest<br />
side of the town, supplying flowers for many of<br />
the retail florists in Kansas City. In 1941, this<br />
greenhouse business was purchased by the<br />
William Dalton family. Over the next several<br />
years they converted the building into a retail<br />
florist business, which would serve the area into<br />
the twenty-first century. North of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
Drive was the Baldwin family property. They were<br />
well known for raising homing pigeons and<br />
continued to do this into the 1950s.<br />
Hal Stonebrecker, an architect in the<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> area, had an office over the post<br />
46 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
❖<br />
Left: Drs. R. L. Grayson and<br />
Lawrence Leigh used this house as<br />
their office for years, until a new<br />
building was built in the 1960s.<br />
Below: New Presbyterian Church<br />
under construction late in 1929 and<br />
early 1930 north of Eighty-first on<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Boulevard.<br />
Chapter VI ✦ 47
❖<br />
The <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Elementary<br />
School was extensively remodeled in<br />
1938. Herb Ford was the general<br />
contractor and school board members<br />
and citizens supervised the general<br />
work and did much of this work.<br />
office in the Fleming Building and other places<br />
for years. He may have had some connection<br />
with The Cowley Lanter Lumber Company.<br />
In 1935 the Depression had drastically<br />
affected the Strang Line. As ridership was<br />
substantially reduced because people were not<br />
commuting to so many jobs in the cities, this<br />
caused the Line to default on a second mortgage<br />
bond issue. This mortgage was foreclosed and<br />
Tom Riley and a group of his friends again<br />
bought the Line from the bankruptcy sale for<br />
$50,000. It did not change anything on the Line<br />
as Riley had been the general manager and<br />
continued all schedules and retained all<br />
employees. They had one less interest payment<br />
to make after the foreclosure. This kept the line<br />
running for some years.<br />
In 1929, the Presbyterian congregation, the<br />
first church in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> outgrew the<br />
original stone building constructed in 1913.<br />
The church bought land on the north side of<br />
Eighty-first Street on <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Drive and<br />
started building a larger church and ministry<br />
buildings. This was completed in 1930 and the<br />
old church building was sold to Masonic Lodge<br />
No. 436 which had been chartered on March 1,<br />
1923. With enormous hardship the Lodge made<br />
payments on the building and survived through<br />
the depression and continues as a strong Lodge<br />
in the twenty-first century.<br />
During 1934 the Church of God (Assemblies<br />
of God) congregation was started with meetings<br />
in the Masonic Lodge until September 1935<br />
when a church was built at Eighty-first and<br />
Lowell Streets on the northeast corner. This<br />
building served them until 1957 when they<br />
moved to Seventy-fifth Street and Lowell.<br />
By 1937 enrollment in the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
Elementary School had increased to 404<br />
students. A kindergarten was started in 1935,<br />
possibly one of the first in Johnson County.<br />
There were twelve teachers in the school. In<br />
1938 the 1920s building was extensively<br />
remodeled and additional rooms were added. A<br />
$70,000 bond issue was approved for this, a<br />
remarkable feat considering the area was just<br />
coming out of the depression. The building was<br />
completed by local labor with Herb Ford<br />
serving as general contractor and school board<br />
members supervising the construction. No WPA<br />
funds were used as had been done with most<br />
public buildings of that era. In that fall term of<br />
1938 the school served 443 students.<br />
By the end of the Depression, about 1939,<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> had many businesses, several<br />
grocery stores, many garages, tire and machine<br />
shops, Kansas City Power and Light Company<br />
office, hardware, one bank, five churches, hotel,<br />
feed and coal businesses, real estate and<br />
insurance offices, three or four medical offices,<br />
one or more lawyers, restaurants and all kinds<br />
of tradesmen and businesses. The only cloud on<br />
the horizon was a foreclosure on the first<br />
mortgage bonds of the Strang Line, which was<br />
filed on June 29, 1939. Frank Bates, Esquire,<br />
was appointed as master commissioner of the<br />
line, which was still running its passenger<br />
schedules and hauling freight.<br />
48 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
1940-1960:<br />
THE WAR AND TOWNSHIP YEARS<br />
BY FLORENT WAGNER<br />
We did not know in 1940 that the 1940s would become World War II years. There were ominous<br />
signs around the globe but the United States was staying as far as possible from any war. The 1940s<br />
started for <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> with the Johnson County Court ordering a foreclosure sale of the Strang<br />
Line on February 2, 1940. A sale was held on the courthouse steps, March 30, 1940, and Tom Riley<br />
made the highest bid of $20,000 for all of the assets of the Line. He deposited $1,800 at the sale and<br />
paid the balance of his bid by surrendering most of the outstanding bonds of the Line. The sale was<br />
confirmed April 23, 1940, and Tom Riley surrendered all the bonds except eight to complete the sale.<br />
The court also confirmed the assignment by Riley of the purchase contract to H. E. Salzberg<br />
Company of New York, salvage people. The last passenger run was July 10, 1940. Freight continued<br />
to be hauled until July 25 when someone stole hundreds of feet of the copper trolley wire one night<br />
when the power was off.<br />
A number of deeds were circulated between Riley, the Strang Corporation, Salzberg and some<br />
others, but the Salzberg Company took all the rolling stock and rails as salvage. Tom Riley ended up<br />
with the rail line real estate which basically was the car barn, the right-of-way between Seventy-ninth<br />
and Eighty-first Streets on the east side of Santa Fe Street and the Strang Line Depot at Eightieth and<br />
Santa Fe. By September 1940 Riley had sold the right-of-way and the Depot to the Breyfogle interests<br />
through their straw party, Leone Dale. They resurveyed the right-of-way from Seventy-ninth to<br />
Eightieth in 1941. The Breyfogle group consisted of John Breyfogle, Sr., his nephews and their wives,<br />
George and Dorothy Breyfogle, and Louis D. and Alma Breyfogle. They formed the Breyfogle<br />
Partnership. This group we believe had bought many of the unsold Strang Land Company lots.<br />
❖<br />
The Strang Line Car Barn covered<br />
with ivy in 1940 following the Strang<br />
Line’s bankruptcy.<br />
Chapter VII ✦ 49
By now we were quickly plunging into the<br />
Second World War. George Breyfogle had been<br />
in the real estate and insurance business before<br />
the war and may have built some houses, but<br />
during the war almost all construction on<br />
private residences and buildings was stopped<br />
and all efforts were devoted to the war.<br />
The <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> community was<br />
somewhat unique in that it had never been<br />
incorporated as a city in Kansas. The <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> area had not received the sheriff’s attention<br />
and the road improvements that areas closer to<br />
Olathe received.<br />
William Strang, the founder of the<br />
community had envisioned and platted larger,<br />
suburban lots for the residents. Some<br />
speculators jumped into the lot sales along the<br />
Line in a different township and platted some<br />
small twenty-five-foot lots to sell to prospective<br />
purchasers sight unseen far away from the area.<br />
This happened principally in one small area and<br />
lot sales were never very successful; their<br />
gimmick was to give a free lot with every lot<br />
purchased. But this subdivision was in Shawnee<br />
Township, just west of Antioch, which required<br />
sixty feet frontage for residential lots so that in<br />
order to do anything with the two lots a party<br />
owned, the party had to purchase an additional<br />
lot at an exorbitant price. Johnson County<br />
eventually stopped this scheme.<br />
❖<br />
Top: The <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Strang Line<br />
Depot in the 1940s.<br />
Above: Strang Line Car Barn in<br />
the 1950s with the tracks gone<br />
and used by Reno Construction<br />
Company as a garage for their<br />
road equipment and later as Stan<br />
Kupchin’s auto repair business.<br />
Right: A view of the Knox Hotel at<br />
southwest corner of Eightieth and<br />
Foster in the middle 1940s.<br />
50 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
J. C. Nichols, a residential and shopping<br />
center developer, bought land in Mission<br />
Township in 1914 next to the Missouri State<br />
Line at Sixty-third Street and platted large lots<br />
for his Mission Hills subdivision. Nichols also<br />
purchased among other farms the Porter dairy<br />
farm between Sixty-seventh and Seventy-first<br />
streets on the west side of Mission Road in<br />
1928. State legislators had to adopt legislation<br />
allowing cities to adopt zoning ordinances and<br />
legislatures in some of the states started doing<br />
this in 1923. The United States Supreme Court<br />
approved such zoning ordinances in 1926<br />
as a legitimate exercise of police power, but<br />
Kansas had no legislation authorizing county<br />
government zoning.<br />
In 1930, Rolla Coleman, an <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
attorney, platted 130 acres he owned on the<br />
westside of Mission Road between Fifty-ninth and<br />
Sixty-third Streets in large 60-by-150-foot lots.<br />
Other subdivisions were platted in the 1930s and<br />
the Prairie Village subdivision was on the drawing<br />
board. Coleman was elected Kansas State Senator<br />
in 1936 and wanted to preserve the value of his<br />
subdivision. He cooperated with Nichols to<br />
introduce legislation to allow county township<br />
zoning, particularly tailored to Mission Township,<br />
emphasizing township involvement. The county<br />
commissioners could designate the county<br />
townships and districts to use zoning and<br />
appointed a township zoning board. The township<br />
board could make plans and maps on location of<br />
new streets, alleys, ways, viaducts, bridges, parks,<br />
parkways, playgrounds or other improvements,<br />
transportation and communications facilities, and<br />
the removal or relocation or enlargement of such<br />
things then existing. The zoning board, with<br />
the approval of the county commissioners,<br />
had power to determine, restrict and regulate<br />
the use of lands and could adopt regulations<br />
governing subdivisions.<br />
The Johnson County Commission designated<br />
Mission Township District and appointed three<br />
members to the Board, which was responsible<br />
for building and maintaining the roads in their<br />
area and recommending zoning to the Board of<br />
County Commissioners, but the county<br />
commissioners did not have to adopt the<br />
recommendations. The first three Mission<br />
Township Board members were Herbert Ford<br />
Sr., William Laird, and Earl Ratcliff. They met in<br />
meeting rooms on the second floor of the<br />
Fleming building on West Eightieth Street.<br />
Hal Stonebrecker designed many houses and<br />
buildings in the area, most notably the two<br />
castle-like houses at Eighty-sixth and Mission<br />
Road. Home designing and building stopped<br />
during World War II, but Stonebrecker may have<br />
helped design wooden wardrobes and other<br />
wooden articles to assist the military. These were<br />
constructed in the buildings of the Cowley-<br />
Lanter lumberyard, which had been closed prior<br />
to the war.<br />
The Strang Line right-of-way became a salvage<br />
yard for the collection of metal for the war effort.<br />
The local farm and community boys and young<br />
men were drafted. This ended the Santa Fe Trail<br />
Riders and hampered much of the dairy business<br />
in the area, as many of the milking men and<br />
deliverymen were gone. Country Club Dairy, a<br />
dairy processing plant at Fifty-sixth and Troost in<br />
Kansas City, Missouri, bought the Holmes<br />
Guernsey Farm and made it into their show dairy<br />
in Johnson County for many years.<br />
Country Club Dairy started buying many of<br />
the dairy farm businesses. They hauled the milk<br />
in ten-gallon cans or bulk tanks to their plant and<br />
processed it, selling the dairy products back on<br />
many of the home delivery routes purchased<br />
from the dairy farmers. This also was the<br />
beginning of more extensive sales of dairy<br />
products in the grocery stores.<br />
Hugh and Mary White, cattle farmers from<br />
Linn County, Kansas, came to <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> in<br />
1941 and bought the Wolverine Dairy Farm on<br />
the east side of Metcalf north of Eighty-seventh<br />
Street. The couple and their four children<br />
milked 60 to 80 cows at noon and midnight<br />
every day, processing their milk and running a<br />
fifty-mile delivery route with 150 customers<br />
until 1948 when health problems forced the sale<br />
of all milk cows and dairy equipment. The<br />
family continued to raise cattle on the farm until<br />
1951 when the farm was platted into the<br />
Whitehaven subdivision. Hugh and Mary gave<br />
Bob White, the oldest son, and his new bride,<br />
Esther, a lot at Eighty-fifth and Metcalf. Bob<br />
built the first ranch house in the subdivision.<br />
Then Bob and Hugh started building other<br />
houses for lot buyers in the subdivision.<br />
All of these lots in the Whitehaven subdivision<br />
were largely sold by 1957 and Bob and Hugh<br />
❖<br />
The first Mission Township Board<br />
(from top to bottom): William Laird,<br />
Herbert Ford, Sr., and Earl Ratcliff.<br />
Chapter VII ✦ 51
❖<br />
Top: <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Elementary<br />
School built a new single story<br />
structure in 1951 for grades one<br />
through three. This was located where<br />
Aviation Pavilion had served the <strong>Park</strong><br />
during the 1910s and had continued<br />
as Jennings Feed and Coal store from<br />
the late 1920s until 1943, when the<br />
Pavilion burned.<br />
Middle: The Holmes Guernsey farm<br />
was purchased by Country Club<br />
Dairy and used as their show dairy<br />
farm for a number of years in the late<br />
1930s and early 1940s. Joe Mackey<br />
used it for several years for stables<br />
until it got too valuable in the 1960s<br />
when it was developed as the<br />
Greenbrier subdivision, north of<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> City Hall.<br />
Bottom: White Haven Motor Lodge<br />
when first built and opened in 1957,<br />
prior to the large sign and swimming<br />
pool installation.<br />
Opposite, top: Church of God<br />
(Holiness) Church, built on the<br />
headquarters campus in 1961 east of<br />
Metcalf on Seventy-fourth Street,<br />
where it is still located.<br />
Opposite, middle: The Breyfogles<br />
building, built for A.& P., was leased<br />
as a Sears Roebuck Catalogue Store in<br />
the mid-1950s.<br />
Opposite, bottom: Hugh and Mary<br />
White’s Dairy Farm at the northeast<br />
corner of Eighty-seventh and Metcalf.<br />
They purchased what had been the<br />
Wolverine Dairy Farm in 1941.<br />
This farm was platted as the<br />
Whitehaven Subdivision in 1951<br />
after the Whites closed the dairy<br />
business and cattle business.<br />
White decided to build a retirement business for<br />
the parents and purchased some land on the east<br />
side of Metcalf north of Eighty-first Street. After<br />
over coming much community opposition to<br />
another tourist court on Metcalf, Bob completed<br />
the first thirty-four units of the White Haven<br />
Motor Lodge and these units opened in 1957, the<br />
first post World War II, first- class motel in the<br />
community of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>.<br />
On February 24, 1943, the Jennings Mill,<br />
Feed and Coal store burned. The R. W. Jennings<br />
family had living quarters in the south end of<br />
the building under the stage. Everyone got out<br />
safely but the entire building and its contents<br />
52 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
urned to the ground. The property was unused<br />
until 1951 when the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> School<br />
District purchased the land to build a new<br />
school for grades one through three.<br />
The Uhls Clinic at Seventy-fourth and<br />
Metcalf had closed before World War II. The<br />
Kansas City College and Bible School had<br />
bought the land and buildings and various<br />
groups of religious friends stayed in the<br />
dormitory of the school during the War. One of<br />
the groups started holding prayer meetings in<br />
the dormitory in 1942 and organized as a<br />
Church of God (Holiness). They continued to<br />
meet on school grounds for some years and in<br />
1961 built a church on the school campus,<br />
which continues today on Seventy-fourth Street<br />
just east of Metcalf.<br />
The Catholics of this area had gone to Lenexa<br />
for church for seventy years or more. In 1943<br />
the Catholic bishop of the Kansas City diocese<br />
in Kansas selected a tree filled tract of land at<br />
the southeast corner of Seventy-first and<br />
Metcalf to build a Catholic church and school in<br />
the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Community. A building was<br />
erected, beginning in 1944, which housed the<br />
church upstairs and classrooms for grades one<br />
through eight on the ground level. The larger<br />
church was built on the corner of Seventy-first<br />
Street in 1962. The school was enlarged and a<br />
convent and large rectory were added to the<br />
plant in later years.<br />
World War II ended in 1945. Building<br />
supplies were hard to come by, but the<br />
Breyfogles started pushing the building of<br />
houses on the vacant lots purchased from the<br />
Strang Land Company west of the <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> school in the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, <strong>Overland</strong>,<br />
Holmes Crest, Mo-Kaw Highlands, and<br />
Shawnee subdivisions. They built $3,000<br />
houses and advertised extensively. If a veteran<br />
showed up at the Breyfogle real estate office<br />
with $50.00 in his pocket they sold him a<br />
brand-new house. Loans at 5 or 5.5-percent<br />
made the payment about $75 to $90 per month<br />
on most of these houses.<br />
As housing was filled in around the<br />
downtown area of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, the<br />
Breyfogles purchased or developed other farms<br />
around the community such as the Israel and<br />
Louis Breyfogle home farm west of Metcalf<br />
north of Eighty-seventh Street, the Garastana<br />
Chapter VII ✦ 53
❖<br />
Above: Queen of the Holy Rosary<br />
Catholic Church’s first building<br />
housing the church upstairs and<br />
grades one through eight on the<br />
ground floor in the 1940s.<br />
Below: The Breyfogle Partnership Real<br />
Estate office located in the Strang Line<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Depot in the 1940s.<br />
The Partnership purchased this<br />
property from Tom Riley who bought<br />
all of the Line assets from bankruptcy.<br />
Opposite, top: The 50 Highway Drive-<br />
In on west Eighty-seventh Street. The<br />
Christian Church held “drive-in”<br />
church here for some years.<br />
Farm at Seventy-first and Metcalf east to Santa<br />
Fe, <strong>Overland</strong> View, a subdivision east of Metcalf<br />
and south of Eighty-third Street, and Valley<br />
View subdivision, south of Santa Fe west of<br />
Hadley to Eighty-seventh Street, west to<br />
Antioch. About 1949 Phil Kline bought one of<br />
these new houses with 864 square feet in the<br />
Valley View subdivision for $10,900.<br />
The Breyfogles also realized that the new<br />
residents needed additional shops and businesses<br />
to provide for the needs of the new growing<br />
families. They started building commercial<br />
buildings on the old Strang Line right-of-way on<br />
the east side of Santa Fe Street starting at the<br />
north toward Seventy-ninth Street, building<br />
south. A new hardware store, drug store, war<br />
surplus store, liquor store and other stores were<br />
built on the north half of the block in 1946-1947.<br />
Some vacant space was left for parking and the<br />
south end of the block was built about 1948-<br />
1949 for an A.&P. grocery, Breyfogle’s office,<br />
laundromat, dry goods store and Matt Ross’ Ben<br />
Franklin Store. The center lanes of Santa Fe Street<br />
had been paved with brick in the middle 1920s,<br />
were overlaid with asphalt, but the angle parking<br />
area was still unpaved. Now business and activity<br />
was really booming in downtown <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>.<br />
The Breyfogle Partnership used the <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> Depot, part of their purchase from Tom Riley,<br />
as their real estate office for several years. Zeb<br />
Holland rented this building to open a restaurant<br />
and rooms were built on the east side of the<br />
Depot. Zeb ran the restaurant here for a short<br />
time, but preferred a location twenty-five feet<br />
south of the Voigts Building and soon moved<br />
there. Breyfogles moved their offices to one of<br />
their new buildings, north on Santa Fe Street for a<br />
few years, then moved east on Eightieth Street to<br />
a two-story house on the northwest corner of<br />
Eightieth and Marty. The Oetting family, in 1953,<br />
rented the Depot, built a new showroom over the<br />
Depot loading platform, and continue in business<br />
today as Suburban Decoration.<br />
Dr. Tolle purchased the old Nicholson House<br />
at the southeast corner of Eightieth and Marty<br />
Streets and maintained an office there for years.<br />
Dr. Bradford built a new clinic on the east end<br />
of this same block on Eightieth Street. Drs.<br />
Grayson and Leigh practiced on Santa Fe Street.<br />
Dr. Young served the eye needs of the<br />
community for years at various locations.<br />
Arthur Jones, a prewar Shawnee, Kansas,<br />
attorney opened an office in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. Elmer<br />
Hoge had practiced law in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> since<br />
Opposite, middle: Glen Dickinson’s<br />
Art Deco <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Theater was<br />
built in 1946-1947 at the northwest<br />
corner of Eightieth and Floyd Streets.<br />
The Christian Church met in the<br />
theater when they were first founded<br />
in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>.<br />
Opposite, bottom: The 1941 Ford<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Fire Truck was shown<br />
by the proud volunteers at the<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Elementary School.<br />
54 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
graduating from law school. Wilbur McCool had<br />
started a practice here. Many lawyers who<br />
obtained their law degree through the GI Bill<br />
located in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. New lawyers, some<br />
GIs, some not, coming into the community<br />
within the next ten years included: Lyndus Henry,<br />
Marvin Rainey, Robert Anderson, David Gilman,<br />
Gwen Falkenberg, and William G. Gray. Many<br />
other attorneys located here in later years.<br />
Accountants, architects, engineers and<br />
many other professionals and tradesmen, many<br />
of them war veterans, got their start in the<br />
growing community.<br />
The volunteer fire department continued to<br />
grow. In December, 1941, a new Ford fire truck<br />
was purchased from a company in Minnesota.<br />
Three men drove from <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> to<br />
Minnesota to pick up this truck including<br />
Harold Osborn, chief C. A. Abbott, and Cliff<br />
Jones. The truck had an open driver’s seat and<br />
each man could only drive about thirty miles<br />
before becoming so cold he could not drive, so<br />
the driver would change with one of the men<br />
riding in the warm car. Hal Stonebrecker<br />
designed a new fire station and Herb Ford built<br />
this station in 1942-1943, at 7936 Foster, to<br />
house the new truck and other department<br />
trucks and equipment. Few public or tax funds<br />
were available to buy equipment for the fire<br />
department. The 1943 station served the<br />
department until a new station with living<br />
quarters was built at Seventy-fifth and Conser<br />
on the old John Marty homestead in the 1970s.<br />
Glen Dickinson, a Mission, Kansas, theater<br />
owner built a unique Art Deco Theater in<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> at 7200 West Eightieth in 1946-<br />
1947, which was immediately successful and<br />
served many functions for the community over<br />
the years.<br />
About 1950 the Christian church started a<br />
congregation. They first leased space in the new<br />
Dickinson Theater on Eightieth street. This<br />
congregation started a drive-in church service at<br />
the old 50 Highway Drive-In on West Eightyseventh<br />
Street close to the Santa Fe railroad. This<br />
drive-in church was very successful, becoming<br />
possibly the largest drive-in congregation outside<br />
of California. The <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Christian<br />
Church built its first church on the northwest<br />
corner of Seventy-fifth and Conser in 1953 and<br />
has continued to enlarge this complex.<br />
Chapter VII ✦ 55
❖<br />
Above: The Marty Memorial Fire<br />
Station at Seventy-fifth and Conser,<br />
on the old John Marty farm. The<br />
station opened in 1976, the first<br />
station in the city with living quarters<br />
for the firemen.<br />
COURTESY OF THE CITY OF OVERLAND PARK.<br />
Below: This building was built for the<br />
U.S. Post Office by the Breyfogle<br />
Partnership in 1954-1955. When the<br />
Post Office moved to new, larger<br />
quarters at Eightieth and Conser in<br />
the 1960s, the building was rented to<br />
NAPA Auto Parts.<br />
The Lutherans formed a congregation in<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> in the very late 1940s, first<br />
meeting in the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> grade school until<br />
their first chapel was built in 1951. A much<br />
larger church and supporting buildings were<br />
added around the first chapel in 1971.<br />
Baseball was a relatively new game when<br />
William Strang first came to <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. As<br />
a matter of fact, some communities even<br />
imposed fines for playing baseball games on<br />
Sundays in the late l900s as a violation of the<br />
Blue Laws. Strang had built a baseball diamond<br />
and grandstand east of his car barn as a<br />
promotional tool to bring people to his new<br />
community. Soon thereafter the U.S. Supreme<br />
Court declared baseball games did not violate<br />
the Blue Laws and baseball became a standard<br />
Sunday morning activity in Aviation <strong>Park</strong>. After<br />
World War I local baseball shifted to a largely<br />
school or intracity activity with some corporate<br />
sponsors of teams. Ball fields were few and far<br />
between in the 1920s and 1930s. Chris Segner<br />
loved baseball and created a baseball field on<br />
some land he had at Seventy-first and Nall in<br />
the 1930s. His wife, Emma Segner, started and<br />
ran a grocery store in 1926 just west of Seventyfifth<br />
and Metcalf. She was a very successful<br />
businesswoman. About 1940, Chris Segner<br />
moved his baseball field to a Seventy-fifth Street<br />
location just east of Metcalf. As the Seventy-fifth<br />
Street property became valuable, Chris Segner<br />
moved his ball field in the middle 1940s to a<br />
field west of Metcalf south of Eighty-third Street<br />
for a couple of years and about 1945 bought<br />
some land south of Highway 58 and north of the<br />
Strang Line right-of-way, near Grant Street. He<br />
started building several baseball diamonds and a<br />
grandstand. After World War II, lights and a<br />
concession stand were added to the ballpark.<br />
Chris ran the ballpark until his death in 1950.<br />
His wife Emma sold the corner grocery store at<br />
Seventy-fifth and Metcalf to Paul and Jean<br />
Atkinson. It later became Paul’s Western Store, a<br />
liquor store and a Standard Oil service station.<br />
Emma ran Segner Field after Chris’s death until<br />
her death in 1955. Thereafter the 3-and-2<br />
Baseball Club came in to run the field and<br />
expanded it to the south. Finally the activity had<br />
grown so much that the 3 and 2 Baseball Club<br />
moved their whole operation west on Eightyseventh<br />
Street to Renner Road in 1963 where a<br />
large, lighted multi-diamond complex was built<br />
and still operates.<br />
The Cowley-Lanter lumberyard buildings<br />
were used after the war by the Wadsworth<br />
Prefabricated Homes Company. They built all of<br />
the walls, rafters, floors, and roofs of a house,<br />
loaded these components on a truck and<br />
shipped the prefabricated parts to a home site to<br />
be assembled. This business continued into the<br />
very early 1950s when the land of the<br />
lumberyard on the east side of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
Drive north of Eightieth Street was sold to the<br />
Breyfogle Partnership. Breyfogles built a store<br />
for McDaniel Pharmacy where the lumberyard<br />
had been.<br />
The Home Telephone Company was sold to<br />
the Southwestern Bell Telephone as part of their<br />
system. In 1954, the house, which had served as<br />
56 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
the telephone office since 1911, was moved to<br />
Eighty-fifth and Metcalf, northwest corner, where<br />
it stands today. Breyfogles built a new building<br />
for the United States Post Office on the north side<br />
of Eightieth where the telephone office stood.<br />
Other buildings filled in between the Post Office<br />
and McDaniels in the middle 1950s.<br />
The <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> area of Mission Township<br />
was again the subject of special legislation in the<br />
state of Kansas to create what was now called an<br />
urban township. New cities like Fairway, Mission,<br />
Roeland <strong>Park</strong>, Prairie Village, and Leawood had<br />
all broken off and incorporated as separate cities<br />
in the late 1940s. The Mission Township<br />
authority extended only in the township areas<br />
outside the boundaries of any incorporated city.<br />
These five new cities carved a substantial block<br />
out of the Mission Township. The cities all had<br />
their own police departments, city halls with<br />
staffs, and controlled their own zoning. They<br />
thumbed their noses at Mission Township saying<br />
it would never amount to anything.<br />
In 1952 the Kansas Legislature authorized the<br />
creation of new urban townships. The Johnson<br />
County Commission changed the name of the area<br />
to the Mission Urban Township. In addition to<br />
zoning, building permit activities and road and<br />
street maintenance, the Urban Township Board<br />
was empowered to provide for public safety,<br />
particularly a police department, ambulance and<br />
emergency services. The volunteer fire department<br />
continued to provide services and was growing.<br />
Chief Abbott had been called to the war in 1942<br />
and relocated elsewhere after the war. Volunteer<br />
member James Broockerd, who joined the<br />
department in 1950, was elected chief in 1956 and<br />
ran it extremely well for the next thirty-one years.<br />
The Mission Urban Township called for an<br />
elected board of five members. The first elected<br />
members were: Matt Ross, John Barkley, Harold<br />
Horn, Lloyd Roark, and Robert Knapp. They<br />
started meeting in 1952. A police department was<br />
started in 1953. Ben Casteel was the first police<br />
chief, serving until April 1955, when John<br />
Kenyon was appointed chief. He served until<br />
1971. The Urban Township Board met in Walt<br />
Fleming’s meeting hall, second floor of his twostory<br />
building at 7331 West Eightieth. They used<br />
the south end of the second floor. The police<br />
department was on the north end of this floor and<br />
by 1955 the police department had five police<br />
officers. The Board determined that neither they<br />
nor politics would have any bearing or influence<br />
on the running of the police department.<br />
Also on the second floor of the Fleming<br />
Building was the engineering firm of Shafer<br />
❖<br />
Top, left; Segner Baseball Field in the<br />
late 1940s showing the grandstand<br />
and concession area.<br />
Above: James Broockerd, joined the<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> volunteer fire<br />
department about 1950, was elected<br />
chief of the department in 1956, and<br />
was reelected chief for the next 31<br />
years until he retired in 1987.<br />
Below: Walt Fleming’s two story<br />
building at 7331 West Eightieth<br />
served as the Mission Township<br />
Board headquarters and government<br />
offices during the World War II<br />
and the 1950s, even as the first<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> City Hall in 1960<br />
and early 1961.<br />
Chapter VII ✦ 57
❖<br />
Above and below: The old J. D. New<br />
dairy farm was purchased by Glen<br />
Dickinson about 1955. Dickinson<br />
remodeled the old dairy barn and<br />
painted it bright red converting it into<br />
a restaurant and catering business<br />
and large dance club in the hay mow<br />
above, called the “Manor Barn”.<br />
COURTESY OF THE SUN PUBLICATIONS, INC.,<br />
JOHNSON COUNTY…PICTURES FROM THE PAST.<br />
Opposite, top: Andy Klein’s Pontiac<br />
dealership at Seventy-eighth and<br />
Metcalf. It was built in 1951, the first<br />
of the new postwar showrooms and<br />
service buildings.<br />
Opposite, middle: <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> City<br />
logo at Shawnee Mission <strong>Park</strong>way<br />
and Metcalf, the northeast entrance<br />
to the cty.<br />
COURTESY OF THE CITY OF OVERLAND PARK.<br />
Opposite, bottom: Business buildings<br />
in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> about 1955. The<br />
buses are on Foster Street north of<br />
Eightieth. The Skelly station is on a<br />
little triangle of land, which serves as<br />
parking spaces for the law offices at<br />
Eightieth and Foster today.<br />
and Kline. Warren was added to the firm later.<br />
They designed many of the new water and sewer<br />
lines, drew many plats, and surveyed many lots<br />
and areas for the hectic and extensive growth.<br />
The William Strang home was torn down in<br />
the late 1940s. The Jacobs family built shops on<br />
the south side of the street about the east half of<br />
Eightieth Street between Marty and <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> Drive in the mid-1950s.<br />
Glen Dickinson had been very successful in<br />
the theater business, first in Mission, then<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, and other communities<br />
throughout Kansas. In 1955 he purchased the<br />
old J. D. New farm, the northwest corner of<br />
Ninety-fifth and Metcalf. He converted the big<br />
dairy barn to a restaurant and meeting rooms<br />
called the “Manor Barn” and painted this “barn<br />
red”. The pond on the corner was a popular<br />
fishing hole. He started planning for a big motel,<br />
which he built in the late 1950s, and in the early<br />
1960s built the Glenwood Theater north of the<br />
motel. First there was just one screen but in<br />
later years he added three more screens, the first<br />
of the multiplexes in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. He<br />
enlarged the motel and built a convention<br />
center, which seemed large enough at that time.<br />
The motel restaurant was the most upscale<br />
meeting place in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> in the late<br />
1950s and through the 1960s and 1970s.<br />
When the Strang Line ceased to provide<br />
public transportation, Continental Trailways, a<br />
division of Union Pacific, acquired the<br />
franchise. The Conser family converted their old<br />
machine shop location to a bus depot. Buses<br />
were parked inside on the Foster Street side of<br />
the building and the ticket office was on one<br />
end of the front and a short order counter on the<br />
other end of the front of the building. After the<br />
war many of the bus riders bought their own<br />
cars and the bus routes declined.<br />
Harvey Stockton worked for Grooms Ford<br />
in the 1920s and Digges auto repair business<br />
in the 1930s. He started his own auto repair<br />
business on the west side of Foster Street<br />
adjoining the new fire station on the north.<br />
He continued to enlarge his business and<br />
bought land going through to Conser Street for<br />
storing cars from both a public and private<br />
towing service. He finally added a frame<br />
straightening shop, filling in the area between<br />
the fire station and the Kansas City Power and<br />
Light Company garage. This frame shop is still<br />
operated by Stockton family members. Harvey<br />
Stockton encouraged Pete and Dottie<br />
McClenaghan to become partners with Sidney<br />
Ashton who had opened an auto parts and paint<br />
store in the old Conser Bus Depot after the War<br />
to supply his and other auto repair businesses in<br />
the area. McClenaghans had the right to buy the<br />
rest of the business at Ashton’s death, which<br />
they did.<br />
58 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
The <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Bank doubled its building<br />
size in the late 1940s, but this space was still too<br />
small and could not be expanded again. In 1953<br />
they moved to temporary quarters on the<br />
northeast corner of Eightieth and Conser while<br />
they were erecting a new building with drive-in<br />
windows at the southwest corner of Eightieth<br />
and Metcalf, which they occupied in 1955.<br />
In the 1950s, all of the leading grocery chains<br />
and some individuals located grocery stores in<br />
downtown <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. Kroger rented a new<br />
store in 1951, the first building south of the old<br />
Strang Line Depot. In 1954, Thriftway Stores,<br />
run by Frank Armonies and Floyd Day, two<br />
successful grocers, rented a new store built by the<br />
Breyfogles on the old Legion Hut property. The<br />
IGA chain was at Eightieth and Foster. Milgram<br />
Stores had a location downtown and in the late<br />
1940s Breyfogles built a new store for the A.&P.<br />
chain, the north end of their south group of<br />
stores on the east side of Santa Fe north of<br />
Eightieth. The Carters, Godells, and Turners had<br />
been the three grocers in the 1930s and 1940s.<br />
By this time the young growing families<br />
supported six or seven grocery stores.<br />
In the 1940s and 1950s a drug store was<br />
operated by the Hornings, first in a new<br />
Breyfogle building, then in an A. M. Wood<br />
building near the junction of Sante Fe and Foster<br />
Streets. Then Blocks came into the drug business<br />
at the Horning location. They built a new store<br />
on the east side of Santa Fe south of the Kroger<br />
store, and Russells took over the drug store on<br />
west side of Santa Fe. Block sold their drug store<br />
to Shalinskys, and during this time, McDaniel<br />
pharmacy had opened on Eightieth Street.<br />
Cleaners, frame shops, gift shops, interior<br />
businesses, barbershops and every other<br />
conceivable appropriate business located in the<br />
growing community.<br />
During World War II new cars were not<br />
manufactured. Used cars were at a premium.<br />
Andy Klein, who spent his youth and early teen<br />
years in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, started buying and<br />
selling abandoned cars at a garage Frank<br />
Schepers had at the north side of his service<br />
station at Eighty-third and Metcalf. Andy became<br />
a partner with Frank Ball in the Frank Ball<br />
Pontiac dealership in Kansas City, Missouri, in<br />
the mid-1940s. Andy Klein obtained the<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Pontiac dealership from Herman<br />
Webber. Herman Webber previously had the<br />
Oakland dealership in the area, but he had never<br />
been a very active dealer and Pontiac was eager<br />
for a young, aggressive dealer in the area. The<br />
Pontiac dealership was operated out of the<br />
Eighty-third Street location for a short time, and<br />
relocated across the street from the Strang Car<br />
Chapter VII ✦ 59
❖<br />
Top: Jack Bear’s Cloverleaf Building,<br />
one of several of the first multistoried<br />
buildings at Metcalf and Shawnee<br />
Mission <strong>Park</strong>way (originally<br />
Highway 50).<br />
COURTESY OF THE OVERLAND PARK<br />
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE.<br />
Above: Just one of the many<br />
industrial buildings in the<br />
Congleton Industrial <strong>Park</strong>.<br />
Barn, in the old Oakland dealership building,<br />
7900 Santa Fe Street, in the late 1940s.<br />
Andy Klein needed larger facilities for a<br />
dealership and purchased land where the Glenn<br />
Post Office, the first post office of the area, had<br />
been located. He started building the first of the<br />
post war dealerships with a large showroom, parts<br />
and repair services, and the used car office, which<br />
opened in 1951 at Seventy-eighth and Metcalf.<br />
Joseph Davis, a resident in the area had an oil<br />
jobber and delivery service hauling gasoline and<br />
oil to six or seven service stations. He bought an<br />
interest in a DeSoto, Dodge and Plymouth auto<br />
dealership in Kansas City, Missouri, which he<br />
then moved to the west side of Metcalf just<br />
north of Eightieth Street in 1952. Next came<br />
Charles Ryan Buick, later becoming Don Stein<br />
Buick, O’Neill Oldsmobile and Shortman<br />
Dodge. Metcalf Avenue in downtown <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> was now automobile dealership row.<br />
In the middle 1940s the Kansas Department<br />
of Transportation decided Highway 50 going<br />
through Mission, Kansas, was too congested and<br />
started working to move this highway one half<br />
mile south to run at approximately Sixty-third<br />
Street. They angled it from Fifty-ninth Street at<br />
Roe Avenue to Sixty-third Street at Nall, then<br />
proceeded straight west. Where Highway 50<br />
crossed Highway 69-Metcalf, the Kansas<br />
Highway Commission decided to apply the<br />
newest in intersection technology, building a<br />
cloverleaf interchange in 1946-1947. This<br />
became a great entrance to the northeast area of<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>.<br />
Jack Bear owned the southeast quadrant of<br />
the cloverleaf and some years later requested<br />
zoning to build several multi-storied office<br />
buildings there. He received approval and built<br />
several white brick, premium quality buildings,<br />
the first of the multi-story buildings in Mission<br />
Urban Township in the late 1950s.<br />
Victor Regnier and his wife requested zoning<br />
from Leawood for a strip shopping center on the<br />
northeast corner of Ninety-fifth and Mission<br />
Road. Upon approval the Regniers built the<br />
north half of Ranchmart Shopping Center in<br />
1958. Regnier filled in a lake and built Ninetyfifth<br />
Street up with tons of dirt to make the<br />
street somewhat level with the shopping center.<br />
After <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> incorporated and the City<br />
annexed the southeast corner of Ninety-fifth<br />
and Mission, Regniers applied for and were<br />
granted zoning to build the south half of<br />
Ranchmart Shopping Center, which they<br />
opened in 1968.<br />
About the same time as the Bear and Regnier<br />
development activities were going on, Tom<br />
Congleton, a developer, had 140 acres of land<br />
just east of the new I-35 Interstate Highway.<br />
This land was between I-35 and Quivira Road,<br />
from Eighty-ninth Street south to almost<br />
Ninety-fifth Street. He requested the first<br />
industrial park zoning for this land, received it<br />
and built many quality industrial buildings in<br />
his Congleton Industrial <strong>Park</strong>. While doing this<br />
he tried to limit this park for industrial<br />
buildings, but had so many requests for office<br />
buildings, this determined his development<br />
activity in the future. All of this zoning of<br />
commercial activity in Mission Urban Township<br />
was granted basically to broaden the<br />
commercial, real estate tax base for the area. The<br />
zonings were strongly opposed by some of the<br />
60 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
downtown <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> interests, but once<br />
these zonings opened the door, the stage was<br />
set and pressure was building to make Mission<br />
Urban Township into a city to control its<br />
own destiny.<br />
Milburn Country Club was growing as<br />
successful businessmen and professionals<br />
moved to the area. Charlie Fatino was still the<br />
Club manager but the club no longer needed<br />
loans from Charlie to survive. Charlie set his<br />
sights on building a new two-story building on<br />
Eightieth Street just west of Metcalf. He was<br />
turned down for commercial zoning the first<br />
time in 1955 because he did not provide enough<br />
parking. The parking problem was becoming<br />
increasingly significant and would almost kill<br />
the downtown area in later years. But Charlie<br />
was undaunted and purchased some houses and<br />
land north of the Dickinson Theater, and with<br />
this area for parking the zoning permit was<br />
granted and Charlie started building his “L”<br />
shaped building on the northeast corner of<br />
Eightieth and Floyd Streets, which was<br />
completed in early 1958.<br />
One of the first occupants of Fatino’s<br />
Building was John Francis <strong>Overland</strong> Restaurant,<br />
a truly nice restaurant with tables and waitresses<br />
and a comprehensive menu. One of their<br />
specialties was “Chicken in the Rough”, an early<br />
fried chicken franchise meal. John Francis had<br />
been the band director at Shawnee Mission<br />
Rural High School. He went into the restaurant<br />
business in downtown Kansas City, Missouri,<br />
but when the opportunity arose, quickly came<br />
back to <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> to open a restaurant.<br />
Many of the young attorneys and professionals<br />
occupied the second floor of the building.<br />
Suzee’s Attic (a ladies specialty shop), jewelry<br />
store, and other retailers occupied the<br />
downstairs shops. White Haven Motor Lodge<br />
opened about the same time and having<br />
no eating facilities sent many visitors to<br />
John Francis, just around the corner from their<br />
motor lodge.<br />
The dairy business in the area had changed<br />
substantially. Many of the dairies were gone,<br />
with houses and developments growing on the<br />
dairy pastures. Dairy products were readily<br />
available in grocery stores. Arthur England and<br />
❖<br />
Above: Glenwood Theater sign,<br />
installed by Glen Dickinson in front of<br />
his theater at Ninety-first and Metcalf<br />
in the early 1960s, then purchased by<br />
the Mossman brothers, owners of<br />
several historic theaters. They have<br />
restored and installed this sign on<br />
south side of Ninety-fifth Street, just<br />
east of Metcalf, to promote their<br />
theater inside the shopping center.<br />
COURTESY OF THE CITY OF OVERLAND PARK.<br />
Below: Charles Fatino’s two-story<br />
retail and office building when it first<br />
opened. The sign for John Francis’ can<br />
be seen on the far left.<br />
Chapter VII ✦ 61
❖<br />
Above: A group of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
businessmen in the 1960s. Front row<br />
(from left to right): Walt Fleming, Joe<br />
Davis, Zeb Holland, Hal Stonebrecker,<br />
and Howard McEachen. Back row;<br />
Charles Fatino, Matt Ross, Lee<br />
Holland, Phil Kline,Hank Gregory,<br />
and Dale Lylerla.<br />
Below: Paups Place in the 7500<br />
block of west Sixty-third, just south<br />
of Shawnee Mission High School in<br />
the 1940s.<br />
COURTESY OF THE SUN PUBLICATIONS, INC.,<br />
JOHNSON COUNTY…PICTURES FROM THE PAST.<br />
his brothers were still in the dairy business on<br />
their farms, but sold their milk to processors.<br />
However, Arthur started his own dairy store in<br />
downtown <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> in 1951 at Seventyninth<br />
and Floyd. He sold dairy and convenience<br />
items, but more importantly, his sister Florence<br />
operated a soda fountain in the store having a<br />
particularly fine reputation for thick, rich malts<br />
and shakes and scrumptious sundaes and<br />
banana splits.<br />
Boot’s Drive-In started in 1953 and was a<br />
favorite hangout of the teenagers and anyone<br />
wanting a tasty hamburger, ice cream, and soft<br />
drinks. It was located just east of Dalton’s flower<br />
business on Santa Fe. Danny Wren took over<br />
what had been the Wagon Wheel Restaurant<br />
and ran it for some years. The other hangout for<br />
the students from Shawnee Mission Rural High<br />
School was “Paups” Place on Sixty-third Street a<br />
couple blocks west of Metcalf. He served<br />
refreshments and had a dance floor both inside<br />
and on the roof. These places really rocked in<br />
the 1950s with larger and larger jukeboxes and<br />
even live music.<br />
The name of the high school changed from<br />
Shawnee Mission Rural High School to just<br />
Shawnee Mission High School. Kansas<br />
legislation created new school districts, one of<br />
which was <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> District 110. The<br />
School Board for this district under the<br />
presidencies of Robert Anderson and Phil Kline,<br />
oversaw the building of twelve new elementary<br />
schools in the 1950s.<br />
Lee and Maxine Bauman bought the Brohl’s<br />
Shoe Store on Eightieth Street. Maxine Russell<br />
had come to <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> as a teenager with<br />
her parents during the depression. She worked<br />
at several jobs after graduating from Shawnee<br />
Mission High School, married Lee Bauman in<br />
1951 and returned to <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> in the<br />
middle 1950s. They worked for Brohl several<br />
years, then bought the shoe business in 1957.<br />
Their business prospered and the Baumans<br />
became part of the growing group of civic and<br />
service-minded citizens of the community,<br />
such as: the Carters of grocery and sporting<br />
goods businesses; Virginia Price Owen, an<br />
interior designer and decorator; Mary Knox, of<br />
the hotel; Matt Ross of the Ben Franklin Store; the<br />
Jennings family from the feed, seed, and<br />
coal store; Reverend Waters, the Presbyterian<br />
Church minister; Walt Fleming, manager of<br />
the Kansas City Power and Light Company,<br />
Kansas Division; Phil Kline, an engineer; Lyndus<br />
Henry, an attorney; and Mabel Harrison,<br />
principal of the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> School. These<br />
were the community leaders who got things done<br />
and added to the quality of life.<br />
Attorneys Kenneth Wallace and Frank<br />
Saunders formed a firm for the practice of law<br />
and were soon joined by Larry Austin, Bart<br />
Brown and many more attorneys becoming the<br />
largest law firm in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> at the close of<br />
the 1950s. The firm practice grew dramatically.<br />
In 1982 the firm used an industrial revenue<br />
bond to finance their new law office building<br />
and the firm continues to serve the entire area<br />
into the twenty-first century.<br />
62 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
1960-1980:<br />
INCORPORATION & ORGANIZATION<br />
BY FLORENT WAGNER<br />
The year 1960 was a seminal year for the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> area. The Mission Urban Township was<br />
dissolved and the area was incorporated as the City of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. Special legislation was<br />
introduced in the state of Kansas to allow <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> to incorporate as a first-class city without<br />
going through the third-class and second-class steps. First-class cities require a population of twentyfive<br />
thousand people. The boundary lines of the area were redrawn so that when <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
incorporated on May 20, 1960, the new city had 28,085 people. This incorporation was exactly fiftyfour<br />
years after the first run of the Strang Line in 1906. The legislation provided for the election of a<br />
mayor and 10 city councilmen. The election was held in August and the new mayor and city<br />
councilmen were sworn in September of 1960. The first mayor elected was Roy L. Owen. The new<br />
councilmen were: John W. Meyers and Harold L. Reade, Ward 1; Donald C. Epp and Donald R. Sloan,<br />
Ward 2; Clarence O. Gast and Robert B. Worley, Ward 3; Russell A. Rees and Matt Ross, Ward 4; and<br />
Harry K. Burkhart Jr. and Herbert H. Ford, Jr., Ward 5. The new mayor and council met in a large<br />
second floor room of the Fleming Building. City offices were staffed in the south end of the Building,<br />
meeting room in between, and the police department operated in two rooms at the north end.<br />
The City staff consisted of Bernice Heck Crummett and Olive Benton initially, but immediately<br />
started expanding. Roy Owen, the newly elected mayor, had been involved with township activities for<br />
several years and understood the importance of annexations to the new city. He immediately started the<br />
❖<br />
The first elected mayor and ten city<br />
councilmen after the City of <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> was incorporated. Mayor Roy<br />
Owen and new councilmen were<br />
sworn in September 1960.<br />
Chapter VIII ✦ 63
❖<br />
Above: An aerial view of of Ninetyfirst<br />
and Antioch in the early 1960s.<br />
The Porter dairy farm was in the<br />
center. Antioch crosses from left to<br />
right. Ninety-fifth Street can be seen<br />
at the center, far left.<br />
COURTESY OF THE CITY OF OVERLAND PARK.<br />
Below: Shawnee Mission<br />
Medical Center.<br />
procedure to annex areas adjoining the city on<br />
the west across Antioch in Shawnee Township, an<br />
area from Seventy-fifth Street south to Ninetyfifth<br />
Street. Mayor Owen also understood that the<br />
City would need larger quarters and acquired<br />
some land for a new city hall-a triangular piece of<br />
land between Eighty-fifth Street on the north,<br />
Santa Fe Street on the south, and Antioch Street<br />
on the west. This tract was just immediately<br />
south of the Old Country Club Dairy and Joe<br />
Mackey stables, all now gone.<br />
Many civic, service, social, and religious<br />
clubs had been in the area for years. Two or<br />
three of the most active or visible clubs of the<br />
township era and the beginnings of the<br />
incorporated city period were the Cooperative<br />
Club, the Mission Lions Club, which had started<br />
the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Club in the late 1950s, and<br />
the Soroptimist Club. The Cooperative Club’s<br />
name was changed to the Shawnee Mission<br />
Sertoma Club when the national club changed.<br />
This club had always been active in Johnson<br />
County <strong>Park</strong>s programs, particularly the<br />
Theater-in-the-<strong>Park</strong> program. The Soroptimist<br />
Club built a clubhouse in Mission, with<br />
extensive help from <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> citizens. The<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Lions Club in the early 1960s<br />
started the program of decorating Metcalf with<br />
American flags for the important holidays<br />
calling the effort the “Avenue of Flags”. This<br />
activity continues into the twenty-first century.<br />
The Lions Club flag program was reflective of<br />
the heritage started by William B. Strang-a first<br />
class patriot whose vision was for a park-like<br />
community. The massive flag display on the<br />
city’s principal street created a very festive<br />
atmosphere. The <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Rotary Club<br />
was started in the fall of 1960 by Matt<br />
Ross, Donald Smith, M.D., and other civic<br />
leaders, the first club in the city started after<br />
incorporation. Almost every other civic, service,<br />
social, business, professional and religious<br />
club conceivable has become a part of the city<br />
since incorporation.<br />
Northeast Johnson County needed a hospital.<br />
The residents of the area had gone for years to<br />
the Kansas City area hospitals or a small hospital<br />
in Olathe. The Seventh Day Adventists decided<br />
to sponsor a new hospital in northeast Johnson<br />
County, just west of Seventy-fifth and Antioch.<br />
This hospital would be called the Shawnee<br />
Mission Hospital. Many community and civic-<br />
64 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
minded people wanted the hospital and raised<br />
sufficient funds to start building. It opened its<br />
doors for patients in 1962. Several buildings in<br />
the neighborhood were purchased to expand<br />
services. The hospital facilities have been<br />
enlarged and renovated extensively to keep pace<br />
with growth. With a large professional<br />
staff, skilled specialists and nurses, and a<br />
large support staff, this institution has become<br />
one of the leading medical centers in the<br />
metropolitan area.<br />
In the early 1960s, Frank Morgan and<br />
Edward Young, who was a successful retailer in<br />
Riverside, Missouri, doing business as the RED<br />
“X” Store, petitioned for the zoning of a large<br />
retail building on what had been part of the<br />
Barthol farm, the northeast corner of 95th and<br />
Metcalf. Downtown <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> business<br />
interests opposed this zoning strenuously.<br />
However, after several attempts the zoning for a<br />
large retail building was granted. This building,<br />
called the “French Market”, was opened in<br />
1962. It included grocery, drug, hardware, fabric,<br />
dry goods and liquor sales. The store may<br />
have been premature both in its size and location.<br />
It closed after about four years. K-Mart<br />
stores took the major portion of this building,<br />
which they still occupy. Milgram Grocery stores<br />
ran a successful store here for some years.<br />
At this time <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, Kansas, was<br />
known as the place to locate a new business.<br />
Joseph Cohen, a Kansas City, Kansas, attorney<br />
and banker, realized that this new city was<br />
growing dramatically and could use another<br />
bank. Cohen petitioned the State Banking<br />
Commission for a new bank charter and after<br />
demonstrating the community’s need, was<br />
granted a charter in the name of Metcalf State<br />
Bank. This Bank opened at Seventy-ninth and<br />
Metcalf in a totally modern, prefab, concrete<br />
building in 1962 with Charles Trego as<br />
president. In 1964, Benjamin Craig became<br />
president. Ben Craig was a tireless worker and<br />
became one of the driving forces of <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> and Johnson County. He has been involved<br />
with every worthwhile activity in the city and<br />
county, lending not only his name, but his<br />
dedication, efforts, expertise, and funds to these<br />
projects—hospitals, community college, airport<br />
transportation, public improvements and<br />
facilities, and numerous others.<br />
D. W. Newcomer Funeral Home, one of the<br />
largest and most established funeral homes in<br />
Kansas City, Missouri, selected a location at<br />
Eighty-second and Metcalf, part of what was left<br />
of the old John Conser farm, as their new funeral<br />
home. They opened this new location in 1963.<br />
Many years before they obtained zoning and<br />
developed Johnson County Memorial Gardens,<br />
just south of College Boulevard, on Metcalf at<br />
about 112th Street, one of the newer cemeteries<br />
in Johnson County. Now <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> had two<br />
funeral homes, the sign of a growing community.<br />
While <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> was organizing to build a<br />
new city hall, City Hall moved to a professional<br />
building at Eighty-first and Marty in 1961, where<br />
they rented many offices to accommodate the<br />
expanding City staff. Marvin Rainey, an <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> attorney, was elected mayor in 1963, and at<br />
the same time, city government was changed to a<br />
mayor-council-city manager type of government,<br />
❖<br />
Above: Metcalf Bank at Seventy-ninth<br />
and Metcalf in 1962. When it opened<br />
in this new, modern building, it was<br />
the second bank in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>.<br />
Below: The “Avenue of Flags” set up<br />
on Metcalf Avenue on major holidays<br />
by the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Host Lions<br />
Club. The club started this patriotic<br />
and festive display in 1963.<br />
Chapter VIII ✦ 65
which was less partisan. Mayor Rainey encouraged<br />
improvement of the east-west thoroughfares such<br />
as Highway 50, Seventy-fifth, Ninety-fifth, and<br />
103rd Streets, and Santa Fe Drive. One of the<br />
strong indications of growth of the area was the<br />
zoning and building of a new covered shopping<br />
center at the southeast corner of Ninety-fifth and<br />
Metcalf known as “Metcalf South,” which opened<br />
in 1967. In 1965 the City annexed the area of<br />
Mission Township south of Ninety-fifth Street to<br />
107th Street, everything left in the Township not<br />
incorporated in the City of Leawood.<br />
In August 1963, the first city manager,<br />
Donald E. Pipes, was hired. Pipes served as City<br />
Manager for all but three and one-half years of<br />
the next thirty-seven years. Continuing the<br />
work of the Mission Urban Township Board, the<br />
City Council authorized a comprehensive planning<br />
approach to ensure orderly land-use and<br />
good growth of the city. The consulting firm of<br />
Hare & Hare, of Kansas City, Missouri, continued<br />
to be retained to advise the new City<br />
Planning Department and Commission on planning,<br />
land subdivisions and city growth.<br />
Richard Kellenberg of the Hare firm worked<br />
extensively with the city staff to develop the<br />
planning functions and to create master plans<br />
for all areas of the city. The first Master Plan for<br />
Development in the City of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> was<br />
adopted by the City Council in 1963.<br />
Duard Enoch was elected mayor in 1967. The<br />
major thrust of his administration was the large<br />
increase of the parks and recreation facilities with<br />
the passage of bonds to support this activity. It was<br />
also during this period that the planning and<br />
zoning activities matured dramatically, particularly<br />
the introduction of a plan and zoning concept. The<br />
City pursued an extensive annexation policy to<br />
the south beyond 135th Street. This was extremely<br />
important in controlling the quality of private<br />
developments to make sure they measured up<br />
to the quality of existing developments. During<br />
Enoch’s term the City took a major step by<br />
using municipal revenue bonds allowing the<br />
development of the large TWA Breech Training<br />
Academy to accommodate the training of<br />
flight attendants.<br />
Right after the city’s incorporation most of<br />
the business activity was in the downtown area,<br />
north of Eighty-third Street. The Business<br />
Association represented these people, their<br />
businesses and commercial activity. But with<br />
business and commercial activity becoming city<br />
wide, including the newly annexed areas, the<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Chamber of Commerce became<br />
the representative of these interests and<br />
activities. Richard Molamphy was elected as<br />
president of the Chamber and served in this<br />
position for years. On his retirement Mary Birch<br />
became the Chamber president. With her<br />
❖<br />
The Professional Building, the site of<br />
the second <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> City<br />
Offices. Most of the city staff, the<br />
mayor’s office, and the council<br />
meeting room were on the main floor,<br />
with the police department occupying<br />
the lower level.<br />
66 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
❖<br />
Top, left: Mayor Marvin Rainey.<br />
COURTESY OF THE OVERLAND PARK<br />
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE.<br />
Top, right: Mayor Duard Enoch.<br />
COURTESY OF THE CITY OF OVERLAND PARK.<br />
Bottom, left: Mary Birch, president of<br />
the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Chamber of<br />
Commerce, leading it to become the<br />
largest chamber of commerce in<br />
Johnson County.<br />
Bottom, right: Mayor Jack Walker.<br />
COURTESY OF THE CITY OF OVERLAND PARK.<br />
innovative leadership style and management<br />
ability, she led the Chamber strongly forward,<br />
becoming the dominant Chamber of Commerce<br />
in the area leading the business and commercial<br />
community into the twenty-first century.<br />
Jack Walker was elected mayor in 1971 and at<br />
the same time the mayor’s term was changed<br />
from a two year term to a four year term so that<br />
when Jack Walker ran for the second term at the<br />
end of his first two year term, he served for four<br />
years, becoming the only mayor of the city to<br />
serve six years. The city was definitely moving<br />
away from being known as a bedroom<br />
community only, to becoming a complete, wellrounded<br />
financial, commercial and residential<br />
community. One of the major developments<br />
during Walker’s administration was <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong>’s leading the fight for the first countywide<br />
sales tax. When the Kansas law authorized it,<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> adopted a one-half cent sales tax<br />
providing a large amount of money to the<br />
community, moving city government financing<br />
Chapter VIII ✦ 67
❖<br />
Above: Corporate Woods skyline<br />
showing buildings and parking<br />
scattered through the trees.<br />
COURTESY OF THE CITY OF OVERLAND PARK.<br />
Below: Oak <strong>Park</strong> Mall was the largest<br />
of the shopping malls in the <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> and Metropolitan Area when it<br />
was built.<br />
away from sole dependence on property taxes.<br />
This proved to be extremely beneficial as the<br />
J. C. Nichols Co. in cooperation with Frank<br />
Morgan developed another enclosed shopping<br />
center, the Oak <strong>Park</strong> Mall, at Ninety-fifth and<br />
Quivira. This was the largest covered shopping<br />
center in the metropolitan area. <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
was a shopping destination for all of Johnson<br />
County, Wyandotte County, and much of the<br />
south side of Kansas City, Missouri.<br />
One of the major events in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> was<br />
the breaking ground in 1973 for the first building<br />
of a new office park to be known as Corporate<br />
Woods, located on 294 acres between Antioch<br />
and Switzer By-Pass from I-435 south to 111th<br />
Street. Tom Congleton, who developed his own<br />
industrial park in the City, went to work for Jones<br />
& Company in Kansas City, Missouri. He learned<br />
of the interests in office buildings while working<br />
in his industrial park. He put together a new plan<br />
to develop an office park. Local financial interests<br />
were too conservative to finance speculative<br />
office buildings but Tom Congleton sold his idea<br />
to Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. Metropolitan<br />
Life formed a partnership with four officers of<br />
Jones and Co. to create this office park, which<br />
could provide 2.2 million square feet of office<br />
space. Twelve buildings were completed by 1980<br />
with five additional buildings under<br />
construction. General Motors Corp. moved its<br />
metropolitan headquarters to the complex.<br />
Burlington Northern Railroad moved its national<br />
headquarters to a suite of floors on the top of one<br />
of the new buildings. Many national firms and<br />
professionals, including many large metropolitan<br />
law firms, opened offices in this new office park.<br />
This office park was unique in office<br />
developments and brought national attention to<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> for this innovative and attractive<br />
development with its buildings and parking<br />
scattered among the trees of the 294 acres.<br />
City government in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> had<br />
become very professional. Planning and<br />
development had become a major tool in the<br />
quality growth of the city. Roger Peterson<br />
came aboard as the head of this department.<br />
The Zoning Board was started and the<br />
commissioners spent many hours reviewing the<br />
proposed developments. With this also came a<br />
Board of Zoning Appeals. Matt Ross, business<br />
owner in Downtown <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, had been<br />
on the Mission Urban Township Zoning Board<br />
and a community doer for years. He was<br />
appointed as one of the first members to the<br />
Board of Zoning Appeals. Matt Ross had also<br />
been involved very closely with the Police<br />
Department since its founding in 1953, as a<br />
responsibility of the township. When a Police<br />
Board was established for the City, Matt was a<br />
68 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
logical choice for the board on which he<br />
continued to serve until the late 1990s. John<br />
Kenyon resigned as Police Chief in 1971, and<br />
Myron Scafe, who had been with the department<br />
since 1955, was appointed Chief immediately.<br />
Myron Scafe continued to serve as Police Chief<br />
for the next twenty-two years. He guided the<br />
department through enormous growth and the<br />
building of two new Justice Center buildings,<br />
one at Eighty-fifth and Antioch, and one at<br />
123rd and Metcalf, which will serve the city well<br />
into the twenty-first century.<br />
In 1965 the Kansas Legislature passed the<br />
Community College Act authorizing and<br />
promoting the creation of area community<br />
colleges. Local college activists headed by Dr.<br />
Wilbur Billington urged the county<br />
commissioners to establish a citizens committee<br />
to investigate establishing a community college.<br />
Several studies were involved and the committee<br />
strongly recommended the establishment of a<br />
community college. The Johnson County<br />
Commissioners decided to have an election in<br />
1967 to approve the creation of a community<br />
college. The election results were overwhelming<br />
in favor of the establishment of a community<br />
college and members of a Board of Trustees were<br />
elected. The Board of Trustees followed closely a<br />
“blue book” written by one of the board members,<br />
Hugh Speer, and set about finding a president for<br />
this new college. Over one hundred applicants<br />
were interviewed for this position. Dr. Robert<br />
Harris was selected as president in 1968 primarily<br />
because he said that he would have a college<br />
going by the fall term in 1969. He immediately set<br />
about hiring staff and educators. Classes were<br />
started in September 1969, spread between the<br />
old Merriam Elementary School, Merriam<br />
Christian Church, business store fronts in<br />
Merriam, and some classrooms and laboratories<br />
borrowed from Johnson County School District<br />
512. The various studies and surveys indicated<br />
that this new college might start with 600<br />
students. The first class was comprised of almost<br />
1,400 students of which 925 were full-time.<br />
A permanent location was needed and the<br />
Board of Trustees started looking for a central<br />
location. Finally two hundred twenty acres were<br />
selected at the southwest corner of 111th and<br />
❖<br />
Above: Matt Ross, a local<br />
businessman, was a Mission Urban<br />
Township and <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> official,<br />
a civic leader, and a visionary leader<br />
of modern <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>.<br />
Below: <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Justice Center<br />
at Eighty-fifth and Antioch served as<br />
police headquarters for years. Now it<br />
serves as the headquarters of the<br />
North Patrol Division.<br />
COURTESY OF THE CITY OF OVERLAND PARK.<br />
Chapter VIII ✦ 69
❖<br />
Above: An aerial view of Johnson<br />
County Community College.<br />
COURTESY OF THE CITY OF OVERLAND PARK.<br />
Below: Johnson County Community<br />
College after the Carlsen Center<br />
was built.<br />
COURTESY OF CITY OF OVERLAND PARK.<br />
Quivira. The land was purchased for<br />
approximately $3,000 per acre. With major<br />
community leadership support, a $12.9 million<br />
bond issue was passed. Architectural plans were<br />
drawn up for the first six buildings and work<br />
commenced in 1970. By the fall term in 1972<br />
classes opened in the new buildings. A formal<br />
dedication was held September 24, 1972. The<br />
teaching staff had grown from the original faculty<br />
of 28 to a faculty of 96. By the time the classes<br />
opened in the new buildings, there were 2000<br />
students. Dr. Harris continued as president until<br />
February of 1975. Dr. John Cleek was selected as<br />
the new president. Dr. Cleek’s administration was<br />
often involved with staff matters. The Arts and<br />
Technology Building was constructed during his<br />
term, and he integrated new vocational<br />
programs, got vocational certification of the new<br />
vocational teachers dropped, and gave the college<br />
an international identity.<br />
Dr. Charles (Chuck) J. Carlsen was elected<br />
president in January, 1981. He is credited with<br />
moving the college to the center of the<br />
community. Labor issues were the first challenges<br />
with unionization of the teachers just beginning.<br />
Within about three years the college had 160<br />
hourly staff and 278 salaried employees, up from<br />
133 and 228 respectively. The introduction, or<br />
growth, of two important programs has been of<br />
major significance during his administration and<br />
with his direction. The introduction of a<br />
partnership with Burlington Northern Railroad<br />
led to a $2.9 million building addition to the<br />
college financed with the City of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
revenue bonds pushed by Mayor Eilert, the City<br />
Council, and many civic leaders. The college paid<br />
one-third of the costs but owned the new<br />
building after ten years with lease rights in<br />
Burlington Northern for five-year renewals. The<br />
program brought two thousand employees to the<br />
College from the railroad. These employees also<br />
rented 14,000 hotel room nights and did other<br />
spending each year. The other major program,<br />
which Dr. Carlsen improved, was the College<br />
Foundation. The foundation had been in<br />
existence since 1973 raising a total of $166,000<br />
by 1985. Working with Stanley Rose of Sun<br />
Publications fame, a gala was started called<br />
“Some Enchanted Evening” which resulted in the<br />
foundation having a $10-million total asset base<br />
by the end of the twentieth century. By the end of<br />
the century enrollment at the college had grown<br />
to 15,598 credit students and another 25,000<br />
“customers” a term for the non-credit hours of<br />
the rest of the community. The full time staff and<br />
faculty had grown to eight hundred. A cultural<br />
education center (now named The Carlsen<br />
Center) was opened in 1990. It contains a<br />
fourteen-hundred-seat hall called “Yardley Hall”,<br />
smaller performance theaters, an art gallery,<br />
offices and classrooms. Carlsen Center became,<br />
and still is, the cultural center of Johnson County.<br />
70 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
The area of northeast Johnson County had<br />
been engaged predominantly in agricultural<br />
pursuits since the beginning of settlement after<br />
the Kansas Territory was established in 1854.<br />
This continued for forty years when William<br />
Strang founded the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> community.<br />
Strang continued to encourage some types of<br />
agricultural activities with large gardens for the<br />
production of fresh produce for the suburban<br />
residents. Residents could own milk cows,<br />
chickens, ducks, rabbits and other agricultural<br />
animals. Many farms surrounded the community.<br />
These agricultural activities both inside the<br />
community and in the surrounding area<br />
continued for the next forty years. After World<br />
War II the emphasis changed. Where formerly<br />
three acres of pasture maintained a cow, now<br />
houses were being built approximately three per<br />
acre. Where trees and pasture had grown, now<br />
office buildings were sprouting. Where corn and<br />
wheat were grown residential and commercial<br />
development became the main emphasis for the<br />
next thirty years. In the middle 1970s the City<br />
fathers spurred on by Beta Sigma Phi Sorority<br />
determined to preserve the agricultural heritage.<br />
The Council approved the building of <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> Children’s Farmstead, a petting zoo, which<br />
was opened in 1976. A new group of baby<br />
animals were presented at the farmstead each<br />
season and the animals on display were expanded<br />
to include many of the agricultural animals that<br />
were seen on the farms of the area before the<br />
intensive residential and commercial<br />
development. <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>’s policewoman,<br />
Deanna Rose, was very interested in animals.<br />
When she was the first police officer of the<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Police Department killed in the<br />
line of duty, the farmstead was renamed in her<br />
honor, the Deanna Rose Children’s Farmstead, in<br />
1985. This has become a major attraction in<br />
Johnson County, with hundreds of thousands of<br />
visitors each year.<br />
In 1977, Ben Sykes was elected mayor. Sykes<br />
had been active in public service as an elected<br />
city councilman for eleven years and in many<br />
volunteer and civic activities. At the time of his<br />
election the city was only approximately forty<br />
percent developed. Sykes adopted a strong<br />
position on the availability of sanitary sewer<br />
systems and the expansion of water service in the<br />
undeveloped areas. He was particularly involved<br />
in promoting light-industrial development,<br />
continuing road improvements and reviewing<br />
redevelopment needs of the older residential<br />
areas. Ben Sykes had been very involved in<br />
the <strong>Park</strong>s and Recreation Committee and<br />
❖<br />
Above: Deanna Rose, the first police<br />
officer of the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Police<br />
Department killed in the line of duty.<br />
COURTESY OF THE OVERLAND PARK<br />
POLICE DEPARTMENT.<br />
Below: Deanna Rose Childrens<br />
Farmstead main entrance<br />
building opening to the barn in<br />
the background.<br />
COURTESY OF THE OVERLAND PARK<br />
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE.<br />
Chapter VIII ✦ 71
❖<br />
Above: Mayor Ben Sykes.<br />
Below: Blue Valley Northwest<br />
High School.<br />
COURTESY OF THE CITY OF OVERLAND PARK.<br />
particularly promoted a favorable vote on<br />
acquiring additional parklands, a golf course,<br />
and a swimming pool. Councilmen Wendell E.<br />
Lady in the late 1960s, and Wayne C. Byrd from<br />
the late 1970s into the early 1990s, were key<br />
supporters of parks expansion and development.<br />
By 1980, <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> had one thousand acres<br />
of parkland.<br />
Sykes also was very proud of the juvenile<br />
diversions program, a plan to deal with juvenile<br />
delinquency in the city. The program allowed a<br />
juvenile offender to put in a certain amount of<br />
hourly service to the community instead of<br />
facing criminal action. This program reduced<br />
juvenile offenders by eighty percent.<br />
Unfortunately the program was phased out when<br />
the Johnson County Juvenile Court took over<br />
juvenile activities.<br />
Some <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> schools became part of<br />
School District 110 in the 1930s. This District<br />
served the east side of the city north to Hickory<br />
Grove School. The Kansas Legislature passed an<br />
act providing for the consolidation of several<br />
districts into one regional Unified School District<br />
in the early 1960s. Mission Urban Township<br />
resisted this unification for several years, but<br />
finally in 1969 accepted it and became the<br />
Shawnee Mission Unified School District No.<br />
512. Dr. Howard McEachen had been<br />
superintendent of Shawnee Mission High School<br />
District since 1944. He became the first<br />
Superintendent of the new unified district<br />
serving in this capacity for many years. The<br />
District covered all of the cities in northeast<br />
Johnson County including Shawnee and Lenexa.<br />
At unification the District had 48 elementary<br />
schools, 10 junior highs, and four high schools<br />
with approximately 45,400 students in all. In<br />
1986, three of the junior high schools were<br />
closed and the remaining seven were revised as<br />
middle schools. One more elementary school<br />
and one high school were added after<br />
unification. With the aging of the population,<br />
the number of school children fell and for the<br />
2002-2003 school year the District was<br />
composed of five high schools, an alternative<br />
high school, an instructional center, seven<br />
middle schools, and 38 elementary schools, with<br />
total enrollment of 29,832 students.<br />
The annexed areas on the south side of<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> were served by Southeast<br />
Johnson County Unified School District No<br />
229. This school district adopted unification in<br />
1965. The name was changed in 1977 to Blue<br />
Valley Unified School District No. 229. As<br />
annexation occurred, schools in this district<br />
were located in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, Leawood,<br />
Stanley and Stilwell. The local school<br />
boundaries switched from city to city as the<br />
district opened and closed schools. At<br />
annexation Blue Valley Unified School District<br />
No. 229 had approximately 852 students in all<br />
of its schools. For the 2002-2003 school year<br />
the District had 18,243 students in 17<br />
elementary, eight middle and four high schools.<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> annexed land in the Olathe<br />
School District in 1985. The Olathe Unified<br />
School District No. 233 has 1,077 students in<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>’s two schools that are part of<br />
the city.<br />
72 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
1980-2000: MATURITY<br />
BY FLORENT WAGNER<br />
The first major event in the 1980s was the 1981 mayor and council election. Mayor Ed Eilert and<br />
several council members were sworn in during April of that year. Eilert had been on the City Council<br />
and active in city government and realized that something had to be done with the downtown area<br />
of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. He also realized the importance of preserving the history and the heritage of the<br />
Community. The new mayor and other civic leaders created the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> 2000 Foundation in<br />
October of that year. The purpose of the foundation was to identify and help preserve the history of<br />
the community and to provide for the social and economic welfare of the citizens. One of the<br />
principal historic assets was the Strang Line Car Barn located at Seventy-ninth and Santa Fe in<br />
downtown <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. The Hodges Lumber Co. land and the car barn itself were being<br />
considered for a new apartment project. The foundation set to work on saving the Strang Car Barn<br />
as its first project. It took many starts and stops but finally the Car Barn was obtained by the<br />
Foundation by a combination of Community Development Block Grant funds and private donations<br />
in 1985. Many proposals and financing arrangements were reviewed during the next four years but<br />
finally it was decided that the City again would inject about $270,000 of Community Development<br />
Block Grant funds to restore the exterior of the Car Barn. This was done in 1989 and in 1990 a<br />
private furniture store business leased the property with the agreement to restore the interior of this<br />
historic building. It opened as Traditions Furniture in June 1990.<br />
One of the important factors in promoting the commercial growth and development of<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> was the conversion of the state of Kansas and Johnson County from a “dry state” to<br />
allow liquor-by-the-drink. Until liquor-by-the-drink was allowed in Johnson County the quality<br />
eating establishments often were in private clubs that required membership fees and other<br />
❖<br />
The Strang Line Car Barn restored<br />
and now serves as the Traditions<br />
Furniture Store, with a historical<br />
display inside—a 50-foot-by-7-foot<br />
mural and 11 groups of pictures<br />
telling the history of the area during<br />
the Strang era.<br />
Chapter IX ✦ 73
❖<br />
Top, left: The <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Trade<br />
Center has large exhibit space and<br />
many individual showrooms.<br />
COURTESY OF THE CITY OF OVERLAND PARK.<br />
Top, right: An aerial view of the<br />
Marriott Hotel under construction,<br />
looking west between I-435 and<br />
College Boulevard.<br />
Below: Stanley High School was built<br />
in 1922 to serve as the center of<br />
higher education in Oxford Township.<br />
obligations. With liquor-by-the-drink, the finer<br />
dining establishments, motels and hotels now<br />
opened in Johnson County. Now Kansas citizens<br />
and Johnson County residents could dine and<br />
spend their money in Johnson County<br />
providing additional jobs and sales tax money to<br />
assist government in providing a better quality<br />
of life. The first major hotel to open in the area<br />
was the Doubletree Hotel at Switzer Bypass-<br />
Highway 69-at College Boulevard. Other hotels<br />
like the Marriott and other national chains<br />
quickly opened.<br />
Developers and the city fathers determined<br />
that the Community needed a large meeting and<br />
display facility. In 1985, a large building was<br />
erected with display areas and many office<br />
rooms, just east of Metcalf on 115th Street. This<br />
became the Kansas City Trade Center, a nice<br />
development providing employment, hotel and<br />
motel occupancies, hundreds of patrons for the<br />
restaurants and opportunities for retail sales at<br />
surrounding shopping centers.<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> tried to annex the Stanley<br />
Community in the late 1970s but did not<br />
succeed. The City did annex Stanley, Morse, and<br />
the area south to 159th Street in 1985. Some<br />
Stanley citizens objected to the annexation<br />
and <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> made a concession by<br />
allowing a few of the streets in the area to retain<br />
the old names on the street signs. Also included<br />
are the new <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> street names<br />
lining up with the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> street name<br />
and numbering system.<br />
Stanley started about 1870 at the intersection<br />
of the Military Highway and what later became<br />
151st Street. In 1872 the Kansas City, Olathe,<br />
Clinton, and Springfield Railroad came through<br />
at the south edge of the platted community. The<br />
community grew steadily as the business, social<br />
and community center of Oxford Township and<br />
continued to grow even after the railroad<br />
abandoned the line about 1933. Fortunately the<br />
town was on U.S. Highway 69, the major U.S.<br />
highway running north and south through this<br />
part of eastern Kansas to Dallas and the Gulf<br />
coast. The town of Morse was platted in 1884<br />
on the same railroad previously mentioned. It<br />
had its own depot, elevator, bank, church, and<br />
business buildings, but had not grown like<br />
Stanley, its neighbor. When the railroad<br />
abandoned the line the town almost became a<br />
ghost town. Stanley had built a school,<br />
74 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
expanded it, and in 1921 built a new high<br />
school, the secondary education center of<br />
Oxford Township.<br />
The Legacy of Greenery Committee<br />
established by the City of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
conceived the idea of an arboretum or nature<br />
park. Ailie Speer as chairperson of the<br />
Community Development Committee was<br />
instrumental in the City’s purchase of 300 acres<br />
of land at 179th just west of Antioch in 1990.<br />
Many other Council members were in favor of<br />
such an arboretum, but specifically Wayne Byrd<br />
and Georgia Erickson pushed this idea and<br />
project. A board of trustees was established and<br />
for two years worked at developing a master<br />
plan for the arboretum. In 1993 trails were built<br />
in the arboretum. It was continually improved<br />
until a major jump in development occurred<br />
when Georgia Erickson and her husband,<br />
Richard, donated funds and a water park was<br />
created. Another major step was taken when the<br />
Marder family in 1998, donated funds for a<br />
special garden. The Rotary Club of <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> in 2000 donated additional funds for a<br />
special garden and other funds have been<br />
donated for specific projects. In 1995 the<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> <strong>Park</strong>s and Recreation<br />
Department Foundation was created, which was<br />
renamed the Arts and Recreation Foundation of<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, to assist in obtaining donations<br />
to the City specifically for these activities.<br />
The Humana Health Care chain, using the<br />
certificate of need obtained by Extendicare, Inc,<br />
opened a new, large Suburban Health Care<br />
Center in 1978, the first investor owned<br />
hospital in the Kansas City area, the first<br />
hospital truly within the City of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>.<br />
It was later sold to another health care system<br />
and renamed <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Regional Medical<br />
Center. In the 1980s and 1990s several other<br />
medical centers were started, the largest of these<br />
being the Menorah Medical Center, then St.<br />
Luke’s South and others. All kinds of<br />
technicians, specialists, imaging, rehabilitation,<br />
and medical services now located in the city.<br />
Kansas University opened a Regents Center<br />
and many other colleges and universities<br />
opened campuses in the city to provide the<br />
opportunity for those wanting to improve their<br />
education to do so locally. The Johnson County<br />
Library wanted a new, larger central library and<br />
resource center. They located in the city at<br />
Eighty-seventh and Farley.<br />
The streets 119th and 135th were improved<br />
as major east-west thoroughfares. Strip<br />
shopping centers could be developed along<br />
these streets according to the City Master Plan<br />
and one of the major developments was Rosana<br />
Square Shopping Center at 119th and Metcalf.<br />
Just south on 123rd Street, the City built a new<br />
Justice Center named for Jack Sanders, an early<br />
❖<br />
Left: An example of dual street signs<br />
installed in the old Stanley<br />
Community area. The signs at the top<br />
for Metcalf and 151st line up with<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> street signage;<br />
while the smaller signs underneath for<br />
Main Street and First Street are the<br />
old Stanley street names.<br />
Below: The Arboretum water garden<br />
at its dedication in July 1996.<br />
COURTESY OF THE CITY OF OVERLAND PARK.<br />
Chapter IX ✦ 75
❖<br />
Right: <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Medical<br />
Center was first a Humana Regional<br />
Hospital. It passed through<br />
several ownership changes and<br />
serves the community in the<br />
twenty-first century.<br />
COURTESY OF THE OVERLAND PARK<br />
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE.<br />
Below: Kansas University Regents<br />
Center at 12600 Quivira.<br />
Opposite, top: Jack Sanders Justice<br />
Center at 123rd and Metcalf at the<br />
time of dedication in 1996.<br />
COURTESY OF THE CITY OF OVERLAND PARK.<br />
Opposite, middle: <strong>Historic</strong> Stanley<br />
Bank Building, built in 1910 after a<br />
fire destroyed many buildings of the<br />
business area. It served as the<br />
economic center and public meeting<br />
place for many years while the<br />
Stanley State Bank was located here.<br />
The brick building was moved five<br />
blocks west on 151st Street in 1996<br />
and restored as an office building.<br />
Opposite, bottom: Sprint Corporation<br />
World Headquarters Campus at<br />
119th and Nall. Started in 1997,<br />
completed in 2002. 21 buildings<br />
can accommodate 14,000 to<br />
15,000 employees.<br />
COURTESY OF THE OVERLAND PARK CHAMBER OF<br />
COMMERCE.<br />
city councilman who, during his six elected<br />
terms until his death, spent many hours<br />
and years of his life helping the Police<br />
Department attain the highest caliber and<br />
integrity. The center was dedicated in 1996,<br />
with the prior Justice Center becoming the<br />
Antioch Patrol Division.<br />
In 1996, the City started the improvement of<br />
151st Street. One of the principal historic<br />
buildings in the old Stanley community was the<br />
brick Stanley Bank building on the southeast<br />
corner of Metcalf in the way of this<br />
improvement. Many discussions and efforts<br />
were devoted to saving this historic structure<br />
when the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> 2000 Foundation<br />
stepped in and offered to assist. The City<br />
donated part of a lot and the Building to the<br />
Foundation and agreed to lend the Foundation<br />
funds, which, with private donations, would be<br />
used to move and restore the structure. On the<br />
evening of May 18, 1996, and overnight,<br />
approximately 750 tons of building and<br />
equipment rolled five blocks west on 151st<br />
Street to the new location at 7590 West 151st<br />
Street with the brick vault and all exterior walls<br />
intact. It has been restored as an office building<br />
and contains a display of businesses, farms,<br />
activities and events important to the Stanley<br />
community heritage.<br />
The United Utilities Corporation, headquartered<br />
in Fairway, Kansas, grew and grew<br />
acquiring telephone and communications<br />
businesses as well as extensive technology. It<br />
became the Sprint Corporation, a giant in the<br />
telecommunications industry. The Sprint<br />
Corporation rented office buildings and spaces<br />
all over the metropolitan area. The company<br />
decided it wanted to locate as much of its<br />
activity as possible on one large campus and<br />
acquired two hundred acres of vacant land in<br />
the City of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>—an area from 115th<br />
Street on the north to 119th Street on the south,<br />
from Nall to Glenwood east and west. They<br />
started working with the City departments to<br />
build this new major campus. A unique concept<br />
was used to facilitate the project-a large one<br />
time fee was paid to the City in lieu of building<br />
permit fees for each building. This allowed the<br />
City to hire additional staff and professionals to<br />
review plans, issue permits, and do building<br />
inspections in a very expeditious manner. A<br />
total campus would consist of 21 office and<br />
support buildings, 14 covered and one open<br />
parking facilities with extensive green spaces,<br />
76 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
7.2 acres of lakes, 6,000 trees, and landscaping.<br />
The buildings, which totaled 4 million square<br />
feet, would accommodate between 14,000 and<br />
15,000 employees, many new to the city. Sprint<br />
broke ground for this campus in 1997, and the<br />
last building was completed in 2002.<br />
In the 1980s the City of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
created the Convention and Visitors Bureau,<br />
funding this bureau with a hotel bed tax. The<br />
City wanted to have a major convention facility.<br />
Mayor Eilert, City Council members and the<br />
City staff explored many approaches and<br />
worked with many developers toward this<br />
purpose. Efforts looked promising in 1985 as<br />
the City worked with major building<br />
developers, but nothing materialized. The city<br />
fathers did not give up. Some additional land<br />
was acquired between Interstate-435 and<br />
College Boulevard east of Lamar. The City<br />
wanted not only the convention building, but<br />
also a major hotel close by. Late in the 1990s a<br />
program was developed to build the convention<br />
center with a large Sheraton-run hotel closely<br />
adjoining the center. Building started in the year<br />
2000 and the Convention Center and Sheraton<br />
Hotel opened in the late fall of 2002.<br />
The city had come a long way in its first forty<br />
years. The population grew from 28,085<br />
residents at incorporation to an estimated<br />
162,000 residents. Instead of being a bedroom<br />
community, the city is a complete, well-rounded<br />
place, to live, work, and enjoy an exceptional<br />
quality of life. It has extensive parks,<br />
recreational facilities with first-class<br />
entertainment and activities. Peace of mind and<br />
security far exceed many cities of similar size.<br />
When Police Chief Myron Scafe retired in<br />
December 1995, John Douglas was promoted<br />
within the department to police chief and he<br />
ably manages it at this time. Chief Jim<br />
Broockerd took over the Fire Department when<br />
it was still largely volunteers, and guided it<br />
through an extensive modernization and<br />
conversion to a nonprofit corporation. When<br />
Chief Broockerd retired, Chief William Jahnke<br />
became the head of the Fire Department<br />
managing it through new stations and the<br />
building of a state-of-the-art training center at<br />
123rd and Antioch. Chief Dennis Meyers<br />
succeeded Jahnke in 1997, and he continues to<br />
manage the Fire Department today.<br />
The city fathers recognized the need to<br />
revitalize the older areas of the city as well as the<br />
need to provide appropriate infrastructure for<br />
Chapter IX ✦ 77
❖<br />
Above: Myron Scafe, Police Chief of<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Police Department for<br />
almost twenty-five years.<br />
Below: <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Convention<br />
Center and Sheraton Hotel, dedicated<br />
in 2002.<br />
COURTESY OF THE OVERLAND PARK CONVENTION<br />
AND VISITORS BUREAU.<br />
the developing areas. The council approved<br />
submitting a small sales tax to the citizens for a<br />
vote. It was approved, and the City set about<br />
improving the streets and the older north area<br />
including curbs and gutters. This improvement<br />
encouraged residents and citizens to revitalize<br />
their properties. The City also realized that it<br />
needed to revitalize the downtown business<br />
area. The City created a business improvement<br />
district with some taxing authority to tax<br />
downtown business owners to provide funds for<br />
street and other improvements. A downtown<br />
partnership was created to guide the<br />
improvements. The City made a major<br />
investment in a clocktower and small<br />
surrounding park area, which has become the<br />
focal center for many activities in the downtown<br />
area. The City also designed and built a firstclass<br />
farmer’s market, east of the clock tower,<br />
which has been extremely successful and has<br />
drawn hundreds of thousands of people.<br />
Ever mindful of the health and welfare of its<br />
citizens, the City started developing, for those<br />
interested in walking, jogging, and biking, a<br />
hiking and biking trail in about 1976, starting<br />
with the first one-half mile by Indian Creek near<br />
Shawnee Mission South High School. The trails<br />
system has been enlarged to forty-five miles in<br />
the city, joining other trails in Leawood and<br />
Olathe. The last mile was completed in 2003.<br />
Enhancing the heritage of this area, the City<br />
made a major improvement in the area known<br />
as the Santa Fe Commons, approximately<br />
Eighty-first and Santa Fe Drive. William Strang<br />
built a bandstand for the community about<br />
1910. This bandstand would serve the<br />
community into the 1920s when it was lost to<br />
street improvements on Santa Fe. The City of<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> built a much larger bandstand in<br />
the Santa Fe Commons where the old Tom Riley<br />
“Sunset Cottage” had been located. The City<br />
added many additional amenities to the park.<br />
The Strang Carriage House here had been<br />
vandalized many times and finally the City agreed<br />
to restore the structure if the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
<strong>Historic</strong>al Society would occupy and decorate the<br />
interior. The carriage house has become the<br />
headquarters for the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> <strong>Historic</strong>al<br />
Society and serves basically as a resource center<br />
where interested parties can learn about the city’s<br />
history. This history is preserved, and education<br />
programs are prepared and presented here.<br />
The three school districts serving the City of<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> today have excellent reputations<br />
as premier school districts, both statewide and<br />
nationally. A number of the schools have been<br />
78 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
designated as “Blue Ribbon Schools of<br />
Excellence” by the federal Department of<br />
Education. Each superintendent has been the<br />
leader of his or her respective district for many<br />
years: Dr. David Benson for ten years in District<br />
229, and Dr. Marjorie Kaplan in District 512<br />
and Dr. Ron Weaver in District 233, have been<br />
superintendents for even longer.<br />
Jobs at all levels of employment are available<br />
from the beginning minimun wage job to the<br />
highest paid technical, management and<br />
executive positions. Construction at all levels<br />
from new single-family and apartment<br />
residences, retail shops, office buildings and<br />
new entertainment and recreational venues have<br />
kept this area from being disrupted by many<br />
economic swings affecting other parts of the<br />
United States. The cost-of-living index for the<br />
area is favorable and a good business<br />
environment enhances the quality of life.<br />
Integrity of government has been a hallmark<br />
of the City of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> since its founding<br />
and incorporation. The city fathers have<br />
generally been dedicated, conscientious and<br />
knowledgeable. Byron Loudon, an <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> attorney, served Ward 4 for twenty-six years<br />
and eight months, the longest elected period of<br />
service since the City’s incorporation. He served<br />
as council president for three terms. Donald<br />
Pipes served as city manager for 34 of the 40<br />
years since the mayor-city council-city manager<br />
type of government was adopted. He retired in<br />
1999. In his low-key, knowledgeable and<br />
professional way, he helped assure a City staff of<br />
very professional, hardworking people of the<br />
highest integrity. Upon Pipes’ retirement, the<br />
City’s search for a new city manager led to John<br />
❖<br />
Above: Residential street<br />
improvements when curbs and<br />
gutters were installed in the north end<br />
of the City of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, an<br />
important step in revitalizing the old,<br />
north <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> area.<br />
COURTESY OF CITY OF OVERLAND PARK.<br />
Left: The Clocktower in Downtown<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>.<br />
COURTESY OF CITY OF OVERLAND PARK.<br />
Below: Donald E. Pipes, city manager<br />
of the City of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> for more<br />
than thirty-four years.<br />
COURTESY OF THE CITY OF OVERLAND PARK.<br />
Chapter IX ✦ 79
Nachbar, a very capable former employee of the<br />
City who had gone to sunnier climes but wanted<br />
to return to the area. He was hired as city<br />
manager and immediately took over the reins of<br />
the City administration and ably manages this at<br />
the beginning of the twenty-first century.<br />
Within the framework of the master plans, upto-date<br />
codes, AAA financial ratings with both<br />
Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s, excellent<br />
clerical and financial administration, innovative<br />
public works and services, exceptional public<br />
parks and recreational facilities and a service<br />
minded staff, the City has functioned extremely<br />
well. Equally important has been the accessible<br />
and tireless leadership of Mayor Ed Eilert. He is<br />
unique in his wisdom to listen and look at all<br />
sides of an issue or project, then determine the<br />
best public policy. He has the ability to exercise<br />
unusual leadership to achieve the best benefits<br />
for the citizens of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. Mayor Eilert<br />
❖<br />
Above: Mayor Ed Eilert.<br />
COURTESY OF THE OVERLAND PARK<br />
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE.<br />
Right: The Farmers Market built by<br />
the City of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> just east of<br />
the Clocktower in Downtown<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. The Farmers Market<br />
is open Wednesdays and Saturdays,<br />
April through October.<br />
Below: College Boulevard looking<br />
west, from about Lamar, across<br />
Metcalf to Antioch on the top of<br />
the hill.<br />
COURTESY OF THE CITY OF OVERLAND PARK.<br />
80 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
was elected to the City Council in 1977, elected<br />
as mayor in 1981, and reelected five more times.<br />
A unique public and private partnership<br />
between the City and the developers of the area<br />
has resulted in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> becoming the firstclass,<br />
park-like community that William B. Strang<br />
envisioned when he bought the first six hundred<br />
acres of pasture and farmland at Seventy-ninth and<br />
the Military Highway in 1905. Strang was a<br />
visionary, but it is doubtful even he would have<br />
dreamed of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> growing the way it has<br />
to become the third largest city in the state of<br />
Kansas in ninety-eight years with an exceptional<br />
quality of life.<br />
❖<br />
Above: An aerial view of Ninety-fifth<br />
and Metcalf looking east across<br />
Metcalf South Mall buildings.<br />
COURTESY OF THE CITY OF OVERLAND PARK.<br />
Below: An aerial view of Sprint<br />
Campus under construction in the<br />
center, with retail business in the<br />
foreground and upper center,<br />
surrounded by residential subdivisions.<br />
COURTESY OF THE CITY OF OVERLAND PARK.<br />
Chapter IX ✦ 81
SHARING THE HERITAGE<br />
historic profiles of businesses,<br />
organizations, and families that have<br />
contributed to the development and<br />
economic base of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
82 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
Rau Construction Company ..............................................................84<br />
City of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> .....................................................................88<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Church of God (Holiness) ............................................92<br />
Kansas City Bible College and School.................................................93<br />
Church of God (Holiness) ................................................................94<br />
Herald and Banner Press..................................................................95<br />
Bott Radio Network .........................................................................96<br />
Johnson County Community College ...................................................98<br />
Sheraton <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Hotel ........................................................100<br />
Andy Klein Pontiac-GMC ...............................................................102<br />
Sprint Corporation ........................................................................104<br />
Cloverleaf Office <strong>Park</strong> ...................................................................106<br />
Roger the Plumber.........................................................................108<br />
White Haven Motor Lodge ..............................................................110<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Masonic Lodge #436 .................................................112<br />
Corporate Woods ® Office <strong>Park</strong><br />
C.W. Associates .........................................................................114<br />
Heartland Animal Clinic, P.A. .........................................................116<br />
Lund & Balderson, AIA, Architects and Planners................................117<br />
Bodker Realty, Inc.........................................................................118<br />
Traditions Furniture ......................................................................119<br />
Stinson Morrison Heckler LLP .........................................................120<br />
C. B. Self & Company/City Properties ..............................................121<br />
Metcalf Bank................................................................................122<br />
Blue Valley School District 229 .......................................................123<br />
Dalton’s Flowers, Inc.....................................................................124<br />
Wallace, Saunders, Austin, Brown & Enochs, Chartered ......................125<br />
Saint Luke’s South.........................................................................126<br />
James R. Shetlar Law Offices, P.A. ...................................................127<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> <strong>Historic</strong>al Society.....................................................128<br />
Branded Emblem Company, Inc./Camp David, Inc...............................129<br />
O’Neill Automotive, Inc. ................................................................130<br />
Ranch Mart, Inc. ..........................................................................131<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> Auto Paints ....................................................................132<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Heritage Foundation .................................................133<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Jeep .......................................................................134<br />
Bank of Blue Valley .......................................................................135<br />
Hickock-Dible Companies ...............................................................136<br />
Bob Hamilton Plumbing, Heating, and Air Conditioning Company .........137<br />
Locks & Pulls, Inc.........................................................................137<br />
Johnson County Museums ...............................................................138<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Art & Frame ...........................................................138<br />
Hayward’s Pit Bar-B-Que................................................................139<br />
Drs. Hawk, Besler & Rogers, Optometrists ........................................139<br />
Dragon Inn ..................................................................................140<br />
SPECIAL<br />
THANKS TO<br />
Holiday Inn & Suites<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> West<br />
Lucas Development LLC<br />
Shawnee Steel &<br />
Welding, Inc.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 83
RAU<br />
CONSTRUCTION<br />
COMPANY<br />
❖<br />
This photo from the mid-1960s is of<br />
the Nall Hills Shopping Center at<br />
Ninety-fifth and Nall. The center was<br />
built by Rau Construction and<br />
developed by Winn-Rau Corporation.<br />
Master Builder Gustav Fredric Rau<br />
founded Rau Construction Company in<br />
Germany in 1870. In 1903 his son, the<br />
second Gustav Fredric Rau, also a master<br />
builder, came to the United States of<br />
America. He first settled in Cincinnati,<br />
Ohio, and one year later he relocated to<br />
the greater Kansas City area, where the<br />
business continues today.<br />
During the years preceding World<br />
War II, industrial construction<br />
projects including breweries, packing<br />
plants, and boilerworks were Rau’s<br />
main source of construction activity.<br />
The company was active in the design and construction<br />
of facilities in North and South<br />
America. During the 1920s and ‘30s, Rau maintained<br />
offices in Kansas City, New York, and<br />
Denver to handle their national and international<br />
business.<br />
Rau had numerous material patents that were<br />
used to construct refineries and breweries—a<br />
major key to their success. From the Cerveceria<br />
Andes facilities in Venezuela to the major<br />
Muehlebach and Schlitz complexes in Kansas<br />
City, brewery projects have long been a favorite<br />
for Rau Construction Company. The tradition<br />
continues today with projects for Kansas City’s<br />
hometown Boulevard Brewing Company.<br />
The second Gustav Fredric Rau had three<br />
sons, each followed their father as principal of<br />
Rau Construction Company, representing the<br />
third generation of the family to own the<br />
company. The eldest son, Kurt E. Rau, was an<br />
architect registered in the State of Missouri and<br />
served as president of the company from 1932<br />
to his death on October 12, 1972. Upon the<br />
death of Kurt, his brother, Gus Rau, Jr., a graduate<br />
of the University of Kansas and an engineer<br />
registered by the State of Missouri, took over the<br />
presidency until his death on January 27, 1973.<br />
In 1973 the youngest brother, Herb J. Rau,<br />
became the president and continued until he<br />
retired on December 31, 1976.<br />
Gus Rau, Jr., and E. L. Winn formed Winn-<br />
Rau Corporation in 1950. Winn-Rau was a<br />
pioneer in the greater Kansas City housing<br />
industry with their method of mass home<br />
building, house designs, and market techniques.<br />
Winn-Rau quickly became one of the largest<br />
home builders in Kansas City by constructing<br />
over 3,000 houses in its twenty-three years. In<br />
the Highland Crest subdivision in Kansas City,<br />
Kansas, Winn-Rau built over 700 houses in six<br />
months to provide replacement housing from<br />
the 1951 floods. At the height of construction,<br />
Winn-Rau started seventeen houses a day.<br />
Winn-Rau’s last major subdivision was Nall<br />
Hills in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> bounded by 95th Street<br />
to Indian Creek, Nall to Glenwood.<br />
Construction started in 1956 with houses<br />
selling from $14,750 to $22,000. In 1959<br />
Winn-Rau received the “Best Home for the<br />
Money” award from American Home Magazine in<br />
their national contest.<br />
During and shortly after WWII Rau<br />
Construction Company was very active in the<br />
development and construction of residential<br />
subdivisions and homes. Rau Construction<br />
Company designed the first split-level house as<br />
“defense” housing during World War II.<br />
In 1959, Rau Construction Company moved<br />
from Twenty-fourth and Harrison in Kansas<br />
City, Missouri, to <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. The first<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> location was at 103rd and Nall,<br />
and in 1963 the company moved to its current<br />
location at 97th and Nall.<br />
Rau Construction Company hired Ralph D.<br />
(Andy) Anderson as a carpenter on September<br />
1, 1946. He was a decorated WWII veteran who<br />
served the European theatre from the<br />
landing on D-Day to carrying home the colors<br />
for Division 1 after the armistice. Andy worked<br />
as a superintendent for both Rau Construction<br />
and Winn-Rau Corporation. In 1973, Andy<br />
became vice president in charge of all field<br />
operations and in 1993; Andy was elected vice<br />
chairman of the board of directors. Andy retired<br />
84 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
on August 31, 1993, after serving forty-seven<br />
years with Rau Construction. His son, Ron<br />
Anderson, started working for the company in<br />
June 1972, while attending the University of<br />
Missouri. After graduating with a bachelor’s<br />
degree in business administration, Ron worked<br />
in the office and then in the field as a carpenter<br />
for the company. He was promoted to job<br />
superintendent in 1977 and eventually moved<br />
into the office as project manager and currently<br />
serves the company as vice president.<br />
Another father and son who moved through<br />
the ranks of the company are Herman and Loren<br />
Kirn. Herman was hired as a laborer on<br />
September 1, 1956, and he currently serves the<br />
company as senior general field superintendent<br />
in charge of field operations. Herman’s son, Loren<br />
Kirn, started working for the company in 1974 as<br />
a laborer. Loren attended Central Missouri State<br />
University and Southwest Missouri State<br />
University and returned to the company as an<br />
apprentice carpenter, then journeyman carpenter,<br />
and job superintendent, and now serves the company<br />
as general superintendent.<br />
The three sons of Gustav Frederic Rau, Jr.,<br />
each had one daughter. Jappy L. Rau, daughter<br />
of Gus Rau, Jr., married H. Stanley Meyer. Jappy,<br />
a graduate of the University of Kansas serves as<br />
an owner, director and officer of the company<br />
and represents the fourth generation of the<br />
family. Her husband, H. Stanley Meyer (Stan),<br />
has a degree in business administration from the<br />
University of Nebraska and is a certified public<br />
accountant. He was employed by the company<br />
in September 1958 and served as president from<br />
December 30, 1976, through March 1, 1993. He<br />
is currently chairman of the board of directors.<br />
In addition to his work with Rau, Stan was active<br />
in the community, serving on the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
Planning Commission for twelve years during<br />
the city’s expansion years in the late 1970s and<br />
early 1980s and nine years on the Johnson<br />
County Airport Commission. The <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
Chamber of Commerce voted Stan as the<br />
organization’s first president, and he remains an<br />
active member of the chamber today. A Paul<br />
❖<br />
Above: Another example of Rau<br />
Construction’s wide range of projects<br />
and distinct quality in construction,<br />
Rolling Hills Presbyterian Church is<br />
located at 9300 Nall.<br />
Below: Buildings I and II at Glenwood<br />
Place located on Ninety-fifth<br />
and Metcalf.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 85
❖<br />
Above: Fountain at the Wolfe Auto<br />
Plaza, Tiffany Springs and I-29.<br />
Below: The Rau Construction offices<br />
located at 9650 Nall Road.<br />
Harris Fellow, Stan has been active in the<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Rotary Club for over twenty-eight<br />
years and has served the Boy Scouts of America<br />
as scoutmaster, chairman of the Santa Fe Trails<br />
District, and currently is a member of the<br />
Advisory Committee of the Heart of America<br />
Council of the Boy Scouts of America.<br />
When Stan retired on March 1, 1993, his<br />
sons, Gus Rau Meyer and Dan Rau Meyer,<br />
representing the fifth generation of the family,<br />
took their place as president and senior vice<br />
president of the company.<br />
After working his way through school as a<br />
laborer for the company and completing his B.S.<br />
degree in civil engineering from the University<br />
of Kansas, Gus began working full time in June<br />
of 1980 as an estimator and project manager.<br />
Today, Gus serves in many community and<br />
business organizations including as a trustee for<br />
the Carpenter’s Pension Fund, on the board of<br />
directors of the Kansas Chamber of Commerce<br />
and Industry and as a trustee of the Kansas<br />
Apprenticeship Council. Gus is a past chairman<br />
of the Builders Association, a past president of<br />
the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Economic Development<br />
Council, and a past director of the Johnson<br />
County Economic Research Institute and the<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Chamber of Commerce. He also<br />
serves as the chairman for the Trailhead District<br />
in the Boy Scouts of America.<br />
Dan also worked his way through school as a<br />
laborer for the company, until graduating from the<br />
University of Kansas with a B.S. degree in<br />
Architectural Engineering and Environmental<br />
Design in June of 1983, at which time he joined<br />
the company full time as an estimator and<br />
project manager. Dan is active as a member of<br />
several community and business organizations<br />
including serving on the board of directors and as<br />
chairman-elect for the Kansas City Chapter of the<br />
Associated General Contractors, Board of<br />
Directors of the Johnson County Community<br />
College Foundation, as a trustee on the Laborer’s<br />
Health & Welfare and Vacation Funds, and has<br />
served on the Lenexa Board of Code Appeals. Dan<br />
is also very active in the Boy Scouts of America,<br />
having served as scoutmaster and currently serves<br />
on district and council committees.<br />
Rau Construction has a story that goes even<br />
beyond the amazing people it employs. In<br />
the early 1980s, the company started<br />
working for the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>-based<br />
Executive Hills along the blossoming College<br />
Boulevard and, over the course of the next<br />
15 years, Rau would build 2.5 million square<br />
feet of new buildings for the company.<br />
Rau Construction is one of the leading<br />
builders of retail projects in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, as<br />
well as the metropolitan area. Beginning with<br />
the Nall Hills Shopping Center developed in<br />
conjunction with Winn-Rau Corporation in the<br />
early 1960s, Rau Construction developed a<br />
relationship with <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>’s Varnum,<br />
Armstrong & Deeter that has spanned over<br />
thirty years.<br />
86 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
Continuing the tradition of long-term<br />
relationships, Rau has been the contractor for<br />
many “mainstays” in the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
community including: working on seven of<br />
Metcalf Bank’s facilities; working over twenty<br />
years on seven phases of Rolling Hills<br />
Presbyterian Church; and since completing the<br />
initial structure of Stanley Presbyterian Church<br />
in 1981, Rau has worked on all five phases of<br />
their building projects.<br />
Other <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> landmarks built by Rau<br />
include the Glenwood Theatres; the ten and<br />
eleven story Glenwood Lake office buildings at<br />
95th and Metcalf Avenue; projects for Bud<br />
Brown Chrysler Plymouth, Merchandise Mart<br />
and International Trade Center, South Glen<br />
Shopping Center, <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Chamber of<br />
Commerce Building, Compass Corporate<br />
Center, Lionsgate Market Place, Wycliff Office<br />
<strong>Park</strong> and numerous office buildings along<br />
College Boulevard.<br />
Adding to Rau’s rich history is the work<br />
they’ve done on historic renovations. Rau has<br />
become the leading contractor in bringing life<br />
back into many of the metropolitan area’s<br />
landmark structures. Rau restored the building<br />
for the River Boat Arabia Museum and<br />
historically recreated the Arabia’s paddle wheel.<br />
The company also has converted over one million<br />
square feet of historic office, warehouse, and<br />
industrial buildings into “new” commercial/retail<br />
space and over fourteen hundred residential<br />
units, while preserving the character and<br />
designation of the property.<br />
As a general contractor specializing in<br />
commercial, retail, religious, hospitality, and<br />
historic rehabilitation projects, Rau Construction<br />
Company has been a solid fixture in the <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> area. This 135-year-old company has seen<br />
much growth and many changes, which have been<br />
spurred by the dedication and consistent quality<br />
provided by five generations of the Rau family.<br />
Today Rau Construction employs over 50 people<br />
and has an annual volume of $40 million.<br />
For more information about the company<br />
and its services, take a moment to visit their<br />
website at www.rauconstruction.com.<br />
❖<br />
Above: The Rau management staff.<br />
Seated (from left to right): Ron<br />
Anderson, vice president; Dan Rau<br />
Meyer, senior vice president; H.<br />
Stanley Meyer, chairman of the board;<br />
Gus Rau Meyer, president; and Pete<br />
Jenks. Standing (from left to right):<br />
Mark Rocklage, Lisa Matuska, Kim<br />
Thomas, Kathy Falk, Pat Campbell,<br />
Herman Kirn, Sharon Stoverink,<br />
and Loren Kirn.<br />
Below: The <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Chamber<br />
of Commerce headquarters at College<br />
Boulevard and Grandview.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 87
CITY OF<br />
OVERLAND PARK<br />
❖<br />
The main entrance to the <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> City Hall at 8500 Santa<br />
Fe Drive.<br />
Numerous farms dotted the countryside that<br />
surrounded northeast Johnson County when<br />
William Strang founded the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
Community and bought the first six hundred<br />
acres of pasture and farmland along Military<br />
Highway in 1905. Strang was a visionary, but it<br />
is doubtful even he would have dreamed that<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> would one day become the third<br />
largest city in the state of Kansas. In the early<br />
part of the century, Strang encouraged residents<br />
to create large gardens, and own animals such as<br />
milk cows, chickens, ducks, and rabbits. But<br />
after World War II, construction of new homes<br />
were being built approximately three per acre.<br />
Where trees and pastures had grown, now office<br />
buildings were sprouting. Where corn and<br />
wheat were grown, residential and commercial<br />
development flourished.<br />
Therefore, May 20, 1960, was a decisive day<br />
for <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. Special legislation redrawing<br />
the area’s boundary lines quickly increased the<br />
population to over twenty-eight thousand. The<br />
incorporation of the City of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
quickly made it a first-class Kansas community—<br />
fifty-four years after the first run of the Strang<br />
Line in 1906.<br />
In September 1960, <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>’s first<br />
mayor, Roy L. Owen, was sworn into office and<br />
met with newly elected city councilmen on the<br />
second floor of the Fleming Building. Mayor<br />
Owen began the annexation of areas adjoining<br />
the city on the west across Antioch in Shawnee<br />
Township and acquired land for a new city hall.<br />
Civic and service clubs of all kinds have offered<br />
outstanding service to the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
community and include the Cooperative Club,<br />
the Mission Lions Club, which had started the<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Club in the late 1950s, and the<br />
Soroptimist Club. The Cooperative Club’s name<br />
was changed to the Shawnee Mission Sertoma<br />
Club and supported Johnson County <strong>Park</strong>s<br />
programs, particularly Theater-in-the-<strong>Park</strong>, while<br />
the Soroptimist Club built a clubhouse in Mission.<br />
The <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Rotary Club was formed in<br />
late 1960 by Matt Ross and Donald Smith, M.D.,<br />
and the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Lions Club began their<br />
now-famous holiday “Avenue of Flags” along<br />
Metcalf in the early 1960s. As businesses<br />
flourished outside of the downtown area, the<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Chamber of Commerce, led by<br />
President Richard Molamphy, became an<br />
invaluable resource in and around the community.<br />
Successful company ventures were quickly<br />
making <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> the place for new<br />
business throughout the 1960s. Joseph Cohen<br />
opened Metcalf State Bank in 1962 with Charles<br />
Trego serving as president. Benjamin Craig<br />
became the bank’s president in 1964 and<br />
remains a tireless worker in promoting<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> and Johnson County. The D. W.<br />
Newcomer Funeral Home opened in 1963 and<br />
developed Johnson County Memorial Gardens,<br />
and Frank Morgan and Edward Young opened<br />
their “French Market” in 1962, offering<br />
groceries, drugs, hardware, fabric, dry goods<br />
and liquor. Though it closed only four<br />
years later, the site was home to the Milgram<br />
Grocery Store before welcoming its current<br />
occupant, K-Mart.<br />
Sponsored by the Seventh Day Adventists,<br />
northeast Johnson County’s first hospital<br />
opened in 1962. Later named Shawnee Mission<br />
Hospital, today’s facilities include a large<br />
professional staff, skilled specialists, nurses, and<br />
a large support staff, and is one of the leading<br />
medical centers in the metropolitan area.<br />
In 1963, Mayor Marvin Rainey encouraged<br />
improvement of the city’s east-west<br />
thoroughfares, and Donald Pipes was hired as the<br />
first city manager. The City Council authorized a<br />
comprehensive City Planning Department and<br />
Commission on planning, land subdivisions and<br />
city growth, and the first Master Plan for<br />
Development was adopted in 1963.<br />
88 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
Duard Enoch was elected mayor in 1967 and<br />
initiated bonds to support the creation of parks<br />
and recreation facilities in the city. An extensive<br />
annexation policy helped control the quality of<br />
new developments, while municipal revenue<br />
bonds allowed the development of the TWA<br />
Breech Training Academy.<br />
Jack Walker served as mayor in 1971 and led<br />
the fight for the first countywide sales tax as<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> grew into a major city. A one-half<br />
cent sales tax was adopted and the J. C. Nichols<br />
Company and Frank Morgan developed the Oak<br />
<strong>Park</strong> Mall, the largest covered shopping center<br />
in the metropolitan area, serving Johnson<br />
County, Wyandotte County, and much of the<br />
south side of Kansas City, Missouri. In 1973 a<br />
major office complex broke ground and would<br />
become famous as Corporate Woods, a 2.2.<br />
million square foot office park nestled among<br />
294 acres in the area.<br />
In 1965, Dr. Wilbur Billington urged city<br />
leaders to consider forming a community college.<br />
Overwhelmingly approved in 1967, the<br />
community college and Board of Trustees was<br />
formed. Dr. Robert Harris was chosen as the first<br />
college president in 1968 and, even before a<br />
permanent location was found, nearly 1,400<br />
students began coursework in September 1969 at<br />
temporary locations in and around Merriam. As<br />
enrollment blossomed, 220 acres were purchased<br />
and developed in 1970 and a formal dedication<br />
was held on September 24, 1972, as classes<br />
opened to 2,000 students and 96 faculty<br />
members. The cultural education center of the<br />
campus, The Carlsen Center, opened in 1990.<br />
In 1977, Mayor Ben Sykes encouraged the<br />
availability of sanitary sewer systems and<br />
expansion of water service to undeveloped<br />
areas. He promoted light-industrial<br />
development, continued road improvements,<br />
reviewed redevelopment needs in older<br />
residential areas, and helped acquire additional<br />
parklands, a golf course, and swimming pool.<br />
Mayor Sykes’ administration also included the<br />
juvenile diversions program, which allowed a<br />
juvenile offender hourly service to the<br />
community instead of facing criminal action and<br />
reduced juvenile offenders by eighty percent<br />
during its tenure.<br />
After state legislation was passed in the<br />
1960s to consolidate schools districts, the<br />
Shawnee Mission School District was formed in<br />
1969. Serving as superintendent of the Shawnee<br />
Mission High School District since 1944, Dr.<br />
Howard McEachen became the new district’s<br />
first superintendent. The annexed areas on the<br />
south side of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> were served by<br />
Southeast Johnson County School District and<br />
were unified in 1965, becoming the Blue Valley<br />
School District in 1977, and <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
annexed land in the Olathe School District in<br />
1985. The three school districts serving the City<br />
of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> today have excellent<br />
reputations as premier school districts, both<br />
statewide and nationally. A number of the<br />
schools have been designated as “Blue Ribbon<br />
Schools of Excellence” by the federal<br />
Department of Education.<br />
❖<br />
Above: <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>’s first newly<br />
constructed Police Department<br />
Headquarters was built in 1976 at<br />
8500 Antioch. The building was later<br />
used by the Antioch Patrol Division<br />
when the headquarters was moved to<br />
123rd and Metcalf in 1996.<br />
Below: The <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Fire<br />
Department’s state-of-the-art<br />
training center.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 89
❖<br />
Above: City of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
employees participating in “Bring<br />
Your Daughter to Work” Day.<br />
Below: A waterfall at the Arboretum.<br />
In 1981, Mayor Ed Eilert and several council<br />
members were sworn into office. Eilert had been<br />
on the City Council and active in city<br />
government and realized the importance of<br />
preserving the history and heritage of the<br />
community and downtown <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> itself.<br />
The <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> 2000 Foundation was<br />
formed in October to identify and help preserve<br />
the history of the community and to provide for<br />
the social and economic welfare of the citizens.<br />
One of the principal historic assets was the<br />
Strang Line Car Barn. The site was being<br />
considered for a new apartment project and the<br />
Foundation stepped in to save the Strang Car<br />
Barn. It was finally obtained by the Foundation<br />
in 1985, and nearly $270,000 was used to<br />
restore its exterior in 1989.<br />
One of the important factors in promoting the<br />
commercial growth and development of<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> was the conversion of the State of<br />
Kansas and Johnson County from a “dry state”<br />
allowing liquor-by-the-drink, which ushered in<br />
fine dining establishments, motels and hotels<br />
across Johnson County. Now Kansas citizens and<br />
Johnson County residents could dine and spend<br />
their money in Johnson County and provide<br />
additional jobs and sales tax money. The first<br />
major hotel to open in the area was the<br />
Doubletree Hotel. In 1985 the Kansas City Trade<br />
Center opened to the community and offered a<br />
nice development providing employment, hotel<br />
and motel occupancies, hundreds of patrons for<br />
surrounding restaurants and opportunities for<br />
retail sales at nearby shopping centers.<br />
The Legacy of Greenery Committee<br />
established by the City of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
conceived the idea for a nature park. Ailie Speer<br />
was instrumental in purchasing three hundred<br />
acres at 179th Street in 1990, and Wayne Byrd<br />
and Georgia Erickson worked with others to<br />
establish a master plan for the arboretum. In<br />
1993, trails were built and the park was<br />
continually improved and development increased<br />
when Erickson and her husband, Richard,<br />
donated funds and a water park was created.<br />
The Humana Health Care chain opened a<br />
new, large Suburban Health Care Center in<br />
1978, the first hospital truly within the City of<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. It was later sold to another<br />
healthcare system and renamed <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
Regional Medical Center. Several other medical<br />
centers were also started, the largest of these<br />
being the Menorah Medical Center, then St.<br />
Luke’s South, and others.<br />
In 1996 the City began improvements along<br />
151st Street and came upon one of the principal<br />
historic buildings in the old Stanley community,<br />
the Stanley Bank building, and the <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> 2000 Foundation stepped in to help save<br />
the historic structure. On the evening of May<br />
18, 1996, and overnight, approximately 750<br />
tons of building and equipment rolled five<br />
blocks west on 151st Street to the new location<br />
at 7590 West 151st Street with the brick vault<br />
and all exterior walls intact. It has been restored<br />
as an office building and contains a display of<br />
businesses, farms, activities and events<br />
important to the Stanley Community heritage.<br />
90 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
The City also began improvements to the<br />
Santa Fe Commons area and built a large<br />
bandstand reminiscent of William Strang’s<br />
original bandstand of 1910, and restoration of<br />
the Strang Carriage House began as the<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> <strong>Historic</strong>al Society agreed to move<br />
its headquarters there.<br />
When the Sprint Corporation decided to<br />
consolidate its offices to one large campus,<br />
company officials looked to the City of<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> and two hundred acres of vacant<br />
land between 115th and 119th Streets. A unique<br />
concept was used to facilitate the project as a<br />
large one time fee was paid to the City in lieu of<br />
building permit fees for each building. Sprint<br />
broke ground in 1997 and the last building was<br />
completed in 2002.<br />
In the 1980s the City of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
created the Convention and Visitors Bureau and<br />
consideration of a major convention facility was<br />
undertaken by Mayor Eilert and city staff and<br />
council members. In the late 1990s a program<br />
was developed to build the convention center<br />
with a large Sheraton hotel closely adjoining the<br />
center. Construction began in 2000 and the<br />
Convention Center and Sheraton Hotel opened<br />
in 2002.<br />
City fathers recognized the need to revitalize<br />
the older areas of the City as well as the need to<br />
provide appropriate infrastructure for the<br />
developing areas. When a small sales tax was<br />
approved, the City began improving the streets<br />
and the older north area and helping residents<br />
to revitalize their properties and encouraged<br />
downtown business growth with the creation of<br />
a Business Improvement District. The City also<br />
purchased a clock tower and small surrounding<br />
park area and constructed a farmer’s market,<br />
drawing hundreds of thousands of people.<br />
Ever mindful of the health and welfare of its<br />
citizens, the City developed a hiking and biking<br />
trail in about 1976, starting with the first onehalf<br />
mile by Indian Creek. The trails system now<br />
includes forty-five miles in the City, joining<br />
other trails in Leawood and Olathe.<br />
Within the framework of the master plans,<br />
up-to-date codes, AAA financial ratings with<br />
both Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s, excellent<br />
clerical and financial administration, innovative<br />
public works and services, exceptional public<br />
parks and recreational facilities and a service<br />
minded staff, the City functions extremely well.<br />
Certainly a unique partnership between the<br />
City and its developers has resulted in <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> becoming the first-class, park-like<br />
community that William B. Strang envisioned<br />
for it only a century ago.<br />
❖<br />
Above: Mayor Ed Eilert (second from<br />
right) is sworn in upon being elected<br />
to his fourth term in 1993. Eilert is<br />
shown here with <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> City<br />
Council members (from left to right)<br />
Mike Lally, Neil Sader, Tim Owens,<br />
Greg Musil, and Max Gordon.<br />
Below: The Public Works Department<br />
cooperated with private development<br />
to expand and improve streets and<br />
lighting infrastructure for the Sprint<br />
world headquarters campus.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 91
OVERLAND PARK<br />
CHURCH OF GOD<br />
(HOLINESS)<br />
❖<br />
Above: The chapel of Kansas City<br />
College and Bible School, where the<br />
church worshipped from 1948<br />
until 1960.<br />
Below: The <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Church<br />
of God (Holiness), which was built<br />
in 1960.<br />
In 1941, Kansas City Bible School moved<br />
from Twenty-ninth and Askew in Kansas City,<br />
Missouri to a beautiful campus at Seventyfourth<br />
Street and Highway 69 (now Metcalf).<br />
With no church on campus everyone traveled<br />
back to the church at Twenty-ninth and Askew<br />
for services. One Wednesday during 1942 there<br />
was not enough transportation for everyone to<br />
go to prayer meeting, so a service was held in<br />
the college dormitory. Afterward, School Dean<br />
Mrs. Morey Shaver said, “We must never let<br />
this die.”<br />
Prayer meetings continued along with some<br />
Sunday services, especially if there were visiting<br />
ministers. In 1943, Shaver, now president of the<br />
school, attended camp meeting at Fort Scott,<br />
Kansas. Shaver feeling God’s leading, asked<br />
Charles Welch to come pastor the fledgling<br />
church. His first service was on September 12 in<br />
the school’s dining hall. Early members recall<br />
trying to concentrate on sermons while smelling<br />
dinner cooking.<br />
In 1947 the school began construction of a<br />
new building. The church began worshipping in<br />
the first-floor chapel in January 1948. Shortly<br />
after C. E. Cowen came as pastor in 1950, the<br />
congregation moved into the newly completed<br />
auditorium on the second floor. Looking<br />
forward to the day they would have a church of<br />
their own, a building fund was started. In 1960<br />
an arrangement was made with the school for<br />
the present site at 6801 West Seventy-fourth<br />
Street and construction began. The first service<br />
in the new church was December 14, 1960. The<br />
next month, a dedication service was held with<br />
a standing-room-only crowd. In 1991 a<br />
new foyer was added to the west end of the<br />
sanctuary.<br />
In 1975, Pastor Raymond Pollard drew plans<br />
for a parsonage which was completed the<br />
following January. It is located at 6601 West<br />
Seventy-fourth Street. Others who have served as<br />
pastor are: Leonard James, E. W. Roy, Dale<br />
Yocum, Omar Lee, Isaac Smith, Danny McCain,<br />
Marvin Powers, and E. G. Garrett. The current<br />
pastor is Merle Troyer.<br />
The church’s most exciting new outreach is<br />
an Internet ministry. People from around<br />
the world can watch services broadcast live<br />
three times a week. Visitors from over forty<br />
countries have logged on to the website at<br />
www.opcogh.org.<br />
92 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
Building the local church at home and<br />
abroad has long been the guiding principle of<br />
Kansas City College and Bible School.<br />
Established as the Kansas City Bible School in<br />
the basement of the Church of God (Holiness) at<br />
Twenty-ninth and Askew in Kansas City,<br />
Missouri in 1938, the school included a<br />
high school and a Bible college. In 1941 the<br />
school was renamed Kansas City College and<br />
Bible School and was moved to a twelve-acre<br />
campus in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. During the ensuing<br />
decades the school helped meet the growing<br />
demand for Christian education with the<br />
addition of a junior high in 1961, elementary<br />
school in 1964, kindergarten in 1975 and<br />
preschool and daycare in 1992. New<br />
buildings and parking lots were a<br />
welcome addition as the campus and<br />
enrollment flourished along with an<br />
unfailing desire to fulfill the Great<br />
Commission of the Gospel.<br />
The school’s outstanding leadership<br />
has included Presidents A. C. Watkins,<br />
Mrs. Morey Shaver, Dr. Dale Yocum,<br />
Dr. Burl McClanahan, Dr. Isham<br />
Holland, Dr. John Page, Raymond<br />
Crooks, and Dr. Noel Scott. Dr. C. E.<br />
Cowen, who served as its president<br />
from 1944 to 1969, published the<br />
definitive History of the Church of God<br />
(Holiness) in 1949. The school’s tenth<br />
president, Dr. Gayle Woods, has<br />
overseen such projects as the addition of<br />
the Home School Satellite Program; the<br />
expansion of the kindergarten,<br />
preschool and daycare programs; and a<br />
new toddler care program which began<br />
in 1996.<br />
Preparing students to answer a special<br />
call from God, Kansas City College and<br />
Bible School offers an educational<br />
foundation with a decidedly biblical<br />
perspective. College faculty and staff<br />
members encourage students to<br />
strengthen the Church by training and<br />
equipping them as ministers and laymen<br />
through degree programs in urban<br />
ministry, missions, pastoral ministry,<br />
youth ministry, elementary education,<br />
secondary English education, worship<br />
leadership, and church music.<br />
Today Kansas City College and Bible School<br />
stands as one of the premiere schools in the<br />
Midwest as it offers extensive programs catering<br />
to the educational needs of every family member.<br />
Students from the Noah’s Ark Daycare and<br />
Preschool, kindergarten, <strong>Overland</strong> Christian<br />
Grade School and <strong>Overland</strong> Christian High<br />
School (an affiliate member of the Association of<br />
Christian Schools International) to the Bible<br />
College will find themselves genuinely motivated<br />
and well-prepared to live out their calling as<br />
ambassadors of Jesus Christ.<br />
For more information about enrollment and<br />
upcoming events at the school, please visit<br />
www.kccbs.edu and www.cogh.net.<br />
KANSAS CITY<br />
COLLEGE AND<br />
BIBLE SCHOOL<br />
❖<br />
Top: <strong>Historic</strong> photo of Kansas City<br />
College and Bible School 7401<br />
Metcalf in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>.<br />
Bottom: Cowen Memorial<br />
Auditorium.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 93
CHURCH OF GOD<br />
(HOLINESS)<br />
❖<br />
The Church of God (Holiness)<br />
Foundation assists churches, Christian<br />
schools, and mission programs with<br />
their capital needs.<br />
The World Missions program of the<br />
Church of God (Holiness) has<br />
established programs from South<br />
America to Eastern Europe.<br />
Church of God (Holiness) Home<br />
Missions aggressively pursues church<br />
expansion in the United States,<br />
Canada, and Mexico.<br />
The ministries of the Church of God (Holiness)<br />
Foundation include exalting Christ, evangelizing<br />
the world, and equipping the Church. Organized<br />
in January 1935, the Foundation has assisted<br />
churches, Christian schools, and mission<br />
programs with building and improving church<br />
property, church buildings, parsonages, fellowship<br />
halls, and other capital needs.<br />
Located at 7407 Metcalf, the ministry of<br />
the Foundation is overseen by a board of directors<br />
elected by the constituency’s General Convention<br />
and serves facilities and programs across the<br />
United States and in several foreign lands in a<br />
number of ministries, including securing titles to<br />
the properties of the local churches and<br />
promoting the general interest of the Church. The<br />
Foundation also serves as an entity to which<br />
bequests may be made by donors who wish to<br />
give to the general interest of the work of the<br />
church. It provides an annuity program whereby<br />
an individual may bequest funds to the church<br />
and be provided an income for life. It also serves<br />
as a lending agency in providing loans on church<br />
properties within the Church.<br />
The World Missions program of the Church of<br />
God (Holiness) has established programs from<br />
South America to Eastern Europe. Church of God<br />
(Holiness) World Missions, Inc. elected its first<br />
Board of Directors in 1917, the World Missions<br />
program has endeavored to “go into all the world”<br />
and spread the good news of the gospel. As<br />
missionaries from around the world equip nations<br />
to take leadership positions in the church and<br />
expand the kingdom of God, the Church is involved<br />
in the areas of pastoral, evangelism, theological<br />
training, English as a second language, church<br />
building, youth and children, radio, prison, hospital<br />
chaplain, and community work. Countries served<br />
by these ministerial programs include the West<br />
Indies, South America, Cayman Islands, Africa, the<br />
Middle East, British Virgin Islands, St. Croix, St.<br />
Thomas, St. Vincent, and Eastern Europe.<br />
Church of God (Holiness) Home Mission<br />
Department, Inc. promotes the missionary<br />
interests of the Church within the boundaries<br />
of the United States, Canada, and Mexico.<br />
An executive secretary and board of<br />
directors operate the Home Mission Department.<br />
The department is a not-for-profit corporation and<br />
assists in planning and establishing new churches,<br />
assists local established churches in evaluation,<br />
development, and maintenance of their total<br />
program, promotes and assists in the development<br />
of cross-cultural and cross-ethnic ministry with the<br />
view of establishing churches within the bounds of<br />
the organization’s base of operations, and<br />
promotes the well-being of pastors and Christian<br />
workers of the Church.<br />
Within these branches, churches, pastors, and<br />
congregations are provided spiritual direction<br />
and opportunities for service, reaching beyond<br />
the walls of the local church and into the<br />
community of believers around the world in the<br />
twenty-first century.<br />
94 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
Nearly 125 years ago, in the spring of 1879, a<br />
small publication was created to “lift high the<br />
banner of holiness” and renew a fervor and<br />
conviction for purity within churches across<br />
America. Several ministers worked tirelessly<br />
in the early years of the ministry, believing<br />
the printed word would be one of the most<br />
effective means of promoting holiness and<br />
unity among its members. The new church<br />
periodical quickly found favor among leaders and<br />
their congregations and moved through a number<br />
of names and locations before settling in <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> on January 1, 1945. The printed word of the<br />
Holiness movement had found its home.<br />
Today Herald and Banner Press continues to<br />
flourish in the development, design, and<br />
publication of a full line of excellent Sunday<br />
school literature—The Way, Truth, and Life series.<br />
This curriculum contains material for all age<br />
groups and includes teacher aids and resource<br />
packets, student workbooks and activity pages,<br />
study guides for youth, and quarterly lesson<br />
plans for adults.<br />
Fifteen full time employees serving the<br />
Christian community in the Kansas City area<br />
operate the Herald and Banner Press and<br />
Bookstore. The Herald and Banner also serves<br />
nearly seventeen hundred churches in the United<br />
States as well as churches in thirty-two islands and<br />
nations worldwide. Books and church supplies are<br />
furnished around the world and materials are often<br />
translated into Spanish, Russian, Afrikaans, and<br />
Creole. Inner city missions and prison and jail<br />
ministries also use the publications and study<br />
guides. Job printing for individuals, businesses,<br />
and churches in the Kansas City area and beyond<br />
continue to play a key role in the production and<br />
printing work, as well.<br />
For more information about Herald and<br />
Banner Press, you can visit their offices and enjoy<br />
browsing through the bookstore at Metcalf and<br />
Seventy-fourth Street.<br />
HERALD AND BANNER PRESS<br />
❖<br />
Top: The original home of Herald and<br />
Banner Press and Bookstore in<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>.<br />
Above: Herald and Banner Press<br />
Bookstore in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>.<br />
Left: The print shop of Herald and<br />
Banner Press.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 95
❖<br />
BOTT RADIO<br />
NETWORK<br />
Above: Sherley and Dick Bott founded<br />
KCCV-AM in 1962 and the Bott<br />
Radio Network was born.<br />
COURTESY OF CHRISTOPHER T. MURPHY/<br />
BOTT RADIO NETWORK.<br />
Below: Network Control Room<br />
Operator Nick Nicholas assures that<br />
the BRN network programming is<br />
broadcast to network affiliates.<br />
COURTESY OF CHRISTOPHER T. MURPHY/<br />
BOTT RADIO NETWORK.<br />
With headquarters in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, Bott<br />
Radio Network (BRN) is the only radio<br />
network headquartered in the Kansas City area.<br />
A pioneer in the development of Christian<br />
talk radio, BRN is a national leader in quality<br />
Bible teaching and Christian news and<br />
information programming.<br />
The flagship station, KCCV 1510 AM (now<br />
broadcasting at 760 AM), was founded in<br />
Independence, Missouri in 1962. Known as<br />
“Kansas City’s Christian Voice,” it has had the<br />
same call letters, format and ownership for more<br />
than forty years.<br />
In 1989, BRN’s broadcast studios and<br />
corporate office relocated to <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> and<br />
in December 1993, KCCV 92.3 FM was added<br />
to serve the greater Kansas City area. KCCV 760<br />
AM is the only radio station licensed by the FCC<br />
to serve <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> and it broadcasts with<br />
one of the strongest radio signals in the Kansas<br />
City area, reaching into five states. The network<br />
consists of 25 stations in eight states<br />
representing 22 markets, and covering more<br />
than 18 million people.<br />
In 2003, BRN began broadcasting on a new<br />
translator frequency at 88.9 FM to enhance its<br />
service in Independence, Raytown, and Eastern<br />
Kansas City, Missouri. The network has plans to<br />
add more stations to further expand the<br />
coverage area and enable the network to<br />
continue its steady growth.<br />
Now, BRN broadcasts from <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
twenty-four hours a day to the U.S. on<br />
Sky Angel’s multi-channel direct broadcast<br />
satellite (DBS) service and worldwide over the<br />
Internet at www.bottradionetwork.com. The<br />
Internet broadcast has listeners on six continents.<br />
“We are growing but we’re not changing our<br />
commitment,” says founder, President, and CEO<br />
Dick Bott. “Our listeners have come to depend<br />
on us for a Biblical worldview. We present the<br />
nation’s finest Bible teaching ministries to<br />
communicate God’s Word, with news and<br />
information from a Christian perspective.”<br />
According to studies by Barna Research<br />
Group, Christian radio is the fastest growing<br />
medium for spreading the Faith, with slightly<br />
more than half the nation’s adults saying they<br />
had tuned in to a Christian radio program of<br />
some type during the previous month.<br />
“The Christian radio audience has grown<br />
dramatically over the years,” says Executive Vice<br />
President Richard Bott II, who has an MBA from<br />
Harvard Business School, “and we are as<br />
committed to our format as we were more than<br />
forty years ago when KCCV began broadcasting.”<br />
Bott Radio Network is dedicated to the<br />
Christian talk/information format. National<br />
program topics range from family and faith<br />
issues to live call-in shows about current events.<br />
Leading programs include James Dobson’s<br />
Focus on the Family—heard on more than<br />
2,000 radio outlets across the country and one<br />
of the top three talk radio programs in the<br />
nation—and Billy Graham’s Hour of Decision.<br />
96 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
❖<br />
Left: Bott Radio Network Executive<br />
Vice President Richard Bott II.<br />
COURTESY OF CHRISTOPHER T. MURPHY.<br />
“Our audience has confidence in our programs,”<br />
says the younger Bott. “We broadcast<br />
only quality programs that are of excellent<br />
reputation and character.”<br />
Bott Radio Network is a long-time member of<br />
the National Religious Broadcasters association,<br />
where both Dick and Rich Bott serve as<br />
members of the board of directors. The nondenominational<br />
network is not affiliated with<br />
any church, nor does it accept donations from<br />
listeners. It is supported wholly by its program<br />
producers and by local businesses that advertise<br />
on the network and sponsor the programming.<br />
The BRN audience is loyal and responsive in<br />
patronizing advertisers. More than half are<br />
college educated, affluent, and between the ages<br />
of 25 and 54 years old.<br />
“Music programming typically sits in the<br />
background of a listener’s realm of attention,”<br />
says Director of Advertising Sales and Marketing<br />
Jack Houghton. “Our talk-intensive format is a<br />
foreground medium, attracting more listener<br />
attention as they learn from the talk shows and<br />
teaching programs. This is a benefit to our<br />
advertisers because it provides greater<br />
recognition and retention of advertising<br />
messages from a quality audience.”<br />
As the network’s coverage and listening<br />
audience continue to grow, Bott Radio<br />
Network’s commitment stands firm: to help the<br />
people of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> and the broader<br />
listening area grow in their faith and apply it in<br />
their daily lives. In addition to the effect the<br />
programming has on this mission, community<br />
outreach continues to play a vital role. Bott<br />
Radio Network regularly sponsors citywide<br />
events such as Promise Keepers, Women of<br />
Faith and Christian Family Day at the Kansas<br />
City Royals ballpark in addition to supporting<br />
nonprofit organizations like the Lighthouse and<br />
City Union Mission.<br />
Bottom: Bott Radio Network Director<br />
of Advertising Sales and Marketing<br />
Jack Houghton and Director of<br />
Broadcast Operations and KCCV<br />
Station Manager Eben Fowler discuss<br />
the network’s involvement with the<br />
Billy Graham Crusade in Kansas City.<br />
COURTESY OF CHRISTOPHER T. MURPHY.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 97
JOHNSON<br />
COUNTY<br />
COMMUNITY<br />
COLLEGE<br />
❖<br />
Above: The Carlsen Center on the<br />
campus of Johnson County<br />
Community College.<br />
Below: Learning comes first at JCCC.<br />
Johnson County Community College (JCCC)<br />
has quickly become the largest and most well<br />
known community college in Kansas. JCCC<br />
excels in both its role as an academic institution<br />
of higher education and its mission to serve the<br />
Johnson County area through community<br />
outreach, continuing education, and performing<br />
arts programs.<br />
JCCC opened its doors in September 1969.<br />
During its first semester, JCCC had almost<br />
fourteen hundred students. Classes took place in<br />
a former elementary school and in storefronts<br />
scattered throughout Merriam. From these<br />
humble origins, JCCC, under the leadership of the<br />
Board of Trustees and three presidents—Robert<br />
Harris, 1968-1975; John Cleek, 1975-1981; and<br />
Charles J. Carlsen, 1981-present—has become<br />
the premier community college in Kansas.<br />
JCCC now boasts an enrollment of more than<br />
thirty-four thousand students in credit and<br />
continuing education classes. Its 234-acre main<br />
campus boasts 17 major buildings, including the<br />
recently constructed Police Academy and<br />
Horticultural Science Center. In addition to more<br />
than 100 transfer agreements with local and<br />
regional four-year colleges and universities, JCCC<br />
has completion programs that allow students to<br />
seamlessly continue their degrees at the<br />
university level. After graduation, approximately<br />
seventy percent are employed at jobs directly<br />
relating to their program of study.<br />
In addition to its credit academic programs,<br />
JCCC offers noncredit programs in these areas.<br />
The Center for Business and Technology<br />
provides up-to-date training in computer<br />
applications, information technology and<br />
professional development for managers and<br />
supervisors. The Small Business Development<br />
Center works with local entrepreneurs to help<br />
their businesses succeed.<br />
The Center for Professional Education<br />
provides seminars, workshops, and classes for<br />
professional licensing certifications. Licensure<br />
programs include healthcare, insurance, real<br />
estate, law, education, therapeutic massage, and<br />
technical trades, among others.<br />
Community Services offers personal<br />
enrichment in subjects ranging from art to<br />
fitness, cooking to money management.<br />
Programs are targeted to people of all ages, from<br />
children to senior citizens.<br />
98 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
In addition, the Carlsen Center on the JCCC<br />
campus has become the center for arts in the<br />
Johnson County area. The Carlsen Center brings<br />
performing art programs in dance, theater, music<br />
and comedy to the community. Its Gallery of Art<br />
offers exhibitions by nationally and internationally<br />
known contemporary artists.<br />
JCCC has had tremendous success as an<br />
educational institution the past thirty years<br />
because of its commitment to the community. In<br />
2003 the college received the Kansas Excellence<br />
Award, the highest level of recognition for<br />
quality given by the Kansas Award for<br />
Excellence Foundation. The KAE award is<br />
presented to organizations that have<br />
demonstrated through their practices and<br />
achievements the highest and most consistent<br />
level of excellence. Organizations recognized at<br />
this level are considered role models for other<br />
Kansas institutions. That’s JCCC.<br />
❖<br />
The lobby of the Carlsen Center.<br />
The center houses three theaters;<br />
a recital hall and box office; an<br />
art gallery; conference rooms;<br />
and classrooms.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 99
❖<br />
SHERATON<br />
OVERLAND<br />
PARK HOTEL<br />
The Dining Room at Sheraton<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Hotel.<br />
COURTESY OF: WARREN JAGGER<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY, INC.<br />
Looking for a Johnson County<br />
venue for your arriving guests? Look<br />
no further than the tallest building in<br />
town, the Sheraton <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>!<br />
Located in the heart of the College<br />
Boulevard business corridor, a fiveminute<br />
drive will take the business<br />
person to Sprint’s world headquarters<br />
campus, Yellow Freight, Universal<br />
Underwriters and Corporate Woods ® .<br />
The Country Club Plaza, downtown<br />
Kansas City, and the Truman Sports<br />
Complex are only twenty minutes away<br />
from the Sheraton and all are accessed<br />
via Interstate Highway 435, while<br />
Kansas City International Airport is<br />
little more than a half-hour drive from<br />
the hotel. On the outside, the twentystory<br />
hotel is ultra sleek and<br />
contemporary, seamlessly blending<br />
with the look of the adjacent, ultramodern,<br />
state-of-the-art <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
Convention Center.<br />
Inside, it’s another story! The hotel’s interior<br />
design incorporates opulent and traditional<br />
design elements with the look of Pottery<br />
Barn and Restoration Hardware. Dramatically<br />
oversized furnishings, decorative accessories,<br />
artwork, carpet pattern, and marble flooring<br />
patterns make the space intimate, elegant,<br />
and opulent.<br />
“The hotel’s interior design had to exude<br />
quality, elegance and tradition,” states hotel<br />
General Manager Tom Healy. “The look needed to<br />
be a mix of the tradition of Kansas City yet with an<br />
element of surprise. The design had to be<br />
comfortable yet elegant enough to attract the area’s<br />
numerous philanthropic and social events.”<br />
The hotel boasts over 20,000 square feet<br />
of meeting space, and can accommodate<br />
groups up to 1,400 people in one room. All<br />
meeting space is adjacent to a light filled, prefunction<br />
corridor, ideal for silent auctions or<br />
pre-dinner receptions.<br />
The hotel’s grand and airy Cottonwood<br />
Ballroom, the largest hotel ballroom in Johnson<br />
County, is large enough to hold a reception of<br />
fourteen hundred people. Sleek, nickel-plated<br />
sconces illuminate huge dramatic beveled<br />
mirrors. Overhead, enormous globe shaped<br />
lighting pendants continue the dramatic feel of<br />
the room. Soft shades of olive and khaki make a<br />
perfect backdrop for most banquet and special<br />
event décor.<br />
In contrast, the elegant Rosebud Boardroom,<br />
featuring a highly glazed custom-made board<br />
table, surrounded by thirty purple suede chairs, is<br />
complete with a raised center panel to disguise<br />
high-speed Internet access. A custom-made<br />
credenza anchors the room and is flanked by a<br />
100 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
contemporary black-watch<br />
wing back chairs.<br />
OP 1906 Bar & Grille is<br />
the ideal spot for pre-event<br />
cocktail or an after-event<br />
nightcap. Located next to the<br />
ballroom corridor, it is a<br />
cross between a sophisticated<br />
Kansas City steakhouse and a<br />
classic, upscale Italian bistro.<br />
Named in honor of the<br />
founding of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> in<br />
1906, a massive wooden<br />
Indianhead nickel, photos of<br />
city founder William B.<br />
Strang, Jr., and giant game<br />
pieces accent the room.<br />
The comforts of home<br />
coupled with state-of-the-art<br />
technology are available to<br />
satisfy the needs of the<br />
corporate traveler as well as<br />
the casual visitor to the Greater<br />
Kansas City area. Room<br />
amenities include AM/FM<br />
alarm clocks, coffeemakers,<br />
modem lines, room service<br />
and cable television. Personalized<br />
services include an<br />
express checkout, concierge<br />
service, free parking, a twentyfour-hour<br />
front desk, and<br />
allowance for pets. A beautiful<br />
indoor pool and exercise<br />
facility are centrally located on<br />
the lobby level.<br />
The hotel’s catering<br />
department boasts that<br />
choice dates for holiday<br />
parties and spring weddings<br />
are going quickly. For<br />
additional information on<br />
the Sheraton <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>’s<br />
banquet capabilities and<br />
meeting room availability,<br />
please contact Rita Hofer at<br />
(913) 234-2100. The<br />
Sheraton <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> at<br />
the Convention Center is<br />
located at 6100 College<br />
Boulevard, at 435 and Nall.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 101
ANDY KLEIN<br />
PONTIAC-GMC<br />
❖<br />
Right: The future home of Andy Klein<br />
Pontiac at Seventy-eighth and<br />
Highway 69/Metcalf in 1950.<br />
Below: Edward Klein at the original<br />
gas station site of Andy Klein Pontiac<br />
on Thirty-eighth and Metcalf in 1945.<br />
Every good story has a starting point. And<br />
the story of the Andy Klein automobile<br />
dealership’s humble beginnings starts more than<br />
fifteen years before the City of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
was founded in 1960.<br />
Andy’s dad, Edward Klein, ran a gas station<br />
at Eighty-third and Metcalf, known in 1945 as<br />
“Highway 69” in Mission Township. Andy, at<br />
thirty-four, serviced old cars and began selling<br />
cars after the war when times were really tough.<br />
He had started his family and was the proud<br />
father of four strapping boys.<br />
Andy acquired a Pontiac franchise with<br />
$200 in his pocket. It didn’t take him long to<br />
sell a new Pontiac to R. D. Grayson, M.D. This<br />
sale marks the birth of “Andy Klein Pontiac.”<br />
In those days, folks lived on small farms,<br />
acreages and in small residential areas. Andy<br />
was ambitious and because the post-war<br />
economy was good he outgrew three other<br />
locations along old Main Street.<br />
In 1949, Andy formed a partnership with<br />
Frank Ball and together operated Frank Ball<br />
Pontiac at Forty-seventh and Main in Kansas<br />
City. In 1950 he purchased fifteen acres at<br />
Seventy-eighth and old Highway 69 in Johnson<br />
County, Kansas. Construction began on a<br />
building costing more than $135,000.<br />
It was only five years earlier that Andy began<br />
his business a few blocks away at his dad’s<br />
rented gas station. His family had now grown to<br />
six children.<br />
102 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
In October 1951, Andy Klein Pontiac<br />
celebrated its grand opening in the new<br />
building. It had a one-car showroom. A<br />
beautiful new 1952 Pontiac was sitting in the<br />
window. New Pontiacs then sold for $1,200.<br />
Business grew and in 1953, GMC was<br />
acquired as a second GM line. Andy had thirtyfive<br />
employees working the full service<br />
dealership. It also gave customers better service<br />
and more parts. His family also grew. He was<br />
now the father of eight.<br />
By 1960 the area population had swollen to<br />
more than twenty-eight thousand. The City of<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> was founded. Old Highway 69<br />
was renamed Metcalf and businesses along<br />
Metcalf flourished. Andy Klein Pontiac-GMC<br />
was positioned perfectly for decades of future<br />
growth. Along with his growing dealership,<br />
Andy and his lovely wife, Lavonne, were the<br />
parents of nine children.<br />
In the late ’60s several of their boys showed<br />
interest in the business. Larry, Gary, and Pat<br />
were advertised as “The Klein Boys” to the<br />
public. Cars sold for about $3,000 and the city’s<br />
population had reached 65,000 plus.<br />
The year 1974 marked the beginning of<br />
change in the ownership. Pat bought out his<br />
father’s interest so Andy could retire from<br />
the business. Pat continued expanding the<br />
dealership adding a larger service department in<br />
1976 and an eleven-car showroom in 1987.<br />
Now Andy Klein Pontiac-GMC is the<br />
oldest dealership in Johnson County still<br />
operating under its original name. The 2004<br />
population of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> is in excess of<br />
166,000 and is the thirty-eighth fastest growing<br />
city in America.<br />
Pat and his lovely wife, Judy, have raised four<br />
daughters and enjoy ten grandchildren.<br />
Business is just fine at Andy Klein’s.<br />
❖<br />
This photograph of Andy Klein<br />
Pontiac’s one-car showroom, taken in<br />
1951, shows the dealership displaying<br />
a new 1952 Pontiac.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 103
SPRINT<br />
CORPORATION<br />
❖<br />
Sprint founder C. L. Brown was wellknown<br />
for being personally involved<br />
in the daily operations of his<br />
company, often working the<br />
switchboard during the lunch hour<br />
to relieve operators.<br />
Forever a man of vision and courage, and a<br />
tireless worker, Sprint founder Cleyson Leroy<br />
(C. L.) Brown lost his arm in a farming accident<br />
during his youth and decided to pursue a career<br />
in business rather than agriculture. Through<br />
hard work and determination and using his<br />
family’s gristmill, Brown supplied watergenerated<br />
power to Abilene, Kansas, through<br />
hard work and determination.<br />
This first endeavor into public utilities<br />
laid the groundwork for Brown’s venture<br />
into the interstate telephone market, and<br />
Brown Telephone Company was formed in<br />
Abilene on October 26, 1899. Confident that he<br />
could provide better service at lower prices than<br />
his competitor, Brown focused on providing<br />
quality services and convenience to his<br />
customers, connecting them with businesses<br />
like Western Union and the town music hall<br />
from their homes. He was even known to work<br />
the switchboard during the first year of<br />
operation so that his employees could take a<br />
lunch hour.<br />
When Brown Telephone Company began,<br />
operator assistance was required to place a call;<br />
the absence of numbered push buttons or even<br />
rotary dials prohibited customers from calling<br />
each other directly. Thanks to the invention of<br />
an automatic stepping switch developed by<br />
Kansas City mortician Almon Strowger, and<br />
public education and advertising campaigns, the<br />
automatic rotary direct dial telephone slowly<br />
replaced switchboard operators. By 1962,<br />
United Telephone Company’s telephones were<br />
one hundred percent dial.<br />
After Brown’s death in 1935, the holding<br />
company was left with many subsidiaries, then<br />
called United Telephone and Utility. After<br />
suffering heavy losses and struggling to survive<br />
the Great Depression, the company<br />
was reorganized under federal<br />
bankruptcy laws, and Alden Hart’s<br />
administration in the 1940s and 1950s<br />
gradually revived the corporation.<br />
During the 1960s and 1970s,<br />
company Presidents Skip Scupin and<br />
Paul Henson redirected the corporate<br />
philosophy toward expansion. On<br />
April 10, 1963, the company was<br />
officially listed on the New York Stock<br />
Exchange, and Scupin ceremonially<br />
purchased the first hundred shares of<br />
common stock at $37 per share.<br />
Henson’s “Growth-Through-Additions”<br />
program emphasized the consolidation<br />
of small local telephone companies<br />
around the country, while also stressing<br />
the need to diversify into other<br />
communication-related fields. The<br />
result was a corporation with a national<br />
presence that more than doubled in size several<br />
times while under his control. Henson was<br />
credited with the concept of building a reliable<br />
all-fiber-optic network that could carry<br />
nationwide calls with such clarity that one<br />
“could hear a pin drop.”<br />
The name has changed down through the<br />
years, from Brown Telephone Company in 1899<br />
to United Telephone and Utility in 1935, United<br />
Utilities in 1963, United Telecommunication<br />
in 1970, US Sprint Communications Company<br />
in 1986 upon a new partnership with US<br />
Telecom and GTE Corporation, and finally to<br />
its current name, Sprint, in 1992. Through it<br />
all, the company has remained on the cuttingedge<br />
with its leaps in technology as<br />
demonstrated by the integrated portfolio of<br />
local, long distance, wireless, and data services<br />
it offers its customers today.<br />
The Sprint World Headquarters Campus is<br />
located in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. When construction<br />
104 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
egan in 1997, the Sprint Campus was the<br />
largest corporate construction project under<br />
way in North America, encompassing more<br />
than four million square feet. With its own zip<br />
code, eight million bricks, a clock tower, a<br />
3,000-seat outdoor amphitheater, four major<br />
fountains, and more than 6,000 trees, Sprint<br />
has created a city within a city that<br />
accommodates thousands of hard-working<br />
associates in a stimulating atmosphere<br />
complete with retail, recreation, and dining<br />
services. The company also maintains<br />
facilities in all fifty states, including large<br />
employee populations in California, Florida,<br />
North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia. With<br />
approximately 60,000 employees worldwide,<br />
Sprint serves more than 26 million customers<br />
in more than 100 countries and sees nearly $26<br />
billion in annual revenues.<br />
Sprint is committed to creating deeper<br />
social connections that involve consumers,<br />
employees, and communities nationwide.<br />
For more than one hundred years, Sprint<br />
has been an ally to the community,<br />
demonstrating commitment through its longterm<br />
charitable and civic involvement. Sprint’s<br />
vision is “to be a world-class telecommunications<br />
company—the standard by which<br />
others are measured.”<br />
❖<br />
Above: The Sprint World<br />
Headquarters in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> was<br />
completed in 2002. Campus amenities<br />
include a variety of full-service dining<br />
options, an indoor fitness center and<br />
outdoor recreational/athletic facilities,<br />
and retail shops including a bank,<br />
convenience store, hair salon, florist,<br />
and dry cleaners.<br />
Left: US Sprint celebrated the nation’s<br />
first coast-to-coast fiber-optic<br />
transmission, a video-conference<br />
linking New York to Los Angeles on<br />
New Year’s Eve in 1986. The<br />
company would complete the world’s<br />
first all-digital, fiber-optic network<br />
less than a year later.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 105
CLOVERLEAF<br />
OFFICE PARK<br />
❖<br />
Visionary John L. “Jack” Bear.<br />
John “Jack” Bear was<br />
a visionary. Even as a<br />
young man working as a<br />
plasterer for his father,<br />
who was a plastering<br />
contractor, Jack wasn’t<br />
average. While still in<br />
high school, when his<br />
father became ill, Jack<br />
worked after school as<br />
the foreman overseeing<br />
his father’s jobs.<br />
During the 1940s<br />
Jack worked at Pratt<br />
Whitney during the<br />
day and did plastering<br />
work for several different<br />
developers at night.<br />
Instead of accepting<br />
wages, he invested the<br />
money in lots owned by<br />
the developers. As Jack<br />
purchased the lots and<br />
accrued enough money<br />
he built homes on them<br />
and sold them.<br />
Jack used this basis to<br />
build his first company,<br />
Bear Realty. At the time,<br />
the company was one of<br />
a kind. It assisted with<br />
purchasing a home as<br />
well as working on the<br />
financing and insurance needs. During his<br />
career, Jack built more than 1,500 homes. He<br />
developed more than 1000 acres of local<br />
residential subdivisions including Sherwood<br />
Forest, Mission <strong>Park</strong>, Bryantwood South, and<br />
Brookridge Estates. Along with Ralph Taylor,<br />
Jack also developed Milhaven. A “Bear Built<br />
Home” was recognized as being synonymous<br />
with quality construction. Under Bear Realty,<br />
homes were also developed in Shawnee,<br />
Mission, and Jack built the post office, which at<br />
that time was located on Outlook and Johnson<br />
Drive. A movie theater was also built in<br />
downtown <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. Still standing, it is<br />
know today as the Rio Theater located at 7204<br />
West Eightieth Street.<br />
In 1954, having started a new company, Jack<br />
purchased property from Ernie Cross at Metcalf<br />
and Shawnee Mission <strong>Park</strong>way. The site was<br />
surrounded by farmland and his original intent<br />
was to build a retail mall. He soon changed his<br />
mind and in the early 1960s the first two<br />
buildings at Cloverleaf, the Johnson County<br />
Medical Building at 6300 Glenwood and a<br />
seven-thousand-square-foot building at 6445<br />
Metcalf for the Buick Division of General<br />
Motors, were finished and fully leased.<br />
In 1967 he opened the first of eight general<br />
office buildings, a three-story, 50,000-square<br />
foot Cloverleaf Building 1 at 6811 West Sixtythird<br />
Street. In 1968, the four-story, 68,000<br />
square foot Cloverleaf Building II was<br />
completed at 6901 West Sixty-third Street and<br />
in 1970, Jack finished building Cloverleaf III,<br />
the largest building in the park with five-stories<br />
and 90,000 square feet. Since the completion of<br />
106 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
Cloverleaf III, Jack added five more buildings to<br />
the park. Cloverleaf Office <strong>Park</strong> now<br />
consists of ten office buildings, with the final<br />
building, Cloverleaf eight completed in the<br />
early 1990s.<br />
Another company Jack founded and<br />
presided over with his wife and partner,<br />
Edna, was Bear & Bear Associates, LP. This<br />
company partnered with his son-in-law and<br />
daughter to develop a sixty-acre Industrial <strong>Park</strong><br />
in Lenexa know as Crossroads Industrial <strong>Park</strong>.<br />
Jack continued to be involved with the dayto-day<br />
operations of Cloverleaf until his death<br />
in 2002 at nearly ninety-two years of age. He<br />
and his wife, Edna, had one daughter,<br />
Carroll, who along with her husband Paul<br />
Burger, is still actively involved with Cloverleaf<br />
Office <strong>Park</strong> today.<br />
To protect and further the vision of Jack<br />
Bear, Cloverleaf is currently undergoing a large<br />
renovation project. This property upgrade is centered<br />
on a park near Building eight. Founder’s <strong>Park</strong><br />
was developed by his family to honor Jack Bear.<br />
Exterior upgrades include the buildings themselves,<br />
parking lots, lighting and landscaping. The<br />
interior of each building will have all common<br />
areas remodeled.<br />
The Cloverleaf Office <strong>Park</strong> is a major supporter<br />
of local community efforts, including<br />
membership in BOMA, <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Chamber<br />
of Commerce and Northeast Johnson County<br />
Chamber of Commerce. The <strong>Park</strong> has given<br />
charitable donations to Village Presbyterian<br />
Church, Mid-American Heart Institute, Avila<br />
College, Mid American Nazarene College and<br />
City Union Mission.<br />
❖<br />
Above: An aerial view of the<br />
expansive Cloverleaf Office <strong>Park</strong>.<br />
Below:An artist’s rendering of one of<br />
the office buildings at Cloverleaf.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 107
ROGER THE<br />
PLUMBER<br />
❖<br />
Educated on the GI bill, Arley Peugeot<br />
dreamed of a better life for his family.<br />
One day in 1950, he decided to start<br />
his own plumbing business, from one<br />
old truck.<br />
One Johnson County plumber has served five<br />
generations of customers—Roger the Plumber<br />
in downtown <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. Roger Peugeot<br />
took over the business from his father, Arley.<br />
“The best lesson my Dad taught me,” says Roger,<br />
“is to offer Same Day Service, seven days a week.<br />
He said, ‘Son, backed up pipes never take a<br />
vacation.’ Well, after that, neither did we—for<br />
about twenty-five years!”<br />
“Dad had served in the Army in the late<br />
1940’s. He considered it his greatest good<br />
fortune to then be educated on the GI bill.<br />
In 1950, I remember the very day when Dad<br />
decided to start his own business, from one<br />
old truck.”<br />
“Even though we lived in KCK until 1958,<br />
Dad saw his giant opportunity as serving<br />
Johnson County,” Roger explains. “With the<br />
post-war boom, everyone else was doing new<br />
construction. Nobody was doing maintenance<br />
and repair. So he made that our family niche: to<br />
serve one booming county only—cutting down<br />
on travel between calls. We refused new<br />
construction. We only fixed or upgraded<br />
existing systems. There is so much cheap<br />
builder grade work and material out there. In<br />
northeast Johnson County, it’s from the fifties.<br />
And in south Leawood, it’s still true today. But<br />
what people really want is quality.”<br />
“Sometimes homeowners upgrade as a<br />
reward or a present to themselves. Or else they<br />
wait till it breaks. Either way, they call us and we<br />
do it that day. Just like Dad taught me. I figure<br />
we’ve upgraded about half the slow toilets or<br />
leaky faucets in Johnson County so far. We<br />
also specialize in sump pumps with battery<br />
backups. Johnson County basements all seem to<br />
need them. One day in 2003, we installed<br />
twenty-six in one day. Talk about a crew of<br />
warrior technicians!”<br />
“To speed up service calls, Dad’s dream was<br />
to have a warehouse on wheels. That’s how the<br />
big red truck became our signature. I started<br />
working alongside him when I was seven, going<br />
on calls after school and weekends. By the time<br />
I graduated from Shawnee Mission North in<br />
1961, there was nothing I couldn’t do.”<br />
“It was a big moment in 1971,” Roger says.<br />
“Dad sat me down and said, ‘Out of you five<br />
boys, I want you to promise to take care of your<br />
mother.’ He started me out in my own business.<br />
Just like him. With one old truck. He carved out<br />
a territory for me to start with: south of Seventyfifth,<br />
west of Metcalf…oh yeah, and any houses<br />
in Mission Hills with too many steps for his<br />
ailing heart.”<br />
Arley Peugeot passed away the next year. “I<br />
kept my promise to my Dad. I bought the rest of<br />
his business and his clientele roster from my<br />
mother. And that is how our family has served<br />
five generations of customers. So far.”<br />
The company’s customer service tradition led<br />
to a one-hundred percent satisfaction promise.<br />
Milestones for Roger the Plumber illustrate how<br />
the company delivered and continues to deliver<br />
what Johnson Countians really wanted:<br />
• 1975: First to advertise same-day service.<br />
• 1977: First to offer senior citizen discounts.<br />
• 1993: First to offer diagnostic flat rate<br />
pricing, so the customer approves the price,<br />
in advance, with no extra charge even if the<br />
tech is agonizingly slow and meticulous.<br />
• 1994: The only Johnson County plumber<br />
who works weekends.<br />
• 1995: No extra charge during the day on<br />
Saturdays or Sundays.<br />
• 1995: Twenty-four hours a day, a live person<br />
answers Roger’s phones, 913-642-2979.<br />
As a result, many families now schedule ahead<br />
to handle their annoying drips and faucet jiggles.<br />
Another priority is larger water heaters, so family<br />
and houseguests can all enjoy a nice shower.<br />
Not only is Roger the Plumber the favorite<br />
plumber of Johnson County, he was also<br />
108 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
“Plumber of the Year” nationwide in<br />
2002. “We keep one extraordinary<br />
promise,” explains Roger, “of 100<br />
percent customer satisfaction. Out of<br />
50,000 customers, I do not knowingly<br />
have even one who is dissatisfied or<br />
will not use us again.”<br />
This remains no easy feat. No one<br />
else in town offers this level of service.<br />
“<strong>Historic</strong>ally, most service companies<br />
are content with around ninety-seven<br />
percent satisfaction—it’s that last three<br />
percent that really keeps me and my<br />
techs on our toes!” Roger explains.<br />
“From the little booties and rolling out<br />
the red carpet, to the flat rate pricing,<br />
(so everyone knows up front exactly<br />
what it will cost, before we start)—to<br />
cleaning up after ourselves—every<br />
detail is important to us.”<br />
“I’m sure we couldn’t keep this<br />
promise without our fourteen big red<br />
Roger the Plumber trucks,” Roger says.<br />
Each truck is stocked with twelve<br />
thousand parts, in bar-coded bins,<br />
including water heaters, disposers,<br />
toilets and those battery-operated<br />
sump pumps. There’s never a charge to<br />
go get extra parts.<br />
“But the most important thing on<br />
each truck is the tech,” Roger adds<br />
with pride. “My guys are the best<br />
trained, licensed plumbers in the<br />
Midwest. I trust ‘em—and so can you.”<br />
For comments, questions, or to<br />
chat with Roger, call 913-642-2979 or<br />
visit www.rogertheplumber.com.<br />
❖<br />
Above: “The most important thing<br />
on each truck is the tech,” Roger<br />
Peugeot explains with pride. “My guys<br />
are the best trained, licensed plumbers<br />
in the Midwest. I trust ‘em—and<br />
so can you.”<br />
Left: Each truck is stocked with twelve<br />
thousand parts, in bar-coded bins,<br />
including water heaters, disposers,<br />
toilets, faucets and battery-operated<br />
sump pumps—which are in very high<br />
demand in Johnson County. There’s<br />
never a charge to go get extra parts.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 109
WHITE HAVEN<br />
MOTOR LODGE<br />
❖<br />
Above: The White Haven Motor<br />
Lodge when it first opened in 1957.<br />
Below: The White Haven Motor Lodge<br />
as it appears today.<br />
When Hugh and Mary White moved to<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> at 8505 Metcalf in 1941, Metcalf<br />
was a brick highway. They purchased the<br />
Wolverine Dairy, milked between sixty and<br />
eighty cows at noon, then again at midnight<br />
and processed and delivered bottled milk and<br />
dairy products to 150 homes over a fifty-mile<br />
route. The Whites had been cattle farmers in<br />
Linn County, Kansas for years. They ran the<br />
Wolverine Dairy very successfully for eight<br />
years but health problems forced a disposal sale<br />
of the diary.<br />
The Whites’ and their four children, Robert,<br />
Joseph, Louise and Eugene continued in the<br />
cattle business but in 1951 the White farm was<br />
subdivided as the White Haven subdivision.<br />
Hugh and Bob White went into the<br />
construction business, building many houses in<br />
this subdivision. The Whites decided to build a<br />
retirement business for the parents and bought<br />
some land on Metcalf between Eightieth and<br />
Eightieth-first Streets. Zoning was a problem,<br />
but after a lengthy legal battle, the ground was<br />
zoned for a motor lodge and Bob White built<br />
the first thirty-four rooms which opened in<br />
1957. Each was separated by twelve inches of<br />
insulation. The motel rooms were a home away<br />
from home for many businessmen, salesmen,<br />
bank examiners and government regulators<br />
as well as people from all over Kansas<br />
and Missouri coming to the Kansas City<br />
area for doctors and medical care, trade<br />
shows, shipping and entertainment. In the<br />
1960s, forty-three more rooms were added to<br />
the Lodge.<br />
As times progressed homes in the adjoining<br />
area were added to the business so that seventynine<br />
units were available. The homes are rented<br />
for various reasons. Insurance companies will<br />
put up families when their homes are destroyed<br />
by fire or catastrophes. They are also used by<br />
families relocating to the area, or companies<br />
that are working a job for a short period of<br />
time. The whole White family, the three<br />
110 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
surviving children, their spouses, children and<br />
great-grandchildren all work in the business.<br />
The Whites have always been proud of their<br />
clean, tastefully decorated rooms. The “no<br />
vacancy” sign is frequently lit in spite of the<br />
many new first class competitive hotels in<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. The close attention paid by the<br />
Whites to their guests’ needs and the<br />
impeccable maintenance of the property has<br />
gained for the White Haven Motor Lodge an<br />
exceptional reputation both nationally and<br />
internationally. It has been listed in Let’s Go<br />
America, a publication in several languages<br />
and distributed around the world and has<br />
been featured in the New York Times with a very<br />
fine review.<br />
Eugene emphasizes that special attention<br />
to decoration and the unusual personal service<br />
of all family members is the key to the motor<br />
lodge’s success. Some of the family members are<br />
always around or close at hand with hands-on<br />
experience in maintaining and servicing the<br />
entire complex for immediate response to<br />
guests’ needs and concerns. Personal service<br />
above and beyond the usual is the most<br />
important ingredient to the family’s success. It<br />
helps that their costs are lower than many<br />
hotels and their rates are very competitive but<br />
the on-site owners’ extensive experience and<br />
commitment to service trumps all for making<br />
this business successful and surviving in the<br />
changed world of many high-rise chain hotels<br />
in the area. The White family’s White Haven<br />
Motor Lodge is a true example and great<br />
exponent of the quality of life that is <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong>, Kansas.<br />
❖<br />
Above: The entrance to the White<br />
Haven Motor Lodge offices.<br />
Below: The White Haven crest on the<br />
lodge office. A sight to behold by some<br />
of the customers whose families have<br />
been coming for three and four<br />
generations.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 111
OVERLAND<br />
PARK MASONIC<br />
LODGE #436<br />
❖<br />
For nearly a century, <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> Masonic Lodge #436 has<br />
welcomed people from around the<br />
country. The flagpole and material<br />
for setting cost eleven dollars and<br />
was purchased in December of<br />
1941. In 1952 visitors to <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> came from seventeen different<br />
states representing eighty-eight<br />
different lodges.<br />
On April 5, 1922, a committee of Master<br />
Masons in the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> area submitted a<br />
Petition for Dispensation to establish a<br />
subordinate lodge in the area. The first Masonic<br />
Lodge of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> met on the second floor<br />
of a brick building at Eightieth and Foster on July<br />
20, 1922 for $15 per month. The first official<br />
meeting of the Lodge was held October 18, 1922,<br />
and six new members were initiated while five<br />
were passed. Under dispensation until December<br />
31, 1922, the Lodge was chartered March 1,<br />
1923, and assigned #436.<br />
In 1923 the Lodge accepted thirteen members<br />
and four years later celebrated the attainment of<br />
its goal of one hundred members. On July 15,<br />
1929, the Lodge asked permission of the Grand<br />
Lodge of Kansas to purchase a building owned<br />
by the Presbyterian Church in the amount of<br />
$5,000. Monthly payments were $40 and on<br />
February 20, 1935, the Lodge asked the church<br />
to reduce those payments to $25. The<br />
cornerstone was lettered in 1938 and since the<br />
building was not suited for Lodge meetings; an<br />
extensive renovation was undertaken. Although<br />
it is not noticeable, the floor slopes downward<br />
from the west to the east, making it one of<br />
the only Masonic Lodges in the state of<br />
Kansas that can boast of a uniquely sloping floor.<br />
On November 7, 1942, a special meeting was<br />
held to celebrate the burning of the mortgage<br />
and today the building is in the National Register<br />
of <strong>Historic</strong> Places.<br />
Over the years, many interesting notes from<br />
the Lodge secretaries have found their way into<br />
the historic legacy of the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
Masonic Lodge #436. Before moving to the<br />
former First Presbyterian Church in 1930,<br />
Lodge members met in rooms on the second<br />
floor of a building at Eightieth and Foster. In<br />
the 1920s, gas and light bills for the lodge<br />
totaled $32 annually and annual member dues<br />
were $6. September 8, 1927 was a landmark for<br />
the lodge as it reached its goal of 100 members<br />
and celebrated with dinner for 217 people in<br />
vacant rooms below the lodge. In 1940 the first<br />
study club was created, and in 1954 the first<br />
issue of the Lodge paper was printed in April. A<br />
second issue in May of that year was published<br />
under the new name, The Observer.<br />
Throughout the historic life of the Lodge,<br />
membership has grown and declined over the<br />
years, with over 600 members in 1960 and<br />
holding steady at nearly 400 members today, the<br />
Lodge’s success has been compared to a man’s<br />
life. One member describes it likes this, “Some<br />
good, some bad. But if you’re lucky and live<br />
long enough to look back, you usually look past<br />
the bad and focus on the good.”<br />
112 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
Focusing on the good is exactly what the<br />
Masonic Lodge of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> does best. Its<br />
extensive activities and faithful service to the<br />
community are legendary. The <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
Lodge distributes baskets of fruit to its “shut-ins”<br />
each year at Christmastime, a tradition that<br />
began among Lodge members during the<br />
Christmas of 1933. Members contribute to<br />
Demolay, Job’s Daughters, Kansas Mile of Food,<br />
and Keys Home for Boys and sponsor a band<br />
member to the Masonic All-State High School<br />
marching band at the Kansas East-West Shrine<br />
Bowl football game. Upon application, high<br />
school students may apply for scholarships or<br />
financial aid to fulfill educational requirements.<br />
Annual events include activities such as a food<br />
and drink stand during the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Days<br />
craft show, the now famous Oyster and Beef Stew<br />
Dinner that precedes the election of officers and<br />
dinner and entertainment in the Lodge Hall<br />
for Masonic widows in and around the<br />
community. It is always the duty of the Lodge to<br />
help aid and assist brother Masons, their<br />
widows, and orphans.<br />
❖<br />
Above: Members of the <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> Masonic Lodge purchased this<br />
building in 1929 and an extensive<br />
renovation was begun in 1938 to<br />
accommodate the growing<br />
membership of the Lodge.<br />
Below: The building’s cornerstone<br />
was set in 1938 and today the Lodge<br />
is listed among <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>’s<br />
historic landmarks.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 113
CORPORATE<br />
WOODS ®<br />
OFFICE PARK<br />
C.W.<br />
ASSOCIATES<br />
❖<br />
This aerial shot of Corporate Woods<br />
was taken in 2003 and shows the<br />
park as it appears today.<br />
One of the largest and most<br />
attractive office parks in the Kansas City<br />
area, Corporate Woods ® , centrally<br />
located along the I-435 corridor, is<br />
more than a community of businesses<br />
and retail spaces. With well over 12<br />
million square feet of land and 30<br />
different types of trees, nearly 4,000<br />
tulips bulbs, and numerous wildlife<br />
including foxes, owls, muskrats, and<br />
deer, this is obviously not your run-ofthe-mill<br />
workplace.<br />
The opening of its first building in<br />
September of 1975 marked a major<br />
victory for the men behind the joint<br />
venture with Herbert V. Jones &<br />
Company and Metropolitan Life<br />
Insurance Company. The founders,<br />
Whitney Kerr, Sr., Tom Congleton, and Russell<br />
S. Jones, along with Dick Wagstaff, Jr., Phillip<br />
Lyman, and Charles Sayres envisioned a unique<br />
suburban complex that would appeal to both<br />
small local companies as well as nationally<br />
known businesses.<br />
Kerr remembers the struggles and triumphs<br />
that were met in those early years, “It all came<br />
together because we were willing to accept the<br />
risks along with the opportunity. MetLife agreed<br />
to put up the money, we agreed to do the work,<br />
and nearly thirty years of learning and continuous<br />
growth have made it the success it is today.”<br />
Though the founders originally set their sites<br />
on a large tract of land at Metcalf and I-435,<br />
owner Frank Morgan didn’t want to sell the<br />
property. As the men considered other locations,<br />
the lush green landscape and heavily wooded<br />
location at I-435 and College Boulevard proved<br />
to be the perfect place to capture the campustype<br />
atmosphere and competitive real estate<br />
location that would attract companies both large<br />
and small. A land development loan of $7.5<br />
million was obtained, property was zoned and<br />
building sites were approved. At the opening of<br />
Buildings 20 through 24, the first tenants rented<br />
office space for just $7.50 per square foot. These<br />
buildings comprised approximately 120,000<br />
square feet. With the opening of Building 82 in<br />
July 2001, Corporate Woods ® Office <strong>Park</strong> has<br />
grown to nearly 2.2 million square feet.<br />
Thirty years after its founding, a beautiful<br />
setting and unparalleled growth have<br />
characterized Corporate Woods ® Office <strong>Park</strong> as<br />
the ultimate in high quality office space. Owned<br />
today by Knickerbocker Properties, Inc. XXI, a<br />
subsidiary of the New York State Teachers<br />
Retirement System, Corporate Woods ® Office<br />
<strong>Park</strong> offers a park-like setting and superior level<br />
of service to 250 tenants and 6,000 employees<br />
parkwide. Tenants range from small local<br />
entrepreneurs to Fortune 500 companies in<br />
suites as small as 400 square feet to over<br />
130,000 square feet. There are seven buildings<br />
under separate ownership including the<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Chamber of Commerce building<br />
and the 357-room Doubletree Hotel. The office<br />
buildings have one to sixteen stories.<br />
Corporate Woods ® Office <strong>Park</strong> is managed,<br />
leased and developed by C.W. Associates, LLC a<br />
joint venture of Copaken, White, and Blitt and<br />
Acacia Commercial Real Estate. A staff of forty<br />
provides property management, leasing,<br />
engineering, maintenance, and other services to<br />
tenants. Employees are rewarded for providing<br />
outstanding service to tenants. As part of the<br />
leasing process, a turnkey interior design service<br />
for prospective tenants is provided at no<br />
additional cost. The property also hosts numerous<br />
events exclusively for tenants including the Jazz<br />
Festival Kick-Off Luncheon, the annual Corporate<br />
Woods Golf Tournament, and the Taste of<br />
Corporate Woods. In addition to the office space,<br />
the property contains nearly thirty thousand<br />
square feet of retail space with restaurants, a<br />
barbershop, spa/salon, and jewelry store.<br />
114 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
The Corporate Woods ® Master Plan envisions<br />
construction of an additional 1.1 million square<br />
feet of office space in the northwest corner of<br />
the property adjacent to Buildings 82 and 84.<br />
The Master Plan for Buildings 80, 81, 82, 83,<br />
84, and 85 is an urban setting with state-of-theart<br />
buildings featuring granite aggregate<br />
architectural pre-cast concrete combined with<br />
high performance vision glass. Lobbies have<br />
ample natural light with patterned stone floors<br />
and panelized wood walls and beautiful glass<br />
artwork. Tenant spaces are provided with<br />
dedicated seven-watt electrical systems. The site<br />
also envisions a major landscaped auto court,<br />
boulevards, and pedestrian outdoor and plaza<br />
seating areas.<br />
For a virtual tour of the Corporate Woods ®<br />
Master Plan, go to www.corporatewoods.com where<br />
you can click on icons for information about the<br />
Master Plan, upcoming events, amenities, tenant<br />
information, and the very latest news and<br />
information about this premier 294-acre office park.<br />
❖<br />
Above: As Corporate Woods ® began to<br />
grow, this aerial photo includes<br />
Buildings 3, 6, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 27,<br />
34, 51, and 55, c. 1977.<br />
Below: Buildings 82 and 84 at<br />
Corporate Woods ® are mirror images<br />
of each other, and the latest building<br />
additions to the park.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 115
❖<br />
HEARTLAND<br />
ANIMAL<br />
CLINIC, P.A.<br />
Above: The First Church of Christ<br />
building as it looked in September<br />
1941. Today the building houses<br />
Heartland Animal Clinic.<br />
Happy pets have been taking their owners<br />
to Heartland Animal Clinic for more than<br />
four decades…but the grand white building<br />
has a tradition of healing dating back more than<br />
three quarters of a century. Founded in 1963<br />
by Dr. Max Sutter, the former Santa Fe Animal<br />
Clinic’s home was first built in 1927 as a<br />
church. In 1991 Dr. Jill Sandler, associated<br />
with Dr. Sutter since 1986, became the clinic’s<br />
new owner. To reflect the clinic’s regional scope,<br />
Dr. Sandler renamed it Heartland Animal Clinic<br />
in 1996.<br />
Boasting state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment,<br />
the clinic continues to provide affordable, highquality<br />
veterinary care. Dr. Sandler has more than<br />
doubled the clinic staff since her stewardship<br />
began, including bringing in Dr. Jamie Wilson as<br />
her associate in 1997.<br />
While cats and dogs are the clinic’s mainstays,<br />
Dr. Sandler enjoys working with other furry<br />
family members too. She works closely with the<br />
Missouri House Rabbit Society, and has many<br />
small mammals and pocket pets in her care. Drs.<br />
Sandler and Wilson provide vaccinations,<br />
medical, and surgical services, diet and behavior<br />
counseling, dental cleaning and help in general<br />
for whatever is ailing your pet.<br />
Boarding facilities are available at the<br />
clinic for both healthy or infirmed pets. Heartland<br />
Animal Clinic also provides a grooming service for<br />
dogs and cats to help keep them beautiful and<br />
comfortable throughout the seasons.<br />
There are plans for expansion and<br />
modernization to provide even more care options<br />
for pets and their owners, keeping pace with the<br />
rapid advances in veterinary science.<br />
Heartland Animal Clinic—forty-one years of<br />
providing the gentlest of care, in a fun atmosphere,<br />
where heritage joins with technology. For more<br />
information, please call 913-648-1662.<br />
Right: Located at 7821 Marty in<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, Heartland Animal<br />
Clinic continues forty-one years of<br />
service to the community. This photo<br />
was taken in the summer of 2002.<br />
116 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
LUND AND<br />
BALDERSON,<br />
AIA,<br />
ARCHITECTS AND<br />
PLANNERS<br />
History is alive and in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> you<br />
have to look no further than the historic<br />
downtown restoration projects designed by<br />
people like George W. Lund and C. James<br />
Balderson to confirm it. Founded in 1965, this<br />
architectural partnership continued their<br />
practice at 7924 Floyd. The firm would play a<br />
key role in restorative and design elements in<br />
and around the city for nearly half a century.<br />
George W. Lund, AIA, received his bachelor of<br />
science in architecture at the University of Kansas<br />
in 1955 after which he served three years in the<br />
United States Air Force. After returning stateside,<br />
he became a key voice in the architectural<br />
community and was elected president of the<br />
Kansas City Chapter of the American Institute of<br />
Architects in 1972. Lund served as chairman of<br />
the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Downtown Partnership Board,<br />
was elected chairman of the Board of the<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Chamber of Commerce in 1991,<br />
served as chairman of the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
Downtown Development Review Board, and<br />
currently is a member of the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
Planning Commission.<br />
C. James Balderson, AIA received his Bachelor<br />
of Architecture from Kansas State University in<br />
1952 and received a degree in Community<br />
Development and Planning at the University in<br />
1962. He was in the United States Navy before<br />
becoming director of the Kansas City AIA from<br />
1968 to 1971 and served as president of the<br />
Board of Managers and the Downtown Kansas<br />
City YMCA. He was a member of the Prairie<br />
Village Planning Commission, city architect for<br />
Prairie Village, Kansas and has served as a<br />
member of the Leawood Planning Commission<br />
and the State Registration and Examining Board<br />
of Architects/Engineers. He has also served as<br />
president of the Kansas State University Alumni<br />
of Kansas City.<br />
A number of important projects throughout<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> would become a lasting legacy of<br />
the firm’s architectural design and master<br />
planning. Some include the remodeling design<br />
for the Carriage House, the historic Rio Theater,<br />
the Cosmopolitan Headquarters, The Other<br />
Place Restaurant, Homers Coffee House,<br />
McDaniel Pharmacy as well as additions to<br />
Metcalf State Bank and UMB Bank.<br />
Jim Balderson retired in 1990 and George W.<br />
Lund continued the practice until his retirement<br />
in 2003.<br />
❖<br />
Above: Restored in 1997, the<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> <strong>Historic</strong>al Society’s<br />
Strang Barn Building is just one of the<br />
many projects completed by Lund &<br />
Balderson, AIA.<br />
Below: George W. Lund, AIA.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 117
BODKER<br />
REALTY, INC.<br />
❖<br />
Above: <strong>Overland</strong> Plaza Center<br />
was built in downtown <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> in 1986.<br />
Below: Harvey Bodker, president of<br />
Bodker Realty, Inc.<br />
The single most important link among<br />
communities across America; be it in the<br />
bustling suburbs that surround large cities or<br />
among the quieter small towns, are the<br />
people—the men and women who have<br />
dedicated themselves to enriching their<br />
hometowns through hard work and consistent<br />
service to others. When he moved to Johnson<br />
County in 1953, Harvey Bodker was determined<br />
to do just that. Along with his wife, Beverly,<br />
whom he married in 1963, Harvey has been<br />
involved in brokerage and development in<br />
Johnson County and the Bodkers have devoted<br />
themselves to community service.<br />
Founded July 1, 1960, Bodker Realty, Inc. is a<br />
small brokerage firm specializing in commercial<br />
properties such as office buildings, strip centers<br />
and restaurants. <strong>Historic</strong>ally, the company has<br />
remained involved in the steady growth and<br />
development of the area with the construction of<br />
an exceptional strip center in downtown<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> in 1986 and has managed a<br />
number of properties in the area. A member of<br />
the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Chamber of Commerce for<br />
over thirty years with Harvey serving on the<br />
Chamber’s board from 1992 to 1996, the<br />
Bodkers were actively involved in the Downtown<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Business Association and served<br />
on the Johnson County Board of Realtors.<br />
With a well-established business and a<br />
willingness to serve the City of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>,<br />
Harvey was appointed to the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
Planning Commission from 1980 to 1983, served<br />
as the first president of the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> 2000<br />
Foundation and began serving on the Board of<br />
Directors for the Downtown <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
Partnership in 1981, was the first chairman of the<br />
Friends of the Farmstead in 1996, and has been a<br />
member of the Cosmopolitan Club of Johnson<br />
County since 1967. He is currently serving on the<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Civil Service Commission, having<br />
been chairman from 2000-2002. Harvey also<br />
served on the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Citizens Crime<br />
Prevention Coalition and received the Public<br />
Safety Award from the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Police<br />
Department in 1998. Mayor Ed Eilert recognized<br />
Beverly by proclaiming May 2, 2001, as Beverly<br />
Bodker Day for her extensive community service.<br />
From their offices at 9401 Nall Avenue in<br />
Shawnee Mission, Harvey and Beverly continue<br />
to do brokerage work, work on community<br />
projects, behind the scenes on some political<br />
campaigns and are active in their synagogue,<br />
which is moving to <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. As they look<br />
ahead and appreciate the wonderful life they<br />
have found in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, the couple are<br />
pleased to have both children living in the area.<br />
Betsy is the human resources manager at a large<br />
accounting firm. Fred is an ophthalmologist<br />
and, with his wife Cindy, has three daughters.<br />
118 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
Traditions Furniture, a furniture and<br />
accessory retailer promises to delight the<br />
eye and inner sense of style by catering<br />
to any decorating fashion. Founded in<br />
Wichita in 1984 by husband and wife<br />
team, Art Davis and Robin Van Huss, the<br />
gradual growth of the company has led<br />
to a second retail location in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>,<br />
in the historic William B. Strang Car<br />
Barn, one of downtown <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>’s<br />
famous landmarks.<br />
Originally, Amish handcrafted furniture<br />
was the single product sold at Traditions<br />
Furniture. Today, the store has expanded<br />
their inventory to fit any approach to interior<br />
design. Whether customers prefer a Shaker,<br />
Mission, or French Country style, Traditions<br />
offers a wide and unique range of items on<br />
multiple showroom floors that cannot be found<br />
anywhere else.<br />
Whatever a customer needs in the way<br />
of accessories can also be found at Traditions<br />
Furniture. Accessories as varied as lamps,<br />
prints, and unique trimmings for the bedroom,<br />
living room, and dining room will complete<br />
the transformation of any house into an<br />
elegant home.<br />
Traditions Furniture, at 7400 West Seventyninth<br />
Street in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, offers<br />
unique, attractive merchandise of the highest<br />
quality at affordable prices. Please visit<br />
the company’s exceptional showrooms on the<br />
Internet at www.traditionsfurniture.com for more<br />
information and store hours.<br />
TRADITIONS<br />
FURNITURE<br />
❖<br />
Traditions Furniture is located in the<br />
historic William B. Strang Car Barn<br />
in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 119
❖<br />
The <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> office of Stinson<br />
Morrison Hecker LLP is located in<br />
Building 9 on the beautiful grounds of<br />
Corporate Woods.<br />
STINSON MORRISON HECKER LLP<br />
Tracing its Kansas City area roots to 1878<br />
and regarded today as one of the country’s<br />
largest law firms, Stinson Morrison Hecker LLP<br />
has maintained a long tradition of outstanding<br />
legal representation around the country and in<br />
the community it has called home for more than<br />
a century. The present firm is the result of the<br />
2002 merger of Stinson, Mag & Fizzell, P.C.,<br />
and Morrison & Hecker L.L.P. Virtually every<br />
legal challenge and opportunity is addressed by<br />
335 attorneys working in over 45 principal<br />
areas of practice. The first Kansas City firm to<br />
establish a Johnson County office, located in<br />
Corporate Woods, today its offices extend across<br />
the Midwest, from Phoenix to Washington, D.C.<br />
Values, integrity, ethics, and respect are<br />
reflected at every level of service provided by<br />
Stinson Morrison Hecker. A simple philosophy<br />
has driven this historic firm for many years—<br />
strive to be of extraordinary service while<br />
maintaining the highest standard of<br />
performance with the highest level of integrity.<br />
The mission is singular and straightforward—to<br />
never stop working towards the vision of<br />
providing the best legal advice there is. Every<br />
attorney and staff member is guided by five<br />
principles—don’t settle for second best, attend<br />
to every client’s business as it if were our own,<br />
exceed expectations, work as a team, and care<br />
about our clients.<br />
Attorneys at Stinson Morrison Hecker<br />
practice in a broad variety of areas including<br />
bankruptcy and creditor’s rights, corporate<br />
finance, employment, labor and benefits, energy<br />
and telecommunications, environment and<br />
natural resources, financial services, general<br />
business, intellectual property and technology,<br />
litigation, products liability, public law and<br />
finance, real estate, and tax, trusts and estates.<br />
Public law, finance and real estate transactions<br />
and commercial litigation are the particular<br />
specialties provided in the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> office.<br />
The Public Finance Group offers clients extensive<br />
experience and expertise in all areas of municipal<br />
finance and includes roles as bond counsel and<br />
special tax counsel. The Public Law Group<br />
provides continuous legal services to a large<br />
number of cities, including the City of <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> and other public sector entities on a full<br />
range of critical issues. The Real Estate Group<br />
offers expertise and credibility within the<br />
community and includes all types of real estate<br />
transactions for buyers, sellers, developers,<br />
governmental entities, landlords, tenants and<br />
users of real estate. In the courtroom as in the<br />
boardroom, whether in conflict or compromise,<br />
businesses of every type across the state and the<br />
nation have come to rely on Stinson Morrison<br />
Hecker’s commercial litigation attorneys to<br />
aggressively advocate for their best interests.<br />
In a grand celebration of its first year as<br />
Stinson Morrison Hecker, the practice<br />
reaffirmed its historic partnership with the<br />
community in this statement, “Though the name<br />
on our door has changed over the years, our firm<br />
has always been synonymous with the growth<br />
and prosperity of Kansas City businesses and the<br />
development of the metropolitan area itself.”<br />
Stinson Morrison Hecker is proud to serve a<br />
number of communities around the country. In<br />
addition to the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> and Kansas City<br />
offices, the firm has offices in Wichita, Kansas;<br />
St. Louis, Missouri; Jefferson City, Missouri,<br />
Omaha, Nebraska; Phoenix, Arizona; and<br />
Washington D.C. For more information about<br />
the firm and its areas of practice, visit<br />
www.stinsonmoheck.com.<br />
Stinson Morrison Hecker LLP—local<br />
connections, national resources.<br />
120 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
C. B. SELF &<br />
COMPANY/<br />
CITY<br />
PROPERTIES<br />
Following a family tradition of business<br />
ownership and real estate investments, dating to<br />
the American Colonial period, Clyde B. Self<br />
began business on March 1, 1966. C. B. Self &<br />
Company’s first <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> development<br />
was on sixteen acres located at College<br />
Boulevard and Antioch. The development of<br />
Financial Plaza and Plaza West on the corner of<br />
College Boulevard and Metcalf soon followed.<br />
By the mid 1980s, C. B. Self & Company had<br />
become a leading developer on College<br />
Boulevard and south Metcalf, developing over<br />
20 million square feet of office, retail and<br />
industrial sites that now contain over 70<br />
buildings. The company also co-chartered the<br />
First National Bank of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, now part<br />
of UMB and the First National Bank of Shawnee,<br />
now part of US Bank.<br />
In 1982 the company started City Properties,<br />
Inc., a commercial real estate services firm, and<br />
the Bi-State Construction Company. City<br />
Properties has grown into a full service real<br />
estate firm currently licensed in Kansas,<br />
Missouri and Oklahoma. City Properties clients<br />
have included many of the nation’s top<br />
companies. Bi-State Construction is licensed as<br />
a Class “A” Contractor and offers a wide range of<br />
construction services on both in-house projects<br />
and as General Contractor to third parties.<br />
Clyde B. Self has served on several bank<br />
boards, the Harding University Development<br />
Council and is managing partner of Western<br />
Equity Investors. Joseph B. Self, a 1984 Blue<br />
Valley graduate, received notoriety in 1983 as<br />
the youngest individual with a building under<br />
development along College Boulevard. Joe<br />
joined City Properties in 1989 and became a<br />
partner in 1996. J. Daniel Self, a 1991 Blue<br />
Valley graduate, joined Bi-State Construction in<br />
1993 and became a partner in 2001. Susan Self<br />
Mills, a 1988 Blue Valley graduate, has served as<br />
treasurer of the company since 1993.<br />
The Self companies and the Self family<br />
remain actively involved in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> with<br />
multiple land developments, extended real<br />
estate and construction operations and support<br />
of various charitable and educational groups.<br />
❖<br />
Above: Plaza West.<br />
Below: Financial Plaza.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 121
METCALF BANK<br />
❖<br />
Below: Lauded for its architectural<br />
design and convenient location,<br />
Metcalf Bank opened in June 1962.<br />
Bottom: Directors gather for the<br />
ribbon cutting ceremony and grand<br />
opening of Metcalf Bank in 1962.<br />
On the evening of January 10, 1962, the first<br />
meeting of the shareholders of Metcalf State<br />
Bank was held in the Hudson Oil Company<br />
building located at 4720 Rainbow Boulevard.<br />
The institution was organized by Joseph Cohen,<br />
and a mere six months later, on June 16, the<br />
newly established bank opened its doors to<br />
hundreds of visitors and new depositors.<br />
The Johnson County Herald proclaimed the<br />
building, located at Seventy-ninth and Metcalf,<br />
as “representative of the latest concepts in<br />
architectural design.” Independent and<br />
community-oriented, this historic opening<br />
marked only the second bank to establish itself<br />
in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. The board of directors,<br />
Chairman Joseph Cohen, President C.E. Trego,<br />
Robert Trego, Carl Rice, M.R. Shlensky, Bud<br />
Brown, Jay R. Jennings, Vincent DeCoursey,<br />
Arthur England and M.R. Hudson were<br />
determined to provide every modern facility to<br />
depositors and to accommodate local merchants<br />
and business organizations with commercial<br />
banking services.<br />
Forty-two years later, Metcalf Bank remains<br />
true to the vision of those who established it and<br />
is honored in its service to the community. The<br />
exterior of the main building is much<br />
the same as it was in 1962 and friendly<br />
employees continue to provide expertise in<br />
personal and business services, loans and<br />
investment opportunities.<br />
The bank has expanded to include a number<br />
of locations over the past forty-two years. The<br />
first new facility was opened at Seventy-fifth and<br />
Metcalf in 1970, with others following at 103rd<br />
and Metcalf; College Boulevard and Quivira;<br />
151st and Metcalf; 1400 West Amity in<br />
Louisburg; and 134th and Blackbob in Olathe.<br />
Metcalf Bank entered the new millennium with<br />
Internet banking and online bill paying services.<br />
Community and charitable organizations have<br />
always benefited from the presence of Metcalf<br />
Bank and the significant contributions of its<br />
associates. It is one of only a few companies in<br />
the greater Kansas City area to donate over two<br />
percent of pretax income to local charities.<br />
Employees and bank officials are active in the<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Rotary Clubs and area chambers<br />
of commerce.<br />
Led by Chairman of the Board Ben Craig and<br />
President and Chief Executive Officer Jon<br />
Stewart, Metcalf Bank continues to thrive as they<br />
meet the increasing needs of customers<br />
throughout Johnson County and Miami County.<br />
Craig served as president from 1964 to 1999 and<br />
committed himself to community service in and<br />
around Johnson County for many years. In 1995<br />
he was recognized by Sun Publications as one of<br />
“The Best 45 Things That Have Happened to<br />
Johnson County.” Stewart was elected president<br />
in January 1999 and continues the tradition of<br />
community service for which Metcalf Bank has<br />
been known.<br />
For more information and locations, online<br />
banking and friendly service is just a click away<br />
at www.metcalfbank.com.<br />
122 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
Named after the Little Blue River that flows<br />
through the area, the Blue Valley School District<br />
traces its historic roots to the site where a tiny<br />
frame building once stood along Floyd Street.<br />
Constructed in 1858 by early pioneer families,<br />
this first school was 20 feet by 24 feet in size<br />
and all grades were taught by one teacher.<br />
Over a century and a half later, Blue Valley<br />
School District continues in that pioneering spirit<br />
as it offers students numerous educational opportunities.<br />
Noted among the top public schools in<br />
the state for student achievement, the district is<br />
characterized by its continued growth and<br />
consolidation and includes 18 elementary schools,<br />
8 middle schools, and 4 high schools operating<br />
within a $113-million budget. Twelve of the<br />
district’s educational facilities have been chosen by<br />
the United States Department of Education as Blue<br />
Ribbon Schools, and the Blue Valley Educational<br />
Foundation has awarded nearly $860,000 in<br />
grants, scholarships, and special program funding<br />
to the students and staff in the district.<br />
The Blue Valley School District has experienced<br />
tremendous growth over the past three decades.<br />
This expansion has changed how the district plans<br />
for enrollment increases, staffing, improvements to<br />
existing sites, and the site selection and<br />
construction of new facilities with student<br />
enrollment rising steadily from 852 students in the<br />
1970-71 school term to more than 19,000<br />
students in the 2004-05-school term. Currently,<br />
there are approximately 25,000 single-family units<br />
and over 11,000 multifamily units scattered<br />
throughout the district and the average household<br />
income within the district is $103,000 with sixtyeight<br />
percent of residents under the age of fortyfour.<br />
City annexations and more land with access<br />
to public water and sewage systems ensure that<br />
major residential development will continue,<br />
particularly in the southern portions of the district.<br />
The Blue Valley School District strives to<br />
provide an individualized learning environment<br />
where students demonstrate educational<br />
improvement, intellectual curiosity, success in<br />
post-secondary experiences, and leadership<br />
abilities now and in the future.<br />
Life skills, such as socialization and teamwork,<br />
are also enhanced for youth through recreational<br />
opportunities offered by the Blue Valley<br />
Recreation Commission (BVRC). Blue Valley<br />
voters formed the Commission in 1986 to provide<br />
BLUE VALLEY SCHOOL DISTRICT 229<br />
local recreation programming under the auspices<br />
of the Blue Valley School Board. Most programs<br />
are held at one of the two BVRC facilities or at<br />
District facilities.<br />
The Commission’s vision is to enrich the<br />
mental, physical and emotional well being of area<br />
residents, and in 2003, Blue Valley was designated<br />
by Sports Illustrated as Kansas’ top Sportstown in<br />
2003. Opportunities abound—to make friends,<br />
learn new skills, and practice teamwork,<br />
sportsmanship, volunteerism, and other life skills.<br />
The District’s website is located at<br />
www.bluevalleyk12.org and offers patrons an<br />
outstanding overview and access to schools across<br />
the area. For more information about BVRC and<br />
its programs, visit www.bluevalleyrec.org.<br />
❖<br />
Above: Students at Blue Valley Middle<br />
School celebrate America with a paper<br />
chain project of red, white, and blue.<br />
Below: Blue Valley Recreation<br />
Commission (BVRC) gymnastics<br />
participants show their enthusiasm for<br />
BVRC and the community’s<br />
designation as Kansas’ “Sportstown” in<br />
2003. Shown are (clockwise from top):<br />
Audrey Frey, Brady Childs, Olivia<br />
Frey, Justin Walker, Emily Evans,<br />
Connor Childs, and Liran Ziegelman.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 123
❖<br />
DALTON’S<br />
FLOWERS INC.<br />
Located in the center of the new retail<br />
space, blooming and tropical plants<br />
brighten the fountain/solarium area of<br />
Dalton’s Flowers.<br />
On a crisp November day in 1941, William<br />
“Dee” and Anne Dalton purchased a two acre<br />
tract of land at Eighty-second and Santa Fe.<br />
Besides the family home, the land included three<br />
greenhouses, a “countrified” car garage, a<br />
chicken coop and enough land to grow<br />
blooming plants and cut flowers. This was the<br />
beginning of the Dalton’s Flowers tradition.<br />
The first year, an underheating furnace and<br />
leaky greenhouses produced an overdue<br />
poinsettia crop. This was just one example of<br />
the trials and tribulations that the family<br />
endured during the first few years of business.<br />
To bolster the family income during these rough<br />
times, Dee turned his efforts elsewhere. He built<br />
Christmas tree stands for local nurserymen and<br />
lined the greenhouses with prize-winning<br />
tomatoes during the rationed war years.<br />
Throughout the 1940s, the business grew, as<br />
did the Dalton family. When the family<br />
relocated to <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> from Edgerton,<br />
Missouri, they brought five children. By 1948<br />
there were eight.<br />
By the late 1950s, Dalton’s Flowers was<br />
producing seventy-five thousand hydrangeas and<br />
thousands of poinsettias, Easter lilies, and<br />
geraniums annually.<br />
As the new decade began, the sudden<br />
population growth in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> shifted the<br />
focus of Dalton’s from wholesale to retail services.<br />
Slowly, the wholesale portion of the business was<br />
phased out as all but one greenhouse was razed.<br />
A cluster of old buildings adjacent to the main<br />
shop was renovated for retail use.<br />
With the 1970s came a new brick floor, a<br />
fiberglass roof, cedar walls, and a new façade.<br />
The remaining greenhouse was converted to a<br />
solarium. By the end of this decade, all the<br />
remaining buildings were finally merged into<br />
one facility.<br />
The 1980s brought change to Dalton’s. By<br />
1984, the trailblazers at Dalton’s, Anne and<br />
Dee, had passed away. In their time, they<br />
had risked the enterprise, kept the spirit and<br />
built the traditions. Their deaths were a<br />
tremendous loss not only to the family but also<br />
to the people they served throughout the Kansas<br />
City area. The family agreed they would remain<br />
“very particular about plants and flowers—just<br />
like mom and dad were.” As the decade<br />
progressed, technology was at the forefront at<br />
Dalton’s. Just as new offices and a new computer<br />
system were put into place, Dalton’s faced<br />
another loss.<br />
On a hot Sunday in June 1987, an electrical<br />
short in the attic sparked a fire. The blaze<br />
destroyed the entire complex. The night of the<br />
fire, relatives and friends emptied a nearby<br />
storage shed while two phone lines were hooked<br />
up in the building across the parking lot. Fresh<br />
flowers were purchased the next morning and<br />
deliveries were made that afternoon. A few days<br />
later, a trailer was parked near the shed and a<br />
temporary greenhouse was erected. This became<br />
the retail and design area. Business continued<br />
as normal up until the following April. This<br />
is when we moved into the present day<br />
facility that was built on the footprint of the<br />
old building.<br />
This is not only a history of a business; it is a<br />
history of family, an account of its people. All<br />
eight of the “original” Dalton children and<br />
nearly all of the thirty-five grandchildren have<br />
helped in the business in some fashion. Dozens<br />
of friends and dedicated employees remain our<br />
extended family and to them we are grateful.<br />
Today, the second and third Dalton generations<br />
continue the tradition of quality and service that<br />
started with Dee and Anne nearly sixty-five<br />
years ago.<br />
124 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
WALLACE,<br />
SAUNDERS,<br />
AUSTIN,<br />
BROWN &<br />
ENOCHS,<br />
CHARTERED<br />
From humble and tragic beginnings, Wallace,<br />
Saunders has emerged as a litigation and<br />
commercial powerhouse in Kansas City, but has<br />
kept its <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> origins throughout its<br />
forty year history.<br />
In January 1963, K. B. Wallace was still<br />
recovering from the tragic death of his former<br />
partner, John Keach, a year earlier. Frank<br />
Saunders, Jr. had just graduated from law school<br />
when Wallace invited him to join in a<br />
partnership. The two shared one secretary in<br />
a small office space above the John Frances<br />
Restaurant in downtown <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>.<br />
The pair represented six insurance<br />
companies in Johnson County alone, and waded<br />
joyfully into competition among 141 active<br />
Johnson County attorneys. They earned the trust<br />
and loyalty of many clients with an<br />
aggressive and methodical ability in the<br />
courtroom—a successful ability that became<br />
pervasive with the addition of new attorneys over<br />
the years. The <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> addresses may have<br />
changed slightly over the years—the firm settled<br />
at 10111 West Eighty-seventh in 1982—but the<br />
litigation expertise has only grown. Coupled with<br />
that trial practice is an established but growing<br />
business practice that allows WSABE attorneys to<br />
boast it is, indeed, a full-service firm of the top<br />
rank. Kansas City area lawyers obviously agree,<br />
ranking Wallace Saunders in the summer of 2003<br />
as one of the top twelve area law firms.<br />
Today Johnson County boasts over 1,600 active<br />
attorneys and, as quoted in the Kansas City Business<br />
Journal, Wallace, Saunders, Austin, Brown &<br />
Enochs is “right in the thick of the legal action,<br />
trying dozens of cases each year—more than just<br />
about any law firm in the Kansas City area.” A<br />
general defense practice that includes banking,<br />
construction, real estate, professional malpractice,<br />
probate, workers’ compensation and tax and<br />
urban law, the firm continues its legendary work in<br />
commercial and insurance litigation.<br />
Wallace, Saunders has been fortunate in<br />
finding and keeping lawyers who understand,<br />
satisfy, and exceed client expectations. Larry J.<br />
Austin joined the firm in October 1964,<br />
Richmond M. Enochs joined in July 1965 and<br />
Barton Brown in February 1967. In 1969 the<br />
law firm began hiring their first attorneys<br />
directly from law school and included James G.<br />
Butler, Jr. and James O. Schwinn in 1969 and<br />
Richard T. Merker in 1971. Managing Partner<br />
Mark W. McKinzie has joined others in the law<br />
firm as they provide faithful service to the<br />
community in numerous areas including the<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Chamber of Commerce Board,<br />
Johnson County Bar Association, <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
Economic Development Council and Shawnee<br />
Mission Medical Center Boards. McKinzie and<br />
Rod L. Richardson are also Leadership <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> graduates.<br />
At their fortieth anniversary in 2003,<br />
Wallace, Saunders, Austin, Brown & Enochs has<br />
over 160 employees with sixty-five lawyers and<br />
a support staff of more than 100 and represent<br />
over 300 insurance companies in the State of<br />
Kansas. Other WSABE offices are now located in<br />
Wichita, Kansas along with Kansas City and<br />
Springfield, Missouri. Representing small,<br />
medium and large companies, the firm<br />
continues to provide timely, cost effective legal<br />
services. Wallace, Saunders is currently the<br />
second largest firm in Kansas and the eleventh<br />
largest law office in the greater Kansas City area.<br />
❖<br />
The law firm of Wallace, Saunders,<br />
Austin, Brown & Enochs, Chtd.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 125
SAINT LUKE’S SOUTH<br />
Celebrating its sixth anniversary in<br />
November 2004, Saint Luke’s South has many<br />
reasons to be proud of its accomplishments and<br />
excited about its future. As the newest hospital<br />
in Saint Luke’s Health System, Saint Luke’s<br />
South continues in its tradition of providing<br />
quality, compassionate care that began more<br />
than a century ago.<br />
This state-of-the-art facility features an acute<br />
care hospital with twenty-four hour emergency<br />
services, complete inpatient and outpatient<br />
diagnostic testing, a spacious maternity center<br />
with Level II nursery, rehabilitation services and<br />
physician offices integrated within the facility<br />
for optimal convenience. Saint Luke’s South’s<br />
experienced and dedicated doctors,<br />
nurses, administrative staff, and<br />
volunteers set the standard for topquality<br />
healthcare.<br />
One of the major areas of growth has<br />
been the cardiovascular services. Saint<br />
Luke’s Health System, Mid America<br />
Heart Institute and Cardiovascular<br />
Consultants, P.C., developed a<br />
partnership in 1999 to provide a<br />
regional system of care to extend<br />
superior heart care in to the community.<br />
Expanding heart services at Saint Luke’s<br />
South provides a common sense<br />
structure to cardiovascular care. The<br />
system is designed to put more<br />
frequently used services closer to home<br />
and centralize services where volumes are<br />
critical to maintain desired skill level and<br />
success rate.<br />
Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute’s<br />
experience with and leadership of interventional<br />
cardiology dates back to 1960 when Heart<br />
Institute physicians performed their first<br />
diagnostic catheterization procedures. In 1980,<br />
Jeffrey Hartzler, M.D., an interventional<br />
cardiologist at the Heart Institute, performed<br />
the first coronary angioplasty for an acute<br />
myocardial infarction ever. From then to<br />
now, renowned interventional cardiologists<br />
at Mid America Heart Institute continue<br />
to develop and perfect treatments.<br />
Saint Luke’s South received the 2004 Kansas<br />
Excellence Award. This is the highest level of<br />
achievement recognized by the Kansas Award<br />
for Excellence Foundation, the state affiliate<br />
of the Malcom Baldrige National Quality Award.<br />
It is awarded to organizations that have<br />
demonstrated through their practices and<br />
achievements the highest level of excellence<br />
and can serve as a role model for other<br />
Kansas organizations.<br />
As the community it serves continues to grow<br />
and thrive, so does Saint Luke’s South. Planning<br />
is underway to expand the hospital in other<br />
areas to meet the ever-growing demand for the<br />
hospital’s quality healthcare services.<br />
Saint Luke’s South is honored to be an<br />
active member of the community it serves<br />
by bringing Saint Luke’s quality care to the people<br />
of Johnson County and surrounding areas.<br />
126 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
The James R. Shetlar Law Office handles legal<br />
matters in personal injury, automobile accidents,<br />
wrongful death, products liability, workers’<br />
compensation, medical malpractice, and<br />
securities litigation.<br />
Founder, James R. Shetlar, was born in Girard,<br />
Kansas, on October 27, 1946. He graduated from<br />
Pittsburg State University with a bachelor’s degree<br />
in 1969 and Washburn University of Topeka with<br />
a juris doctorate in 1974. He was admitted in<br />
Kansas and U.S. District Court, District of Kansas,<br />
in 1974 and remains a member of the Kansas City<br />
Metropolitan Bar Association (sections: medical<br />
products; torts law; and workers’ compensation<br />
law); the Johnson County Bar Association (secretary,<br />
1980-81; ethics and grievance committee,<br />
1991-96); the Wyandotte County and Kansas Bar<br />
Associations; Kansas Trial Lawyers Association<br />
(board of governors, 1982 to present; sections:<br />
workers’ compensation law, state chairman, 1986-<br />
96; medical malpractice/product liability; and auto<br />
accident law); Missouri Association of Trial<br />
Attorneys; and the Association of Trial Lawyers of<br />
America (sections: professional negligence,<br />
products liability; workers’ compensation laws and<br />
workplace injury law, motor vehicle collision<br />
highway and premises liability law); and the<br />
Workplace Injury Litigation Group. Shetlar is listed<br />
in the Best Lawyers Consumer Guide, Outstanding<br />
Lawyers of America, and Who’s Who in American<br />
Law. He also enjoys community activities that<br />
include working on Habitat for Humanity projects<br />
as well as coaching high school Rugby teams.<br />
Associate Sarah M. Donley was born in<br />
Independence, Missouri and graduated from the<br />
University of Kansas with her bachelor’s degree in<br />
1993, received her master’s from Kansas State<br />
University in 1995, and graduated from the<br />
University of Kansas Law School in 1998. She was<br />
admitted to the Kansas Bar in 1998 and the<br />
Missouri Bar in 1999. Rounding out the Firm’s<br />
high quality legal expertise is Bill Mize and Legal<br />
Assistant Linda Kramer. The James R. Shetlar law<br />
practice is located in the Santa Fe Building at 8000<br />
Foster in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. with consultations made<br />
by calling the firm at (913) 648-3220.<br />
❖<br />
JAMES R.<br />
SHETLAR LAW<br />
OFFICES, P.A.<br />
Above: James R. Shetlar, 2004.<br />
Below: The associates and staff of the<br />
James R. Shetlar Law Office, 2004.<br />
Back row (from left to right): Marilyn<br />
Shetlar, Sarah Donley, James Shetlar,<br />
Jim Larson, and Linda Kramer.<br />
Front row (from left to right):<br />
Emmy Creek, Diane Petersen, and<br />
William Mize. Also located in<br />
Kansas City, Southwest Missouri, and<br />
Southeast Kansas.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 127
❖<br />
Above: The Strang Carriage House<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Center is located at 8045<br />
Santa Fe in downtown <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>.<br />
Below: A OPHS board meeting at the<br />
Strang Carriage House.<br />
OVERLAND PARK HISTORICAL SOCIETY<br />
The <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> <strong>Historic</strong>al Society was<br />
incorporated as a Kansas, tax exempt, 501c, (3)<br />
corporation, September 1994. The mission of<br />
the Society is to collect, preserve, research,<br />
exhibit and educate the public about the history<br />
of the city and area of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, Kansas,<br />
from prehistoric times to the present.<br />
The first major project of the <strong>Historic</strong> Society<br />
was the authoring and production of a video<br />
tape about the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> area from the time<br />
when the United States government moved the<br />
American Indians to the Kansas area in the late<br />
1820s and early 1830s up to the incorporation<br />
of the City of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> in 1960.<br />
The City of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> had restored the<br />
Strang Carriage House in 1985 but it was<br />
unoccupied and vandalized extensively by<br />
the middle 1990s. The Society agreed with<br />
the city through the <strong>Park</strong>s Department to<br />
finish and decorate the interior of the Carriage<br />
House if the city would restore the outside<br />
and structural components. This was completed<br />
and the <strong>Historic</strong>al Society occupied the<br />
Strang Carriage House <strong>Historic</strong>al center in<br />
the fall of 1997 as the Society’s Office &<br />
Resource Center.<br />
The Society has published many pamphlets<br />
and booklets about the history of the area,<br />
historic people and places, the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
Elementary School and events of the<br />
surrounding area. These booklets and<br />
pamphlets, as well as other historical-nature<br />
gifts, historical artifacts, displays and<br />
information are available at the Strang Carriage<br />
House <strong>Historic</strong>al Center located at 8045 Santa<br />
Fe in downtown <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>.<br />
The Society has monthly board meetings, bimonthly<br />
general membership meetings with<br />
prominent local and statewide speakers—a<br />
speakers bureau to tell the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
story—antique evaluation sessions, does oral<br />
history reviews, which have been transcribed by<br />
a grant from the Johnson County Heritage Trust<br />
Fund, provides volunteers to serve as docents at<br />
the Strang Carriage House <strong>Historic</strong> Center<br />
on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and<br />
Wednesday and Saturday mornings, preserves<br />
and documents photos, artifacts, and historic<br />
document and events. The Society has<br />
purchased and mounted bronze plaques<br />
on many historic buildings in downtown<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>.<br />
The Society has continued the preservation<br />
of the <strong>Historic</strong> Morse Church built in 1885, a<br />
project started by the Blue Valley <strong>Historic</strong>al<br />
Society, but this group has since disbanded.<br />
The <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> <strong>Historic</strong>al Society has held<br />
some membership meetings and has put on<br />
programs about the area for the Morse<br />
Elementary School in this historic church. The<br />
Society has twenty committees actively pursuing<br />
and carrying out its mission and publishes a bimonthly<br />
newsletter.<br />
128 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
BRANDED<br />
EMBLEM<br />
COMPANY, INC./<br />
CAMP<br />
DAVID, INC.<br />
In the fall of 1969, John Willson, a graduate of<br />
the University of Missouri and a captain in the<br />
United States Air Force, started Branded Emblem<br />
Company. It was while John was selling<br />
accessories to garment manufacturers that he<br />
became frustrated with a line of embroidered<br />
emblems that he was selling and believed he<br />
could better serve his customers by creating and<br />
selling his own emblems. After many months of<br />
trying to locate the proper equipment and labor<br />
he finally opened his doors to customers in 1969.<br />
By the end of the 1970s, Branded Emblem<br />
employed approximately fifty workers and had a<br />
strong reputation throughout the country for<br />
producing a quality product. Most of the emblems<br />
were custom ordered and created through a<br />
complex progression, which could be ruined by a<br />
single mistake.<br />
In the 1980s the advent of technology brought<br />
about a number of changes to Branded Emblem.<br />
A new type of embroidery machine and a highspeed<br />
multi-head allowed the company to<br />
directly embroider logos onto the garment. The<br />
look was superior and subsequently decreased<br />
the demand for embroidered emblems.<br />
As Branded Emblem successfully met the<br />
increase in productivity, John’s eldest son, David,<br />
graduated from the University of Kansas and<br />
returned to help in the family business. Both<br />
John and David saw the changes taking place in<br />
the industry and led the company to become one<br />
of the first in the area to offer “direct embroidery.”<br />
Branded Emblem’s customer base became the<br />
largest contract embroider in Kansas. Customers<br />
included local apparel manufacturers, uniform<br />
companies and advertising specialty companies.<br />
However, as the demand for direct embroidery<br />
grew, many customers began buying their own<br />
equipment to embroider their products.<br />
In February 1993, John passed away and his<br />
sons, David and Mark, took over the family<br />
business. Mark, a graduate of the College of<br />
William and Mary, and David were prepared to<br />
change with the times by establishing a new<br />
company, Camp David. Camp David designs,<br />
decorates and sells garments to the resort, college<br />
and corporate markets. Though Camp David now<br />
serves as the dominant company with sales twelve<br />
times greater than that of Branded Emblem,<br />
Branded still produces emblems throughout the<br />
country. The company’s diverse workforce includes<br />
eighty-five employees and forty-five independent<br />
sales representatives from around the world.<br />
For a closer look at the expert work produced by<br />
the Camp David and Branded Emblem family of<br />
companies, please visit www.brandedemblem.com.,<br />
www.campdavid.com, and www.attitude101.com.<br />
❖<br />
Above: John Willson, founder of<br />
Branded Emblem Company.<br />
Top, left: Camp David’s national<br />
headquarters is located in downtown<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> at 7920 Foster.<br />
Below: The Schiffli Loom weighs up to<br />
ten tons and has hundreds of needles.<br />
Yard goods are spanned vertically as<br />
they are embroidered, like a “wall” of<br />
fabric, rather than placed on a flat<br />
table as on multi-head machines.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 129
O’NEILL<br />
AUTOMOTIVE,<br />
INC.<br />
❖<br />
Above: O’Neill Honda one of the first<br />
one hundred Honda dealers in the<br />
United States.<br />
Below: The Nissan dealership at<br />
O’Neill Automotive opened in 1994<br />
and is known for its distinct quality of<br />
service and expertise.<br />
Founded in 1933 as Greenlease-O’Neill, Inc.<br />
and unveiled as an Oldsmobile showroom and<br />
garage at 1414 Baltimore in Kansas City,<br />
Missouri, O’Neill Automotive has celebrated<br />
over seventy years of success. When Norbert S.<br />
O’Neill and Robert C. Greenlease started this<br />
company, the dream driving their vision was<br />
that every Kansas City garage would have an<br />
Oldsmobile parked inside. Although the make<br />
and model of cars have since expanded and<br />
changed, O’Neill’s son and grandson have<br />
continued to foster that dream.<br />
It was in 1963, following the construction of<br />
Interstate 35, that Richard O’Neill, Sr., chose to<br />
relocate the dealership. After thirty years in one<br />
location, the decision would be a difficult one—<br />
should they stay downtown or build in the<br />
outlying suburbs? After researching the growth<br />
of the city among those in real estate and<br />
government, they concluded that Johnson<br />
County was the fastest growing area. In<br />
particular, they saw the property at Eightieth<br />
and Metcalf as a prime business location for the<br />
new dealership. The dealership flourished and<br />
eight years later, Richard, Sr., and his father<br />
speculated that there was a definite niche in the<br />
American automobile market for the “small car”<br />
and hence Honda came into their lives—in fact,<br />
the O’Neills were one of the first one hundred<br />
Honda dealers in the United States.<br />
A devastating oil embargo hit the country in<br />
1973 and skyrocketing gas prices soon gave “the<br />
little car” the popularity and respect it deserved.<br />
Sales of American-made gas-guzzlers quickly<br />
dwindled and O’Neill’s entire inventory sold out<br />
within thirty days. According to Richard<br />
O’Neill, Jr., who joined the family business in<br />
1978, the dealership subsequently added two<br />
other import franchises, Mitsubishi and Subaru,<br />
before adding Nissan in 1994.<br />
Today, over 140 employees at O’Neill<br />
Automotive continue to focus on the values that<br />
have made their dealership the market leader for<br />
seventy years. In addition to state-of-the-art<br />
vehicles, sales and service, there is a strong<br />
belief in honesty, trust and treating customers<br />
with respect and dignity.<br />
Quality service has been the cornerstone of<br />
O’Neill’s business philosophy since 1933.<br />
130 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
RANCH MART,<br />
INC.<br />
If marriage and home ownership are said to<br />
be among the more beneficial, stabilizing<br />
influences in society, Victor Regnier was one of<br />
their strongest proponents. Following his World<br />
War II service in Gulfport, Mississippi, with no<br />
assets and a high school education, Victor<br />
married naval base librarian Helen Benning and<br />
together they began a homebuilding business in<br />
Kansas City in 1945. Their first subdivision,<br />
Missiondale, followed Mission Road south to<br />
include homes in Reinhardt Estates, Leawood<br />
Hills, and Cherry Hill Estates in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>.<br />
When it became difficult to sell their suburban<br />
ranch-style homes because of a lack of shopping<br />
areas, they began construction of a community<br />
shopping center—Ranch Mart—in 1958. It<br />
opened with twenty-three stores and was<br />
followed ten years later by Ranch Mart South<br />
with ten large retail stores eventually growing to<br />
over 120 stores and offices covering 500,000<br />
square feet. They gradually acquired farmland<br />
and commercial property in the rapidly growing<br />
areas of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>.<br />
Along with their business interests came<br />
a strong desire to promote the creative<br />
and intellectual interests of the youth in<br />
the community. In 1963 they sponsored the<br />
Shawnee Mission District Science Fair,<br />
which eventually became the Research and<br />
Development Forum. Later they purchased a<br />
building for Wonderscope, a learning and<br />
creativity center for children. Throughout his<br />
lifetime, Victor espoused no-nonsense values of<br />
commitment, persistent hard work and frugality,<br />
promoting family, education and community.<br />
He was creative, extremely driven, and<br />
goal-oriented. Helen, his business manager and<br />
most precious asset, was an even-tempered,<br />
benevolent mainstay. They were a team who<br />
were seldom found apart, each complementing<br />
the other’s strengths.<br />
Numerous institutions have benefited by way of<br />
their success, from the Research and Development<br />
Forum and Wonderscope to Deanna Rose<br />
Farmstead, the University of Kansas-Edwards<br />
Campus, Johnson County Community College,<br />
Blue Valley Wilderness Science Center, Blue Valley<br />
and Shawnee Mission Educational Foundations,<br />
Kansas State University, Union Station Science City<br />
and the Salvation Army.<br />
Victor and Helen’s family are proud to be a<br />
part of the incredible growth and history of<br />
the community of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. If it is true<br />
that the silent voice often speaks the loudest,<br />
then what this quiet, unassuming couple has left<br />
behind speaks volumes today. From their<br />
example, we learn that solid values create strong<br />
partnerships leading to well-established local<br />
businesses and the promotion of excellent<br />
schools and amenities, helping to build one<br />
of the “most outstanding places in America”<br />
to live—<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>!<br />
❖<br />
Above: Ranch Mart North in the early<br />
1960s. The shopping center stands in<br />
the foreground looking west to<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> in the background.<br />
Below: Victor and Helen Regnier, an<br />
indomitable team at home and in the<br />
business world.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 131
OVERLAND<br />
AUTO PAINTS<br />
❖<br />
Above: <strong>Overland</strong> Auto Parts was<br />
a downtown fixture throughout<br />
the 1960s..<br />
Below: <strong>Overland</strong> Auto Paints in the<br />
early 1970s.<br />
L. R. “Mac” McClenaghan loved his adopted<br />
hometown of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. A Pennsylvania<br />
native sent to pilot Navy airplanes out of Olathe<br />
in 1944, Mac often remembered what drew him<br />
and his wife Dotti to the peaceful town—“You<br />
could see that <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> had lots of<br />
potential…besides, we just felt it was a nice<br />
place to raise a family.”<br />
After World War II, Mac and Dotti settled<br />
into town and opened <strong>Overland</strong> Auto Parts with<br />
the help of Harvey Stockton, owner of the local<br />
auto repair garage, in November of 1946. They<br />
purchased their building from Al Conser. The<br />
couple paid their friend back in less than two<br />
years and took on a partner, Sid Ashton, in mid-<br />
1947 as Dotti retired from the business to raise<br />
their children, Kathi and L. R., Jr. The auto parts<br />
business grew with <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> and, by<br />
1962, was so successful that Mac bought out<br />
Sid’s interest in the store. In 1975, Mac decided<br />
he needed a change of pace, sold the parts store,<br />
and moved two doors down to the corner and<br />
opened <strong>Overland</strong> Auto Paints. A decade later,<br />
Mac renovated the auto parts store at 7942<br />
Santa Fe Drive and relocated <strong>Overland</strong> Auto<br />
Paints to that original spot.<br />
Today, <strong>Overland</strong> Auto Paints continues the<br />
great success of its founder and has remained a<br />
family business for three generations. Jack,<br />
Mac’s son-in-law, joined the company as<br />
manager in 1973. Mac’s daughter, Kathleen<br />
Schlegel, became a partner in 1992 and took<br />
over after her father’s death in December 1992.<br />
The company was incorporated in July 1993<br />
and is well known throughout the area for<br />
providing quality service to customers around<br />
the state. Jack and Kathi’s son-in-law, Chad, is<br />
currently the operations manager and their<br />
daughter, Missi, is now working in the business,<br />
as well. Kathi and Jack’s son, Erik, also worked<br />
in the business for several years but is now<br />
serving in the Navy.<br />
Two years before his death, Mac reminisced<br />
over his life in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> and the<br />
professional accomplishments he had here, but<br />
they were never as exciting to him as simply<br />
watching his children grow up in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
and raise their own families. Mac’s daughter,<br />
Kathi, continues as president of the company.<br />
Mac’s son, L. R., Jr. is a professor at San Diego<br />
State University, and his grandchildren always<br />
“helped keep the twinkle in his eyes.”<br />
132 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
The <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Heritage Foundation<br />
began as the city and downtown business<br />
community joined the efforts to revitalize<br />
Downtown <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. Incorporated on<br />
October 2, 1981, Board members included Jim<br />
Balderson, Harvey Bodker, Sib Bosley, Wayne<br />
Byrd, Will Cleaver, Reverend Don Evans, Jim<br />
Helvey, Reg Lyerla, John McCune, Jim Papst,<br />
Ben Sykes, John Wilson, Charles Winters,<br />
Gene Mackey, and Florent Wagner. With<br />
volunteer Board members who are dedicated<br />
only to serving the community, the Foundation<br />
has helped build a strong future rooted in<br />
the traditional values and colorful history of<br />
the area.<br />
After the completion of its first project,<br />
painting the city’s logo on the water tower in<br />
Downtown <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, the Foundation<br />
began acquisition and restoration of the historic<br />
Strang Car Barn. In 1985 with a community<br />
block grant it purchased the site and by<br />
December of 1989 had restored the Barn’s<br />
exterior. Traditions Furniture finished the<br />
interior and moved into the location in<br />
June 1990. The Foundation used private<br />
donations to develop the Museum wall inside<br />
the building, which is open to the public during<br />
business hours. In addition to the 50-foot-by-<br />
7-foot mural created by Phillip Starke, the<br />
wall includes pictures and other memorabilia<br />
of the rich heritage of the Strang era in<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>.<br />
The Foundation purchased an interurban<br />
railroad wait station that is now on display<br />
at Deanna Rose Children’s Farmstead and<br />
includes photographs depicting scenes from<br />
the community.<br />
The Foundation has been involved in<br />
numerous projects throughout the past two<br />
decades. Its collection of photographs,<br />
memorabilia, and taped interviews of long-time<br />
residents led to the formation of the <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> <strong>Historic</strong>al Society in 1994. The Society’s<br />
active membership meets regularly for programs<br />
on historical topics and publishes booklets on<br />
various aspects of the area’s history. In 1995 the<br />
Foundation installed a memorial marker at<br />
Santa Fe and Robinson to commemorate the site<br />
of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>’s Aviation <strong>Park</strong>, the first<br />
airfield west of the Mississippi and the third of<br />
its kind in the nation.<br />
OVERLAND PARK HERITAGE FOUNDATION<br />
When widening of the intersection at 151st<br />
Street and Metcalf Avenue threatened<br />
the historic Stanley Bank Building in 1996, the<br />
Foundation stepped in and moved the building<br />
to its present site at 7590 West 151st Street. The<br />
building, now occupied by Tax Advantage,<br />
offers historic displays in its conference<br />
room that were created by members of<br />
the Stanley Focus Group. Open to the public,<br />
these historic displays focus upon area schools,<br />
farming and businesses.<br />
For over twenty years, The <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
Heritage Foundation has successfully formed a<br />
partnership with public and private sectors to<br />
uphold <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>’s grand heritage and will<br />
continue to dedicate itself to preserving the high<br />
quality of life in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>.<br />
❖<br />
Above: The historic Stanley Bank<br />
Building at 7590 West 151st Street.<br />
Below: The historic Strang Car Barn<br />
is now home to Traditions Furniture.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 133
OVERLAND<br />
PARK JEEP<br />
❖<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Jeep is located<br />
at 8775 Metcalf in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
and on the Internet at<br />
www.overlandparkjeep.com.<br />
Frank Thompson, owner of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
Jeep, has been in the automobile business for 51<br />
years, starting at a very young age with an old,<br />
established family auto business from Kansas<br />
City, Missouri. He was given the opportunity to<br />
open his own dealership for the up-and-coming<br />
Jeep, the workhorse of World War II continued<br />
in production after the war. His dealership was<br />
started in March 1973 with a commitment to<br />
personal and fair service and a good work environment<br />
for his employees.<br />
A small building was built on Metcalf, a short<br />
frontage road not maintained by the city.<br />
Thompson’s car dealer peers told him the location<br />
would be detrimental to his business.<br />
However they were wrong. <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Jeep<br />
has been eminently successful. Customers can<br />
drive slowly on the frontage road to view cars,<br />
attracting many to the business. It has grown<br />
from $5 million in sales the first year to over<br />
$60 million in sales in 2002 and from 30<br />
employees in 1973 to the present 80.<br />
Originally, <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Jeep was the only<br />
business on the East side of Metcalf from 87th to<br />
89th Streets. Soon a pizza place opened. The<br />
Calcara family built the Felix Camera business.<br />
These businesses didn’t last and as they closed,<br />
Thompson bought their locations and<br />
expanded. The camera shop was converted to a<br />
Mitsubishi dealership.<br />
Thompson credits the success of his dealership<br />
to repeats and referrals. One family has<br />
bought in excess of 30 cars in his 30 years of<br />
business. Another has bought 21. Thompson<br />
started in the service department of the first<br />
dealership and learned the importance of good,<br />
prompt, and fair service, which keeps his customers<br />
coming back. In the early days, Jeep had<br />
the only SUV on the market. Now there are 60<br />
models available. But because of the principles<br />
of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Jeep Thompson continues to<br />
keep his fair share of the market.<br />
Thompson’s employees are long term due to a<br />
good employment environment, great fringe benefits<br />
and personal relationships with them. The new<br />
car manager has been with the firm for 24 years,<br />
the service manager for 18 years, body shop foreman<br />
for 14 years, parts manager for 26 years, used<br />
car manager for 10 years and five of the mechanics<br />
have been with the dealership since it opened.<br />
The automobile business changes every year,<br />
but this dealership remains customer friendly<br />
and as well as innovative. Internet connections<br />
are provided in the waiting area so a customer<br />
can conduct business while waiting for their car<br />
and shuttle transportation is available for all customers.<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Jeep has stepped into the<br />
future without forgetting the values of their past.<br />
134 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
Bank of Blue Valley and its holding company,<br />
Blue Valley Ban Corp, have been meeting the<br />
community banking needs of Johnson County<br />
and the Kansas City metropolitan area for over a<br />
decade. Today, business owners, professionals,<br />
individuals, and small- to mid-sized commercial<br />
borrowers rely upon Bank of Blue Valley and its<br />
knowledgeable staff.<br />
Believing that a locally owned and managed<br />
community financial institution would serve the<br />
area well, President Bob Regnier opened the<br />
bank December 18, 1989 in a double-wide<br />
trailer at 119th and Metcalf. Today, operating<br />
with over $600 million in assets, the bank<br />
employs a staff of 300 and provides financial<br />
services to over 27,000 customers.<br />
Since construction of its headquarters facility<br />
was completed in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> in 1994, the<br />
Bank’s parallel growth in assets and profits have<br />
propelled it to the forefront of Kansas City banks,<br />
receiving an Ingram’s Magazine ranking among<br />
the one hundred fastest growing companies in<br />
Kansas City for seven straight years. Presently, six<br />
conveniently located branches are in <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong>, Olathe, Shawnee, Leawood, and the new<br />
Mortgage Loan Center is at 7900 College<br />
Boulevard in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>. A seventh location<br />
opened at 135th and Mission Road in May 2004.<br />
Bank of Blue Valley offers a variety of services<br />
including complimentary financial planning,<br />
investment and trust services, the Little Ducks<br />
accounts for junior customers, and the Blue<br />
Valley Advantage Club for customers fifty years<br />
and older. The Bank offers seminars,<br />
newsletters, and other educational venues for<br />
customers and its help line, at 913-338-HELP, is<br />
staffed with associates well versed in the bank’s<br />
services and products. Additionally, the<br />
BlueWave internet banking website offers cash<br />
management services and bill payment services,<br />
24 hours per day, and the 119th and Metcalf<br />
facility is open 7 days each week with 91 1 /2<br />
weekly full-service hours.<br />
Offering a full range of lending services to<br />
both commercial and individual customers, the<br />
bank provides financial services to both small<br />
business owners and to some of Kansas City’s<br />
largest companies. It has become a significant<br />
factor in the mortgage industry, originating<br />
more than $1.5 billion in loans for over 7,500<br />
customers in 2003. That year, the bank<br />
consolidated all of its mortgage resources at its<br />
Mortgage Loan Center. Through its website,<br />
www.internetmortgage.com, the bank also<br />
initiates mortgage loans in all fifty states.<br />
Bank of Blue Valley employees donate time and<br />
resources to various Kansas City organizations<br />
including Wayside Waifs, Blue Valley Schools,<br />
Community Blood Center, the Kansas City<br />
Wizards, ALS, the Jewish Community Center, and<br />
Deanna Rose Children’s Farmstead.<br />
Today, Bank of Blue Valley is at the forefront of<br />
regional banks offering a unique brand of<br />
community banking and community partnership.<br />
It stresses convenience with strategic locations,<br />
extended banking hours, relationship banking,<br />
and the very latest in internet banking options at<br />
www.bankbv.com.<br />
BANK OF BLUE VALLEY<br />
❖<br />
Above: Bank of Blue Valley is<br />
headquartered at 119th and Metcalf<br />
in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>.<br />
Below: The Bank of Blue Valley<br />
Mortgage Center is located at 7900<br />
College Boulevard.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 135
HICKOK-DIBLE<br />
COMPANIES<br />
Napoleon W. Dible began building homes in<br />
the Westport area a century ago as the N. W.<br />
Dible Company in 1904. Since its formation, the<br />
company now called Hickok-Dible Companies<br />
has built over five thousand living units<br />
throughout the Midwest. The company is the<br />
second longest standing member of the Greater<br />
Kansas City Homebuilders Association. When<br />
the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> mayor invited Dible to move<br />
his company to <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> and Johnson<br />
County in 1957, N. W. was keenly aware of the<br />
major growth beginning to take place in the area<br />
and the company jumped over the state line to<br />
set up an interim office in the Empire Estates<br />
subdivision at Ninety-ninth and Mission Road.<br />
When Dible died in 1960 at the age of eightynine,<br />
grandsons Bill (later the president of<br />
the Johnson County <strong>Park</strong> Board) and Jack<br />
Hickok (who later would become president of<br />
the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Chamber of Commerce)<br />
accepted the reins of<br />
leadership and brought the<br />
company through an enormous<br />
period of growth in<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> and the surrounding<br />
areas. The ensuing<br />
decades were characterized<br />
by a number of community<br />
efforts to “grow the city” and<br />
the company continued its<br />
single-family efforts with<br />
numerous subdivisions<br />
along 103rd Street,<br />
including Pinehurst and<br />
Pinehurst Estates, and<br />
entered the multifamily<br />
arena with The Pines at<br />
Ninety-fifth and Mission<br />
and Pinebrooke Apartments<br />
at 103rd and Lowell.<br />
Still headquartered in<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, the company<br />
oversees building and<br />
maintenance of thousands<br />
of apartment homes from<br />
Olathe to Tulsa, Oklahoma.<br />
Tim Hickok, the greatgrandson<br />
of N. W. Dible,<br />
took over as president of<br />
the company in 1988.<br />
In an interview from his<br />
home in early 2003, William<br />
Hickok summed up his<br />
career in the construction<br />
business: “We build homes.<br />
That’s what we know.”<br />
A fitting description to a<br />
century-old company that<br />
continues to flourish in<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> and around<br />
the region.<br />
136 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
In June of 1983, with no more than<br />
excitement, energy, and vision Bob Hamilton<br />
Plumbing was formed; heating and air<br />
conditioning was added in 2000. From his<br />
earliest childhood memories of watching and<br />
learning the business first-hand from his father<br />
Ray, Bob Hamilton instinctively knew that a<br />
plumber’s life fit him perfectly. Sometimes long<br />
hours of hard work, but also the flexibility to be<br />
available to his family were at the root of Bob’s<br />
decision to launch his own company.<br />
Working to be the “world’s greatest”<br />
plumbing, heating, and air conditioning<br />
company, Bob Hamilton’s goal continues to<br />
be driven by a desire to provide the best<br />
quality workmanship and satisfaction possible<br />
by employing licensed, bonded, and insured<br />
professional service technicians, continually<br />
increasing their knowledge of the plumbing<br />
industry through education and experience.<br />
Bob Hamilton Plumbing, Heating and Air<br />
Conditioning knows that finding a professional,<br />
dependable and skilled service company<br />
can be a difficult task and that their willingness<br />
to go the extra mile will insure that theirs<br />
is the “RIGHT” company for any customer.<br />
You can visit Bob Hamilton Plumbing<br />
Heating, and Air Conditioning on the Internet<br />
at www.bobhamiltonplumbing.com or go<br />
ahead and sing the jingle “Bob Hamilton<br />
Plumbing, Heating, & A/C 381-9555,<br />
remember the 913”.<br />
BOB HAMILTON<br />
PLUMBING,<br />
HEATING AND<br />
AIR<br />
CONDITIONING<br />
COMPANY<br />
Locks & Pulls, Inc. is a company that reflects<br />
the true spirit of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>’s business<br />
community. Established in January 1986 with<br />
only one employee and nine hundred square<br />
feet of working space, Tom O’Malley<br />
immediately set out to offer the best service, the<br />
largest selection and the highest quality<br />
products at the fairest price. Two decades, two<br />
stores, and twenty employees later, he continues<br />
to practice those same beliefs as he helps people<br />
find the right hardware in every style, color and<br />
shape for kitchens, bathrooms, interior and<br />
exterior doors and windows.<br />
O’Malley and the store’s general manager,<br />
Ken Gosnell, have created an atmosphere of fun<br />
and professionalism that are indeed a trademark<br />
of the business. From the bumper-sticker<br />
collection to the famous duct-tape pig, a<br />
friendly staff that know the merchandise and are<br />
able to guide people through the maze of<br />
products and possibilities in decorative<br />
hardware and home-safety products surrounds<br />
customers. They are also active supporters of<br />
the Home Builders Association, NARI and<br />
Crime Prevention Programs.<br />
Enjoy a visit to your nearest Locks & Pulls at<br />
10333 Metcalf in the Metcalf Center in<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>; at North Oak Trafficway and<br />
152 Highway in Kansas City North; and on the<br />
Internet at www.locks-pulls.net.<br />
LOCKS &<br />
PULLS, INC.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 137
JOHNSON COUNTY<br />
MUSEUMS<br />
❖<br />
Explore the Johnson County Museums’<br />
three sites: Lanesfield School <strong>Historic</strong><br />
Site, The 1950s All-Electric House and<br />
Museum of History.<br />
The Johnson County Museums, established in<br />
1967, collect and preserve artifacts and<br />
information documenting the county’s heritage<br />
through interpretive exhibits, educational<br />
programs, and publications. Its efforts have<br />
garnered regional and national recognition for its<br />
three sites.<br />
Guests touring The 1950s All-Electric House<br />
experience a “blast from the past.” This historic<br />
house at 6305 Lackman Road, Shawnee, opened<br />
to the public in 1998 and displays period<br />
decorating and futuristic features. Originally a<br />
1954 show home for Kansas City Power &<br />
Light, the house was the first 1950s residence in<br />
the nation preserved as a museum.<br />
At the Museum of History, located at the<br />
same address, is Seeking the Good Life, an exhibit<br />
depicting the county from the 1820s to today. It<br />
includes fourteen hands-on stations. Also, a<br />
changing exhibit gallery always offers something<br />
new to see.<br />
Visitors to the Lanesfield School <strong>Historic</strong> Site<br />
can practice their penmanship, cipher math on a<br />
slate or have a spelling bee with a costumed<br />
schoolteacher in the 1869 stone schoolhouse.<br />
The school, located at 18745 South Dillie Road<br />
in Edgerton, is listed on the National Register of<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Places.<br />
The Johnson County Museums are dedicated<br />
to strengthening the community’s connection with<br />
its past. For more information about the exciting<br />
events taking place at the Museums please visit<br />
www.jocomuseum.org or call 913-631-6709.<br />
❖<br />
OVERLAND<br />
PARK ART &<br />
FRAME<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Art & Frame is<br />
located at 8008 Foster in<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>.<br />
Boasting the oldest retail pictureframing<br />
gallery in the area, <strong>Overland</strong><br />
<strong>Park</strong> Art & Frame has been in<br />
business for four decades. Founded<br />
by Anthony Ferrara, Sr., the<br />
gallery originally sold art supplies<br />
to painters, teachers and students,<br />
as well as offering art and pottery<br />
classes by notable local artists,<br />
including Jim Hamil.<br />
Today <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Art & Frame<br />
is a full-service framing gallery. While<br />
providing the standard custom<br />
framing, they also offer unique<br />
services such as art restoration,<br />
corporate art rental, installation and<br />
delivery. They are experts in custom<br />
framing pieces of any size, ranging<br />
from something as small as a dime, to<br />
pieces as large as eight feet or more.<br />
Dennis Saum, the gallery’s proprietor since<br />
March 2001, has a twelve-year background in<br />
framing and employs a knowledgeable staff with<br />
over twenty years of combined framing and<br />
retail experience.<br />
Offering expert custom framing at affordable<br />
prices, <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Art & Frame continues<br />
a legacy of exemplary customer service that has<br />
kept many of its original customers coming<br />
back for decades.<br />
138 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
A family-owned restaurant, bar, catering<br />
and carry-out business, Hayward and Hattie<br />
Spears have been serving up delicious<br />
barbeque since the opening of the original<br />
Hayward’s Pit Bar-B-Que on August 19, 1972.<br />
As its popularity spread, crowds would<br />
often line up outside the front door of the<br />
small, single-room restaurant at the corner<br />
of Ninety-fifth and Antioch. It wasn’t long<br />
before Hayward set his sights on an area<br />
of undeveloped land at 110th and Antioch.<br />
There, on the outskirts of the city, he built<br />
a sprawling, modern facility that could<br />
accommodate any size gathering and, as the<br />
area developed, would become an integral<br />
part of the business community and<br />
Corporate Woods.<br />
Today, Hayward’s famous restaurant seats<br />
221 customers and offers catering for business and<br />
social parties, large banquets and is fully equipped<br />
to serve meals to more than 5,000 customers every<br />
week. Full lines of barbeque sauces and seasoning<br />
rubs have become staples at grocery and specialty<br />
stores throughout the Midwest.<br />
With over thirty years in the business of<br />
creating outstanding barbeque, Hayward<br />
continues to add new menu items to<br />
accommodate more diversified tastes and is<br />
devoted to offering the highest quality food and<br />
services available.<br />
HAYWARD’S<br />
PIT BAR-B-QUE<br />
The long drive from the University of<br />
Houston to <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> gave Dr. Terry Hawks<br />
plenty of time to think. Fresh out of school and<br />
ready to work, he needed financing and<br />
patients. When a gracious aunt loaned him<br />
the money, Dr. Hawks established his practice in<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> and Gardner in 1974. He grossed<br />
$187 that first month and committed himself to<br />
serving his patients with the highest<br />
quality eyecare anywhere in the area.<br />
Thirty years later, twenty<br />
employees and three optometrists<br />
have joined Dr. Hawks including<br />
Dr. Greg Besler in 1986, Dr. Jason<br />
Rogers in 1995, and Dr. Jeffry<br />
Gerson in 2000. They offer a<br />
number of eyecare services such as<br />
eye examinations, treatment of eye<br />
infections and glaucoma, refractive<br />
surgery, corneal refractive therapy,<br />
low vision evaluations and products<br />
including contact lenses, spectacles<br />
and sunglasses. Eyecare and eyewear<br />
for the needy are made available<br />
through “The 20/20 Foundation”<br />
founded by Drs. Hawks, Besler & Rogers and<br />
the Vision USA program affiliated with the<br />
Kansas Optometric Association.<br />
Experience top quality, state-of-the-art<br />
eyecare with a premium on patient service at the<br />
offices of Drs. Hawks, Besler, & Rogers located<br />
at 5703 West Ninety-fifth in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> and<br />
315 East Main in Gardner.<br />
DRS. HAWKS,<br />
BESLER &<br />
ROGERS,<br />
OPTOMETRISTS<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 139
DRAGON INN<br />
❖<br />
Dragon Inn is located at 7500 West<br />
Eightieth Street.<br />
A landmark among the restaurants located in<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, the Dragon Inn is renowned for<br />
its Peking and Szechuan cuisine. Established in<br />
1975 by Mr. and Mrs. To-Ping Tsui, the Dragon<br />
Inn is located at 7500 West Eightieth Street and<br />
has become one of the finest, most popular<br />
authentic restaurants in the greater Kansas<br />
City area.<br />
The Dragon Inn is family owned and operated<br />
and assures patrons the finest service in a<br />
beautiful atmosphere as they enjoy the best in<br />
Chinese food. Authentic Peking and Szechuan<br />
dishes are sure to satisfy the taste buds. Peking<br />
cuisine has been served to royalty in China for<br />
many years and includes duck and chicken<br />
specialties. Szechuan cuisine, also extremely<br />
popular in China, is spicy and hot and can be<br />
suited to the specific tastes of customers. These<br />
foods are prepared with a specially formulated<br />
red pepper sauce and other Chinese herbs.<br />
The Dragon Inn is open seven days a<br />
week-Monday through Thursday from 11a.m.<br />
to 9:45 p.m. Friday and Saturday from<br />
11 a.m. to 10:45 p.m., and Sunday from 11<br />
a.m. to 9:45 p.m. Well-known for its catering<br />
and private parties, as well as extensive carryout<br />
menus, the restaurant is a “must” for<br />
anyone interested in experiencing a true taste of<br />
the Orient.<br />
❖<br />
140 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
SPONSORS<br />
Andy Klein Pontiac-GMC.............................................................................................................................................................102<br />
Bank of Blue Valley ......................................................................................................................................................................135<br />
Blue Valley School District 229 ....................................................................................................................................................123<br />
Bob Hamilton Plumbing, Heating, and Air Conditioning Company..............................................................................................137<br />
Bodker Realty, Inc. .......................................................................................................................................................................118<br />
Bott Radio Network .......................................................................................................................................................................96<br />
Branded Emblem Company, Inc./Camp David, Inc.......................................................................................................................129<br />
C. B. Self & Company/City Properties ..........................................................................................................................................121<br />
Church of God (Holiness) .............................................................................................................................................................94<br />
City of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> ....................................................................................................................................................................88<br />
Cloverleaf Office <strong>Park</strong> ..................................................................................................................................................................106<br />
Corporate Woods ® Office <strong>Park</strong>/C.W. Associates ............................................................................................................................114<br />
Dalton’s Flowers, Inc....................................................................................................................................................................124<br />
Dragon Inn ..................................................................................................................................................................................140<br />
Drs. Hawk, Besler & Rogers, Optometrists...................................................................................................................................139<br />
Hayward’s Pit Bar-B-Que ..............................................................................................................................................................139<br />
Heartland Animal Clinic, P.A........................................................................................................................................................116<br />
Herald and Banner Press ................................................................................................................................................................95<br />
Hickock-Dible Companies............................................................................................................................................................136<br />
Holiday Inn & Suites <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> West .....................................................................................................................................83<br />
James R. Shetlar Law Offices, P.A..................................................................................................................................................127<br />
Johnson County Community College .............................................................................................................................................98<br />
Johnson County Museums ...........................................................................................................................................................138<br />
Kansas City Bible College and School.............................................................................................................................................93<br />
Locks & Pulls, Inc. ......................................................................................................................................................................137<br />
Lucas Development LLC ................................................................................................................................................................83<br />
Lund & Balderson, AIA, Architects and Planners..........................................................................................................................117<br />
Metcalf Bank ................................................................................................................................................................................122<br />
O’Neill Automotive, Inc. ..............................................................................................................................................................130<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> Auto Paints ...................................................................................................................................................................132<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Art & Frame .........................................................................................................................................................138<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Church of God (Holiness).......................................................................................................................................92<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Heritage Foundation .............................................................................................................................................133<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> <strong>Historic</strong>al Society..................................................................................................................................................128<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Jeep ......................................................................................................................................................................134<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Masonic Lodge #436.............................................................................................................................................112<br />
Ranch Mart, Inc. ..........................................................................................................................................................................131<br />
Rau Construction Company ...........................................................................................................................................................84<br />
Roger the Plumber .......................................................................................................................................................................108<br />
Saint Luke’s South........................................................................................................................................................................126<br />
Shawnee Steel & Welding, Inc. ......................................................................................................................................................83<br />
Sheraton <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Hotel......................................................................................................................................................100<br />
Sprint Corporation.......................................................................................................................................................................104<br />
Stinson Morrison Heckler LLP......................................................................................................................................................120<br />
Traditions Furniture .....................................................................................................................................................................119<br />
Wallace, Saunders, Austin, Brown & Enochs, Chartered...............................................................................................................125<br />
White Haven Motor Lodge...........................................................................................................................................................110<br />
Sponsors ✦ 141
ABOUT THE AUTHORS<br />
NORM<br />
KEECH<br />
Having been born in the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> area, Norm Keech has had a lifelong interest in the history of Kansas and Johnson<br />
County. He also is an active member in two historical organizations. In addition to an interest in his church, his hobbies<br />
include woodcarving and personal computers.<br />
Keech retired after working forty-five years as a data processing computer operator, programmer, and data security administrator.<br />
He and his lovely wife, Carolyn, reside in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, Kansas.<br />
ROSS<br />
MARSHALL<br />
Marshall is a native Iowan and a graduate of Iowa State University with a degree in civil engineering. For thirty-one years,<br />
he was a corporate manager for the Ceco Corporation, a national concrete construction company specializing in high-rise<br />
building construction. Now retired, he was the executive director for the Alexander Majors <strong>Historic</strong>al House in Kansas City<br />
for three years.<br />
Marshall’s avocation for many years has been our country’s history during the nineteenth century westward movement,<br />
specializing in historic overland wagon trails. He is a past national president of the Oregon-California Trails Association, past<br />
national president of the Santa Fe Trail Association, and currently serves as the vice-chair of the Partnership for the National<br />
Trails System. In addition, he is active with several local history groups, including the Kansas City Area <strong>Historic</strong> Trails<br />
Association, the Heritage League of Kansas City, and the Friends of the National Frontier Trails Center.<br />
A frequent speaker and trail tour guide, Marshall and his wife, Jana, are long-time residents of Merriam, Kansas.<br />
142 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
ABOUT THE AUTHORS<br />
ANN<br />
OGDEN<br />
Growing up in the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> community, Ann Ogden heard many stories of the history of northeastern Johnson<br />
County from her father, Audley Porter, whose grandparents settled in the area in 1857. It was only natural, then, that as a<br />
retired journalist she would continue her interest in learning about and helping to preserve local history.<br />
As an expression of that interest, Ogden has worked with the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> Heritage Foundation on several projects,<br />
including a Strang-era exhibit, and has been working with the Shawnee Mission Indian <strong>Historic</strong>al Society to preserve and<br />
restore an area Shawnee Indian cemetery. She is a past president of those societies and a member of the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
<strong>Historic</strong>al Society.<br />
FLORENT<br />
WM. WAGNER<br />
Florent Wm. Wagner grew up in the metropolitan Kansas City area. He received a bachelor’s degree in history from<br />
Rockhurst College, and a law doctorate from the University of Kansas City. For twenty years, he headed the trust department<br />
of the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> State Bank and Trust Company.<br />
In 1985, Wagner retired from banking. Upon his retirement, Wagner, a member of the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> 2000 Foundation,<br />
the only organization in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> at that time charged with the function of identifyintg, studying, and preserving the<br />
history of <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong>, started interviewing the people who lived and worked in <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> so that he could record<br />
their stories. He encouraged the formation of the <strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong> <strong>Historic</strong>al Society and has been a board member or officer<br />
of that organization since its inception.<br />
About the Authors ✦ 143
For more information about the following publications or about publishing your own book, please call<br />
<strong>Historic</strong>al Publishing Network at 800-749-9790 or visit www.lammertinc.com.<br />
Black Gold: The Story of Texas Oil & Gas<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Abilene: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Amarillo: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Anchorage: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Austin: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Beaumont: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Bexar County: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Brazoria County: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Charlotte: An Illustrated History of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Corpus Christi: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Denton County: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Edmond: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> El Paso: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Erie County: An Illustrated History<br />
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<strong>Historic</strong> Gainesville & Hall County: An Illustrated History<br />
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<strong>Historic</strong> Montgomery County: An Illustrated History of Montgomery County, Texas<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Oklahoma: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Oklahoma County: An Illustrated History<br />
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144 ✦ HISTORIC OVERLAND PARK
LEADERSHIP<br />
SPONSORS<br />
Church of God<br />
(Holiness)<br />
City of<br />
<strong>Overland</strong> <strong>Park</strong><br />
ISBN: 1-893619-37-0