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Kansas City Power and Light Building

Art Deco architecture in MissouriArt Deco skyscrapersCommercial buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in MissouriDowntown Kansas CityEvergy
National Register of Historic Places in Kansas City, MissouriOffice buildings completed in 1930Residential skyscrapers in MissouriSkyscrapers in Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City Power and Light Building 1931
Kansas City Power and Light Building 1931

The Kansas City Power and Light Building (also called the KCP&L Building and the Power and Light Building) is a landmark skyscraper located in Downtown Kansas City, Missouri. It was constructed by Kansas City Power and Light in 1931 as a way to promote new jobs in Downtown Kansas City. Since then, the Art Deco building has been a prominent part of Kansas City's skyline. The structure was the tallest building west of the Mississippi River upon its completion after succeeding the Smith Tower until the completion of the Space Needle in 1962. The east façade of the building faces the Power & Light District (which bears its name), and the building's iconic lantern appears on promotional materials and signage for the district and even Kansas City as a whole.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Kansas City Power and Light Building (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Kansas City Power and Light Building
West 14th Street, Downtown Kansas City

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Latitude Longitude
N 39.09751 ° E -94.584743 °
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Power & Light Apartments

West 14th Street 106
64105 Downtown Kansas City
Missouri, United States
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Kansas City Power and Light Building 1931
Kansas City Power and Light Building 1931
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Murder of Artemus Ogletree
Murder of Artemus Ogletree

On January 5, 1935, a man who had given his name as Roland T. Owen, later identified as Artemus Ogletree, died at a hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, United States from beating and stabbing injuries. His death was preceded by a two-day stay in Room 1046 at the Hotel President in what is now the city's Power & Light District marked by communication with someone named "Don", and unusual behavior and incidents noted by the hotel's staff, before he was found wounded in his room the morning of his death. When no next of kin could be located, leading to suspicions that his name was an alias, his body was stored in a local funeral parlor for almost two months. A planned burial in the city's potter's field was averted when an anonymous donor provided funds for a funeral and a floral arrangement signed "Louise". The man's true identity remained unknown for a year and a half until Ruby Ogletree, an Alabama woman who had seen a photo of a distinctive scar on his head in the news, identified him as her son Artemus. She said he had left Birmingham in 1934 at the age of 17 to hitchhike to California. Later she received two letters purportedly from him, some from as far away as Egypt. In August 1935, a caller claiming to be from Memphis, Tennessee told her that Artemus was in Cairo. The letters had also been sent after Artemus' death. Records kept by shipping companies found no records that Ogletree had gone to Egypt. No other suspect has ever been identified. The letters later were used to link the killing to a 1937 murder in New York, but no charges were filed against the man arrested in that case, one of whose aliases had been "Donald Kelso". The FBI later investigated but was unable to produce any new leads. In 2012, a historian at the Kansas City Public Library wrote two posts on the library's blog about the case. At the end of the last one he revealed that in 2003 or 2004, he had taken a call from someone out of state related to the case. The caller said that they had been helping to inventory the belongings of a recently deceased elderly person when they found a box with newspaper clippings about the Ogletree case and an item mentioned repeatedly in the stories, but they refused to say what that item was. The Kansas City police continue to investigate.

Convention Hall
Convention Hall

Convention Hall was a convention center in Kansas City, Missouri that hosted the 1900 Democratic National Convention and 1928 Republican National Convention. It was designed by Frederick E. Hill and built at the corner of 13th and Central and cost $225,000 and opened on February 22, 1899 with a performance by the John Philip Sousa band. It was destroyed in a fire on April 4, 1900, Kansas City was scheduled to host the Democratic National Convention over July 4. Hill redesigned a new hall that would be fireproof and it was built in 90 days in an effort that was called "Kansas City Spirit." A local 16-year-old Democrat, Harry S. Truman, served as a page at the convention. During the flood of 1903, the hall housed several thousand refugees. The final 110 refugees were sent to tent camps at 31st and Summit. The hall had to be fumigated after their departure on June 12th, 1903.The world's largest pipe organ, which became the nucleus of Philadelphia's Wanamaker Organ was originally planned for the north end of the hall after it was exhibited as the centerpiece of Festival Hall at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904. The Kansas City hall operators backed out of the contract before installation when it was discovered the document had never legally been ratified. The hall hosted the 1928 Republican Convention and was torn down in 1936 when it became a parking lot for the new Municipal Auditorium. The hall hosted various traveling events including a Sarah Bernhardt performance of Camille. Its most controversial use was hosting a series of Ku Klux Klan rallies in 1922–1924.