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Missouri Valley Special Collections / Kansas City Public LibraryIn 1940, Works Progress Administration workers took photos of every building in Kansas City — houses, restaurants, shops, gas stations and more. Kansas City Public Library maintains more than 50,000 of the images, and a new website is making them easier than ever to browse. -
Brian Munoz/St. Louis Public RadioMuch of Sugarloaf Mound will return to the Osage Nation, thanks to a recent land transfer. It’s the oldest man-made structure in St. Louis.
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Laugh-O-gram Studios near 30th and Troost served as Walt Disney's first animation house in 1922. After preservationists saved the deteriorating building from collapse, an ambitious $4 million fundraising campaign wants to transform it into a digital storytelling center and teaching hub. -
A family at their wits end brought their son, given the pseudonym “Robbie Mannheim,” to Jesuit priests from St. Louis University for an exorcism in 1949. The story has been fodder for urban legend ever since. -
October is LGBT History Month, the creation of history teacher Rodney Wilson. He began working on the idea while completing graduate studies at the University of Missouri-St. Louis in 1994. -
Armada con una grabadora, la bibliotecaria de Kansas City, Irene Ruiz, capturó la evolución de la historia del vecindario de Westside e hizo de la biblioteca un lugar más acogedor para los inmigrantes mexicanos y latinos que vivían allí. Hoy en día, la sucursal del vecindario de Westside la Biblioteca Pública de Kansas City, que cuenta con la sólida colección de idioma español que Ruiz comenzó, lleva su nombre en su honor. -
Armed with a tape recorder, Kansas City librarian Irene Ruiz captured the evolving history of the Westside and made the library a more welcoming place for the Mexican immigrants and Latinos who lived there. Today, the Westside branch of the Kansas City Public Library — featuring the robust Spanish language collection that Ruiz began — is named in her honor.
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The arch was built to honor Rosedale soldiers who fought in World War I. After the monument fell into disrepair, the community has spent decades restoring it. Now, neighbors are throwing the arch a birthday party to celebrate. -
George C. Hale served as the Chief of the Kansas City, Missouri Fire Department, for 31 years. At the end of the 19th century, he revolutionized firefighting with his more than 60 patented inventions, including the Hale Water Tower and the telephone fire alarm, and helped bring the country's fire departments into the modern era. -
The State Historical Society of Missouri wants your stories, photos and memories of Route 66 to build a collection and public exhibit in 2026. -
Rat poison, an open marathon course and flagrant cheating during the race just the tip of the weird 1904 Olympic iceberg in St. Louis. -
Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine has been a central part of life for Latinos in Kansas City’s Westside neighborhood for more than 100 years. Repairing it will require raising nearly $1 million, but community members refuse to let their history fade away. -
Missouri has the most miles of the Cherokee Trail of Tears, and Steelville is on its path. Archaeologist Erin Whitson has been working to verify Cherokee encampment sites in town, in the hopes that they will be recognized and protected. -
Thousands of people took over the small town of Sedalia, Missouri, in 1974 for the Ozark Music Festival, a party full of nudity, drugs and rock 'n roll music. People still talk about the lore from that hot wild weekend. Depending on what side of the festival fence you were on, it was three days of heaven — or three days of hell.
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Komina Guevara learned the art of beadwork by watching her grandfather. Now she makes traditional and modern pieces that honor 'my family, my culture and myself.' -
Lindsborg, Kansas, artist Lester Raymer is best known for paintings of round-faced circus clowns, acrobats and jaunty roosters. But in the Red Barn Studio where he once worked, handcrafted toys for his wife are the star of Christmastime. -
A 117-year-old historically-Black church in Missouri is getting much-needed restoration work thanks to a grant from the National Heritage fund — and a crew of about a dozen volunteer builders. -
Kansas City’s historic Union Cemetery, founded in 1857, serves as the final resting place for more than 55,000 people, including many early pioneers of Westport. A group of volunteers has cleaned more than 300 grave markers there as a way of learning about and connecting with local history. -
The Kansas City art museum issued a challenge to architecture firms to design “a museum for all.” With its third evolution, museum leaders hope to respond to growing community needs and increasingly diverse visitors. They estimate a construction budget of $160 million to $170 million, to be funded by private donations. -
There’s a whole lot of history packed into the little town of Weston, Missouri. Just a 45-minute drive north of Kansas City, it's an ideal destination for weekend getaways, whether you like to hike and bike, dine and drink, or enjoy local festivals. -
Robert Benecke captured 19th-century western Kansas landscapes before massive European migrations to the area transformed them. In the intervening years, the dust bowl, mass extinction of bison, and expansion of mechanized agriculture have all led to a profusion of trees, ponds and lakes across the Sunflower State. -
Chester Owens will be remembered as a civil rights activist, educator and historian. He’s credited with helping desegregate downtown Kansas City, Kansas, businesses, establishing a Black book store and rubbing shoulders with Martin Luther King, Jr. and other icons of the Civil Rights movement. -
Kansas City had one of the largest garment districts in the nation, and the industry was the second-largest employer in the metro. An institution that tells the story of the downtown Garment District will close this month. -
The American dance craze known as 'the cakewalk' began as a form of resistance by enslaved Black people — a showy promenade that concealed a mockery of slave owners. Now, modern devotees are marking the life of its most charismatic and famous champion, Kansas City’s own Doc Brown.
