By Diane Euston
In Kansas City, it’s oftentimes difficult to find neighborhoods oozing with layers of history, as it’s unfortunately uncommon for people to confuse something “old” being subpar to something new. But, the more you escape from the bubble of your suburban surroundings, the more likely you are to discover there are neighborhoods which have survived, for the most part, for well over a century of growth and change.
One vibrant community remains tucked away on the east side on quiet streets surrounded by an urban setting. Called the Northeast by locals, people who have chosen to live in this distinctive neighborhood are protective and proactive in preserving the past.
In 2012, local history buff and Northeast resident Kent Dicus started the nonprofit Northeast Kansas City Historical Society (NEKCHS) hoping to showcase the incredible properties in the neighborhood. Since then, the organization has hosted an annual fall homes tour where residents in five neighborhoods east of The Paseo open their doors to guests.
The Homes Tour is Oct.12, and even if you can’t make it to the main event where homes in the Lykins Neighborhood are featured, there are wonderful stories to be told about two of the four homes (and one church) featured this year.
The Lykins Neighborhood
The Lykins Neighborhood, its western border at Benton Blvd. and its northern border at Independence Blvd., is a collection of smaller platted subdivisions that popped up from the mid-1850s into the 1880s. This group of subdivisions became later known as Lykins, named after Baptist missionary and Kansas City’s second mayor, Dr. Johnston Lykins (1800-1876).
Interestingly, Lykins never lived on the east side; in 1857, he built an impressive brick mansion on 12th St. between Broadway and Washington. But, his reputation as one of Kansas City’s pioneer businessmen led to a school at 7th and Spruce as well as a park in the heart of this neighborhood to be named after him. Over time, the community became known as the Lykins Neighborhood.
Early in the real estate boom in Kansas City, leaders thought the city would move east in lieu of south, so some of the most impressive early mansions which survive are located in the historic Northeast neighborhoods. A mix of middle and upper class homes were built in the Lykins Neighborhood starting in the 1880s due to quality schools, impressive boulevards with green spaces and accessibility to downtown.
The mix of real estate, both in size of the residential homes and commercial properties, showcases how early development wasn’t as restrictive as it is today. Many of the stately homes built in this area were constructed to entertain, and if their walls could talk, they’d have many recorded tales of the people who resided there many years ago.
The Battle Between North and South: 3230 E. 9th Street
On 9th Street in the center of the Lykins Neighborhood, some stunning, stately mansions were built by some of Kansas City’s most prominent businessmen and philanthropists. On the north side of 9th Street, businessmen built stately mansions on large lots; unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, only two of these mansions survive today.
Lucky for us, both of these surviving structures will be open during the Homes Tour.
One of them at 3230 E. 9th St. was built by retailer Thomas King (T.K.) Hanna (1836-1906) and his wife, Judith (1836-1933). A self-made man, T.K. got his start in the dry goods business in Louisville, and by 1851, he opened his own business in Lexington, Mo.
After marrying and working with a well-known merchant in St. Joe, T.K. opened a branch store in Plattsmouth, Neb. In 1868, he opened a new store in Kansas City in the River Market. The couple had eight children.
When their home at 9th and Locust was condemned to make room for the new public library, the family set their sights on the beautiful east side for their next home. After purchasing a lot facing Ninth Street, the couple built a large home incorporating Queen Anne and Tudor styles. The walls within the home were built to last at two feet thick, and the wraparound porch had turned spindles and a covered second floor balcony for hot summers.
Just nine years into ownership as their children grew to adulthood, the Hannas downsized and moved to 2614 Forest Ave. and their Ninth Street home was purchased by Dr. Oliver C. Trice (1860-1901) and his wife, Mary Alice “Allie” Ferril Trice (1857-1948).
Allie Ferril Trice was a pioneer in her own right. Her father, Rev. Thomas Johnson Ferril (b. 1833) was a Methodist minister born in Independence, Mo. who moved to Lawrence, K.T. in 1854. He organized the Kansas Methodist Conference and became the first preacher in Lawrence. Allie was born there in 1857.
When the Civil War broke out, Rev. Ferril (widowed) left his children with caretakers as he enlisted as the chaplain for the 16th Kansas Cavalry. After the war, he moved for a time to Pleasant Hill and Brookfield, Mo. where he continued as a Methodist minister. He later served as a chaplain for the Grand Army of the Republic.
While visiting her father, Allie Ferril married Dr. Oliver Trice, a native of Brookfield, Mo.
While her husband worked as a doctor and real estate broker after arriving in Kansas City in 1893, Allie was busy entertaining large groups of women from the Euterpe Club, an organization of women devoted to promoting music.
In 1900, one Euterpe gathering at the Trice home on Ninth Street attracting 150 Kansas Citians made the newspapers. They reported, “Her house is more spacious and better suited to such an afternoon than many modern houses. The large hall and parlors were abundantly set with palms and ferns, and 1,000 of the club’s flower, the carnation, were used in decoration.”
After her husband passed away inside the home in 1901, Allie remarried Dr. George O. Coffin. The couple continued to live on Ninth Street, and Allie continued to entertain frequently.
In January 1906, Rev. Ferril passed away inside the home, and less than a week later, a fire in the basement burned up to the first floor. Oddly enough, 36 hours later, another fire ignited, possibly linked to a faulty furnace. Luckily, the damage wasn’t catastrophic.
What was catastrophic was an unhappy marriage. In 1908, Allie divorced her second husband, and a year later, she said goodbye to her lovely home on Ninth Street.
The Lost Cause and New Beginnings
After the walls of 3230 E. Ninth St. were witness to the death of an honorable Union chaplain and the divorce of its caretaker, the house passed to William Tell Johnson (1848-1930) and his wife, Agnes Harris Johnson (1859-1941).
Johnson’s father, Waldo Porter Johnson (1816-1885) had a story quite different from those previously seen on Ninth Street. Trained as a lawyer, Waldo relocated to Osceola, Mo. in 1842 and quickly rose up in society, and his uncle made his own history in the Kansas City area; his maternal uncle was David Waldo, namesake of the Waldo neighborhood.
As tensions ran high just prior to the Civil War, Waldo Johnson was elected U.S. Senator for Missouri and attended a peace convention in Washington, D.C. in 1861. Ten months after being sworn into office, Waldo was expelled from the Senate for being disloyal.
After serving in the Confederacy at the start of the war, Waldo was appointed in 1862 to the Confederate State Senate. After the war, to tamper the ongoing tensions, he received a pardon from the President.
Waldo’s son, William, grew up in Osceola in the center of Southern ideals, and like his father, he became a lawyer. He converted as a teenager to Catholicism, a central belief in his life. In 1872, he was elected mayor, and in 1885, he married Osceola native, Agnes Harris.
Agnes’ background was quite similar to her husband’s; both were loyal to the South and grew up in Osceola- but she had something surprising in common with the woman she and her husband purchased their new home from on Ninth Street.
Agnes’s father, Edwin Harris, was a physician living in Osceola, and when the Civil War started, he enlisted as a surgeon in the Confederacy. Unfortunately when Agnes was just five years old, her father passed away from fever while encamped in Arkansas in 1864. When jayhawkers raided Osceola, Agnes and her mother “were driving from [their] home. . . when the raiders burned the town.”
After arriving in Kansas City, William Johnson was appointed as a judge, and after moving to 3230 E. 9th St., he ensured that he had all the comforts of his upbringing. In 1912, he built his own “old fashioned” smokehouse, 8×10 in size, on the property so he could smoke his own hams and bacon. The newspaper reported, “Recently he completed the smoking and curing of 20 hams and 16 sides of breakfast bacon, his year’s supply.”
Two years later, Agnes’ mother, Margaret Harris, passed away inside the home.
The couple continued to live on Ninth Street until 1920. A few years later, the home was converted into 10 apartments known as Maplewood Apartments.
In 1988, the house was purchased by Gunter Van Kiefernagel. Since then, he has painstakingly restored the home back to its original single-family appearance, working to repair covered-over pocket doors, reopening original doorways, stripping woodwork back to red oak and restoring fireplaces back to their original glory.
The home still stands thanks to the care of the current owner, passionately preserving for years to come the place where so many stories – from both sides of history- were told.
From Philanthropy to Fixer-Upper: 1125 Benton Boulevard
In about 1895, John Lund Woods Merrill (1849-1917) and his Irish-born wife, Martha (1854-1922) opted to move into one of the homes built as an investment in Windsor Place. Originally 3200 Peery Ave. and later changed to 1125 Benton Blvd., the house was built to impress.
Also impressive was the unique story of J.L.W. Merrill. Born the son of a farmer in Vermont, Merrill lost both his parents within one month of each other in 1857. By 11, he was working as a farm laborer.
Merrill’s maternal uncle (whom he was named after), John L. Woods (1820-1893), moved to Michigan in 1842. Within a short amount of time, he made a fortune in the lumber industry. With the help of his uncle, Merrill followed to Michigan where he became a tea merchant – an industry he dabbled in for his entire life.
By 1886, J.L.W. Merrill arrived in Kansas City with his new bride, Martha. He opened a tea and coffee house on Independence Ave.
In 1893, Merrill’s uncle, a bachelor, passed away and left about 25 percent of his colossal estate to him. Described as “a small, thin, wiry man, energetic, nervous and well preserved,” Merrill looked at his smaller home at 3318 Peery Ave. and thought it was time to upgrade.
This financial windfall resulted in numerous headlines following the “eccentric man of wealth.” He purchased various lots along Peery Avenue near Benton Boulevard and built homes as investments. The house at 1125 Benton Blvd. was advertised for sale in 1895 as “the finest located property in the city; fine neighborhood; excellent view; one block to Whittier school; city water and gas.”
1125 Benton Blvd. as it appears today. Built in about 1895, this home was purchased in 2019 and is being carefully restored.The all-brick two and a half story Victorian 12-room home at the northeast corner of Peery Avenue and Benton Boulevard was surrounded by a tall picket fence and included a three-story tower with a tall decorative spire on the top of the “witch’s hat.” The house was trimmed in white and green paint.
A high-pitched slate roof with two decorative chimneys on each side of the home accented the front porch which wrapped the left side where it abutted a two-story bay window. Sparing no expense, a large circular window decorated the right side next to the entry.
The Merrills decided to move to this impressive mansion as J.L.W. continued to invest in real estate along 11th and Benton Boulevard. In 1899, he completed three brick and stone homes. The Kansas City Star reported, “Mr. Merrill is making this investment on the belief that boulevard property is the coming residence locality for fine homes, and that it will never deteriorate in value, which makes it the safest kind of an investment.”
Like neighbor Allie Ferril Trice, Mrs. Martha Merrill was a member of the Euterpe Club and held many meetings inside her home.
Questionable Investments and Future Hope
While continuing to invest in tea and coffee and expanding his business interests to flour, J.L.W. Merrill took a page from his uncle’s playbook and chose to invest in the local community. He was often the first to donate to charitable organizations, and he was a big supplier to the Mayor’s Christmas Tree Fund that helped needy families during the holidays.
Merrill entered the natural gas and oil business in 1903. By 1905, he was drilling for gas on five acres of land at 46th and Woodland and was seeking rights to land along Brush Creek for natural gas and oil. He even approached the Park Board so he could sink gas wells in Swope Park.
Merrill was successful in getting numerous franchises and rights in neighboring towns, and he would claim that “under Kansas City lies a Great Lake of oil.”
Unfortunately, time was ticking on the Merrills piggy bank.
Martha Merrill had asked a good friend, Mrs. Francisca Gamble (of Procter & Gamble) of Cincinnati, to loan her $3800 for unknown purposes. They were old friends, but when the three notes remained unpaid, Mrs. Gamble sued and successfully won.
In February 1910, four officers in the freezing cold stood outside the Merrill home waiting for entry to serve them. Because they had already failed to pay, the courts had authorized the removal of some of their expensive paintings as a form of payment of the debt.
Mr. Merrill protested the possible seizure of his valuable art, telling the Kansas City Times, “There are 92 paintings in the lot, and the least valuable is worth $150. Under such circumstances I felt that I am justified in refusing to allow the officers to take possession of the collection.”
On the second day, Mrs. Merrill casually opened the front door of the home and let officers in. They took 29 original paintings, including “Portia” by Titian that Merrill claimed was worth $50,000 and a Hans Holbein painting allegedly worth $10,000.
An art appraiser accompanied the officers and claimed that the artwork taken was worth about $4,000.
More financial trouble would face the Merrills as bad investments plagued them. By 1912, they sold their home and moved to 506 Wabash Ave. Five years later, J.L.W. Merrill died at his home, still surrounded by his curious collectables, including a clock made in England in 1628 – reportedly the oldest clock in the country.
Regardless, when Martha Merrill probated his estate, the value was just $400 on household goods, and “his stocks and gas leases were found to be of no value.”
The beautiful home full of history at 1125 Benton Blvd. passed through a series of ownerships and foreclosures. By 2005, the wrap-around porch was removed, and by 2015, the tower spire was gone. Luckily, in 2019 the home was sold to Jeffery Alan Richardson of Burbank, Cal. who is working diligently to bring this mansion back to life.
Walking Through History
These two homes along with two others and a church in the Lykins Neighborhood will be open to visitors on Oct. 12 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. where docents will walk you through the impressive history of this historic Northeast neighborhood. Tickets are available online at www.nekchs.org for $20.
It takes a village like the Northeast Kansas City Historical Society (NEKCHS) and the residents of this neighborhood to preserve these pieces of our past that could have easily been disregarded or dismantled in the name of “progress.”
Instead, they have carefully worked to save these properties and have graciously opened them up to the public to walk the same path of these pioneers before us. If these walls could talk, they would whisper “thank you” to these pioneers of preservation.
