What’s in a Name? The Early Battles Over the Streets of our City

By Diane Euston

   A glance at the 1865 city directory for Kansas City makes it quite obvious that there have been many changes to our street names over the years. Surely, many of the names we see today – Main, McGee,  Grand Avenue and Holmes hold their roots in the earliest expansions of our city. 

  But a closer look confirms the numerous names which have been all but erased from the city’s streets. What happened to Hackberry, Dewey, Commercial, Hubbard or Occidental Streets? And Adeline, Allen, Amelia, Bingham, Catherine, Elizabeth, Eleanor, Emily, Francis, Gertrude and Mary Ann Streets? Certainly, the women that were once honored have been all but forgotten as their names disappeared on dusty maps.

  Although there is not the time (or even a clear answer) to recall what happened to so many of these streets, there is a necessity – especially in a city which has in the past few years displayed open discourse on the renaming of streets – to recall a time in our early history, as parcels of land of early settlers converted to subdivided lots for sale, when the city had but little choice than to adopt certain street names and do away with the rest.

From the Original Plat 

  The original plat of the Town of Kansas from 1838 looks very little like the downtown streets we see today. Platted by John C. McCoy, the Town of Kansas’ original streets weren’t planned on a straight north-south grid; instead, the streets were angled to be parallel to the most important landmark at the time: the Missouri River.

  The original map only accounted for streets from the riverfront to 2nd Street; only a portion of the 257 acres purchased by the original Town Company was accounted for at the time. However, a land dispute and issues within the courts delayed any semblance of a town for several years. 

  In 1847, the Town Company was finally able to sell off town lots, and the original plat was enlarged south, west and east. Lots on the riverfront, commonly called “the levee” ran along Front St., and the town stretched west to Wyandotte (originally Elm St.) all the way east to just past Grand Ave. (originally Market St.) and ran to current-day 6th St. Walnut St., named for a Walnut grove which stood at the north end of the street near 4th, appears first in the 1847 survey.

  Early thoroughfares such as Main St. was originally coined Commerce but changed by 1847. Other streets appeared by 1847, including both Delaware and Wyandotte Streets, named after the Native American tribes which were resettled just west of the town in Indian Territory in the early 1830s.

  A nationwide gold fever in 1849 spawned new travel on the Santa Fe, California and Oregon Trails, and Kansas City reaped the benefits. The population boomed, and early landowners with original plans to simply farm saw a unique chance to cash in on their property.

The Original “Subdivision” Was the City’s First Addition

  Early Kansas City historian Carrie Westlake Whitney explained, “In the early days, each land owner named the streets and determined their length and width. Plats did not conform to other surveys of the town, and large farms were cultivated between the platted city extensions.”

  When landowners near the growing town of Kansas City saw an opportunity to cash in on their acreage, many didn’t shy away from it. One of the earliest to do this was Elijah Milton “Milt” McGee (1819-1873). 

  Milt McGee was the fifth of 10 children of James Hyatt (1786-1840) and Eleanor McGee (1793-1880). In 1827, the McGees with their seven children opted to move from Shelby County, Ken. to Liberty, Mo. One year later, they relocated further south to a little hamlet settled originally by French Canadians trading with Native American tribes. Their move landed them in the future heart of downtown Kansas City.

  In 1828, James McGee bought up 320 acres of land from the French squatters and eventually acquired just shy of 1,000 acres in the heart of what would be the city. The property included much of present-day downtown, extending roughly from 9th St. to the north to 23rd St. to the south, Troost Ave. to the east and west to Summit St.

  After James Hyatt McGee’s death in 1840, the land was divided among his children. Milt took 240 acres of prime land from current-day 12th St. bounded by Main to the west and Holmes to the east and had grandiose plans which matched his personality. 

  In 1857, the site of Kansas City had about 700 people mostly settled along the riverfront – hardly a bustling population which garnered a new subdivision so far south. Regardless, Milt and his friend, Nehemiah Holmes, plotted McGee’s Addition a great distance away from the river, opting to encourage new settlers to take a gamble on his grand idea.

  As Carrie Westlake Whitney explained, “It appears that the pioneers sought to perpetuate the names of the members of their families by giving their names to the streets.” 

  Milt McGee and Nehemiah Holmes named their streets in the subdivision as they pleased – opting for the most part to pay homage to direct family members. Streets called Allen, Menard, Mobillion, Milton, Gertrude, Catherine, Amelia, Eleanor and Adeline are all McGee names and were christened on their streets in the suburbs. On the easternmost north-south thoroughfare through McGee’s Addition, Holmes St. was laid out and named after Nehemiah Holmes, Milt’s partner in real estate.

  In the heart of McGee’s Addition was Grand Avenue. It became the widest street in town, and to solidify its prominence, Milt built a row of two story brick buildings on the east side of Grand at current-day 13th St.- right in the center of a corn field. This was the first brick block in all of the city. And, most of it was still standing in the early 1940s. No buildings survive today.

  To encourage people to patronize his new addition while stopping over in the area before moving west, Milt built a hotel, commonly referred to as Planter’s, Farmer’s Exchange, and most commonly McGee’s Hotel. This became a landmark during the Border Wars and the headquarters of many pro-slavery men who commonly stormed into Kansas Territory.

  As he carefully carved out roads and lots in the middle of a corn field, people laughed at his ambitions “way out in the country.” P.G. Brock, pioneer engineer, stated in 1887, “We all thought that Milt McGee a speculative idiot for hitching on his addition to the town.”

  It turned out Milt was onto something, and the legacy of this first subdivision can be seen in the street names which do remain. So many disappeared as the city moved south and merged with other subdivisions – including all named after his female relatives – but a few have stood the test of time. Holmes St. in McGee’s Addition was chosen over William St. which was named after one of John Campbell’s children in his addition to the city. Grand Avenue, however, became just as Milt had imagined; it remains one of the largest and widest streets in our city. It replaced John McCoy’s earlier street platted in 1838 as “Market Street.” It formally changed its name in 1872.

The First Major Street Renaming: 1872

  Two major events prompted an overhaul of the streets of Kansas City. First, the city grew exponentially after 1869 due to the Hannibal Bridge, and in order to ensure Kansas City stayed consistent as the city grew in all directions, they graded the impassible bluffs. 

  As grading continued from the mid-1850s to the early 1870s, streets were separated by hillsides and gullies and had multiple names. Grading ensured they were all a uniform thoroughfare. City leaders opted for one name instead of others. The result was that many street names, mostly named for pioneers, were lost.

  The second major change requiring the removal of some street names was due to quick growth. New and old plats of land once tilled by town pioneers grew together, but the street system wasn’t totally connected in any perpendicular way. “This made work for the city council connecting and renaming them,” the Kansas City Star reported. “Many of the old names were a historical part of the city’s past.”

  The mayor of Kansas City, Mo. and the city clerk passed an ordinance in February 1872 changing 73 street names, thus “wiping out the link between many an early day family and the future.” 

    All streets running east-west were numbered at this time, eliminating many founders from their streets. Many female streets disappeared at this time, including: Emily St. – renamed 6th St.; Gertrude St. – renamed 17th St.; Catherine St. – renamed 18th St.; Amelia St. – renamed 19th St.; and Adeline St.- renamed 20th St.

  Even the proclaimed “Father of Kansas City,” John McCoy, lost a street in his honor. A portion of modern-day 16th St. from Summit to Broadway was named McCoy, but since it was an east-west street, the name was lost.

  A perfect example of the serious issue with consistent names on one street can be seen by looking at what is today Grand Ave. Originally part of Milt McGee’s plat further south, the road had many names before it reached its southern limits. The 1872 renaming announced, “Market Street from Levee to 3rd Street, Vine Street from 3rd to Court Street, and Grand Ave. from Court Street to the southern limits of the city, shall be known and designated as Grand Avenue.” 

  Kersey Coates, an early city developer, lived in the neighborhood he coined “Quality Hill.” This land high upon the bluffs on the western edge of Missouri was platted in 1857. Streets such as Penn Street were named after Coates’ home state, and Broadway, coined by Kersey Coates, was chosen with the hope it would become the main terminus between Westport and Kansas City.

  The name “Central St.” was chosen to replace earlier names because, in 1872, “it marked the halfway mark at the time between the east and west city limits.”

  Other street names included in this early equalization of the city’s streets included Cherry (originally Hackberry), Locust (originally High) and Campbell (originally Perry). The names we are used to today existed independently within subdivisions, and in order to keep consistency, the street names were changed.

The McDaniels and Junction Conundrum 

  As mentioned prior, John McCoy’s earliest plat of the Town of Kansas included the monstrous hills which once coated the riverfront area, and he chose to run the streets parallel to the river in lieu of a north-south grid. After 5th Street (Independence Ave.), the grid switches to the familiar north-south parallel line. 

  But, a problem arose in the 1850s when city leaders wanted to extend Main St. to the south. At approximately 5th and Missouri Avenue (now where I-70 runs today), Thompson McDaniels (1805-1895) built his farm and a well. He had arrived in Kansas City in 1845, purchasing 45 acres of land running from Missouri Ave. south to 9th Street, from Delaware to Cherry St. McDaniels was best known for building the three-story Union Hotel fronting 7th St. on Main.

  When city leaders stretched Kansas City further south and adapted the roads, they ran across a problem at the McDaniels farm. Thomas McDaniel told the city leaders he wouldn’t allow a road to cut through his property, “not for less than a cool hundred, anyway.” 

  Because of Thompson McDaniels’ refusal for Main to cut through his farmhouse, Main St. was forced to continue slightly to the southwest in lieu of a straight-south shot.

  In 1905, the Kansas City Star commented, “The city officials had a long talk about it, but decided that the farmer’s figures were too high. . . Had he lived a few years later, Mr. McDaniels might have learned something of the condemnation proceedings.” 

  A continuation of both Main and Delaware to the south at angles caused an intersection of the two roads at 9th Street. Due to the hills and McDaniels’ refusal to part with his land, two major streets- Main and Delaware- ran into each other and formed an iconic intersection known as “the Junction.” One of Kansas City’s most famous structures, Vaughan’s Diamond Building, was built to accommodate this v-shaped intersection.

  In 1956, the last of the Junction was torn to the ground in order to straighten out the roads and redesign that side of the city, and today, the highway system has destroyed most of what once was.

Further Changes in 1923 and 1933

  In 1872, five municipalities in Kansas – Armstrong, Armourdale, Riverview and Wyandotte – incorporated into Kansas City, Kan. To further complicate matters (a complication for out-of-towners even today), both Kansas City’s had similar names of streets. 

  This became a difficulty for the post offices, and zip codes wouldn’t become a thing for 60 more years. The similarities in street names “caused major confusion in mail deliveries.” Thus, in 1923, Kansas City, Mo. and Kansas City, Kan. “merged” to help alleviate some of the headaches.

  In Kansas City, Mo., 39 street names were renamed, and on the Kansas side, 51 street names were on the chopping block.  With the exception of Garfield Ave. (renamed from Johnson Ave.), all streets were just a block or two long.

  As the city moved quickly to the south and suburbia ran supreme, there was even more of a need to keep the current grid pattern with numbered streets running east-west. If the streets running north-south ran near or close to street names already adopted in Kansas City, they were to be continued.

  The Kansas City Times explained, “The changes in the names were made after a survey of the street system by city engineers, post office officials and committees from the Chamber of Commerce and Real Estate Board. Most of the streets were only from one to four blocks long and bore names which caused confusion in the delivery of mail.” 

  In 1933, 149 street names were changed for this very reason, and few exceptions were made due to protesting neighbors. One successful stop at renaming of a street happened near Rockhurst University. “Rockhurst Road, from Troost Ave. to Lydia Ave., was to have been changed to 52nd Street,” the Kansas City Star reported. “Residents on the road and students of Rockhurst College protested, saying the college was a civic asset and deserved a street named after it.” 

  The protest worked, and Rockhurst Rd. still exists today.

The Origin of Just a Few Streets

  There are plenty of interesting stories about the origin of some of our street names, but there is limited space to get to them all here. In my extensive research on this topic, a few stuck out to me as being more interesting than others.

  Holly St. wasn’t named after a bush but is named after a man. Holly Street’s origins reside with David Mulholland “Holly” Jarboe (1830-1886). Holly Jarboe came to the future site of Kansas City in 1834 with parents, Joseph and Lydia. Holly’s father, Joseph (1790-1867) purchased 80 acres on the western edge of Jackson County, Mo. The Jarboes, after three generations of ownership, platted Jarboe’s Addition which included streets such as Jarboe and Holly. Both exist today.

  Several streets on the east side hold interesting history surrounding two early pioneer families. Woodland Avenue’s history starts with the family of John Johnson (1765-1833). John arrived in October 1825 at the future site of Kansas City with 21 people in his party, including three married sons. John and his family took up claims on land today bound by Independence Ave. to 17th Street, Virginia Ave. to Cleveland. 

  John Johnson’s claim near 14th and Cleveland is where he built his first house for 21 people. It was 20×25 feet and built of round logs. The Kansas City Journal reported, “The floor was made by splitting straight trees into boards about two or three inches thick. There were no nails used in the construction of the building and wooden pegs took their place.”  It took two weeks to construct.

  This land “was covered with a heavy growth of timber,” thus when a street was carved through the old Johnson farm, the street was named “Woodland.” 

  One of John Johnson’s daughters, Sarah (1808-1893) married Walter Bales (1803-1887), a man who came to the area in 1831. The Bales farm of 175 acres stretched from 9th to 17th St., Bellefontaine to Cleveland. The couple lived later on the land where her father built his original structure.

  Bales Ave. was later named after him. 

  Another interesting street name is iconic Vine St. on the east side. Believe it or not, it’s not named after a plant, but is named after a person. Vienna Salisbury Chase, commonly known as Vine to friends and family, is the namesake of the street. 

  Her brother, Robert Salisbury, was an early city assessor and “gave names to several streets.” 

  During the Civil War, Vine Chase and her husband, George lived at current-day 1219 Garfield. Due to frequent attacks by Jayhawkers, “Mr. Chase kept his horse in the cellar of the house in order that it not be stolen.” 

What’s in a Name Today?

    It’s probably needless for me to state that I’ve been at the helm of some controversial renaming of streets in the past, as I along with others in Kansas City protested when The Paseo was on the chopping block without civic engagement. 

  Even today, there is controversy surrounding the renaming of Troost Ave., one of the oldest and longest city streets that stretches off-and-on (thanks to the city’s push to keep consistency) from downtown to approximately 120th St.

  When it mattered the most – when the city was trying to simplify the street system – there was little pushback from the pioneers who settled in the area. Of course at the time, the inconvenience of changing your address was minimal. There were no drivers licenses, passports or birth certificates.

  The grid system with consistent street names didn’t happen overnight, and you can see some unique street names in some subdivisions such as Blue Hills and Santa Fe Hills. The streets such as St. Andrews and Porta Cimi Pas kept their unique names because their streets are curved.

  Names are important, and street names seem to hold special meaning to many of us in Kansas City. My family fondly recalls “the house on McGee,” the “Rockhurst Road house,” and “the house on Tracy,” just to name a few. No details need to be given past the street name because so many memories are ingrained in all of us. 

  Streets are more than a green sign; they are an homage of our unique Kansas City past.

Diane writes a blog on the history of the area. To read more of the stories, go to http://www.newsantafetrailer.blogspot.com.