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Crysta Henthorne / Barbara Grier and Donna McBride Naiad Press Collection, James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center, San Francisco Public LibraryAs the gay rights movement began picking up steam in the 1970s, Barbara Grier co-founded the largest lesbian publishing company in the world — right from her Kansas City home. Grier was bold, controversial, and unstoppable in her mission to make books reflect the people and love stories in her life. -
Kyla Pehr/Missouri Business AlertFounded by settlers in 1837, Hermann was dedicated as a place where German Americans could preserve their culture. Now its annual Hermann Wurstfest draws crowds with sausage sampling, competitions, and a Wiener Dog Derby.
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The Great War depleted the states’ National Guard troops, sending them overseas. Missouri was one of the states that backfilled the domestic duties with unpaid volunteers. -
The Strawberry Hill Bakery has outgrown its original location in Kansas City, Kansas, but the brothers who run it promise the povitica recipe is the same one their great, great grandmother brought from Croatia at the turn of the last century. -
The Kansas City, Kansas Street Blues Festival was created as a place for a small group of influential blues artists from northeast Kansas City, Kansas, to share their music with their community. Now, however, so many of these artists have died that the event organizer doesn’t believe he’ll be able to continue the festival. -
Don Henry was a 1930s college kid from Dodge City, Kansas, who left everything he knew to join the fight against fascism. His life moved one music professor to put the story down in song. -
Independence, Missouri, was the epicenter of westward expansion in pre-Civil War America. Hiram Young, a formerly enslaved man, became the wealthiest man in the county by building wagons and ox yokes, before almost losing it all. -
As Kansas City’s first Black-owned housing co-op, Parade Park helped residents pursue the American Dream of owning a home and building a community. But after 60 years, it’s uncertain if it can survive foreclosure and redevelopment. -
The state constitution itself has its roots in the bitter days of Bleeding Kansas. One proposed version that granted the right to vote for free African Americans was rejected by a pro-slavery Congress. -
This isn't the first time Missouri has banned abortions. Residents may have heard ghoulish tales of “Doc Annie” Smith, a physician who looms large in Missouri’s mythology for performing illegal abortions in the early 1900s. Today, the truth about her work has largely disappeared. -
Since Kansas City's right-to-counsel program took effect on June 1, a group of attorneys collectively have taken on 139 new cases of tenants facing eviction. Kansas City sees an average of 9,000 evictions every year. -
Chillicothe, Missouri, has an unusual claim to fame: It’s the town where pre-sliced bread first debuted back in 1928. The state has even declared July 7, Sliced Bread Day, as an official holiday. But despite being less than a century old, the origin of this revolutionary pantry staple was almost lost to history. -
At the height of the space race in the 1960s, Air Force Captain Ed Dwight was chosen to attend a special astronaut training program. He tells the story of what happened next. -
Chris Goode has launched a petition demanding the city change Troost Avenue — named after Dr. Benoist Troost, who owned six enslaved men and women.
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On Jan. 11, also known as Missouri Emancipation Day, the Missouri History Museum is bringing new attention to an antebellum insurrection plot that was secretly devised by free Black Americans in St. Louis — and how an insubordinate war hero ticked off Lincoln with his antics to free enslaved Missourians during the Civil War. -
In the late 1970s, a group of musicians in Topeka, Kansas, formed what became one of the first all-women mariachi bands in the country. Mariachi Estrella broke down barriers in a male-dominated music scene, before a deadly disaster almost ended the group for good. Decades later, the band’s descendants are ensuring their legacy shines on into the future. -
A college professor with Kansas City roots is highlighting the city's influence in LGBTQ+ history and the national gay bar scene. Lucas Hilderbrand says the city was a nexus for gay political activity, activism and culture. -
"The Day After" made use of 2,000 local extras alongside well-known actors of the time. The film's emotional impact made it into the pages of a presidential journal, and is widely credited for putting the brakes on the nuclear arms race. -
After a former mayor spent $144,000 of public money on the synthetic saxophone, it became the centerpiece of a Kansas City institution. A reissued recording of the instrument, played by our greatest bebopper, was released last month. -
Some of the very first homes in Kansas were built by members of the Wichita Tribe with cut bundles of native bluestem grass. A new generation of students at Haskell Indian Nations University are learning the skill, and reconnecting with a Great Plains tradition. -
While the Kansas City region is home to robust public library systems, it also boasts specialized libraries that focus on individual subjects. These libraries have extensive collections devoted to arts, natural history, science and storytelling, and also offer events, activities, and exhibits for readers and researchers alike. -
Kansas was years ahead of most of the country in granting women full suffrage. A prank by a few men backfired when Susanna Madora Salter was elected mayor of Argonia, Kansas, in 1887. -
Twenty-two Kansas City-based Latino artists spent close to a year curating an exhibit called “A Layered Presence.” It is the third installment of the KC Art Now initiative to display more local work in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. -
To start the Halloween season, The Coterie Theater is bringing Gothic horror performances back to Union Cemetery, the state’s oldest public graveyard and the final resting place of many Kansas City founders.
