-
Artist Luis Quintanilla fled the Spanish Civil War to escape persecution, but most of his work was destroyed. Today, one of his two remaining murals sits in an otherwise ordinary corner of the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Newly restored, Quintanilla’s bizarre and enthralling masterpiece stands as a testament to immigrants and the danger of authoritarianism.
-
The Mizzou Tigers and the Kansas Jayhawks are set to take the field on Saturday for the first time since 2011.
-
Once strong and thriving, Clayton’s Black community was wiped out by urban renewal policies that drove out several hundred residents during the 1950s and '60s. Now the city's downtown business district stands in its place.
-
Kansas City’s central location and easy access to rail travel, along with Missouri’s simplified adoption laws favoring secrecy, attracted prospective parents from around the U.S. Over the first part of the 20th century, more than a dozen homes for unwed mothers flourished, the largest and most well-known of which was The Willows.
-
Lead plaintiff Oliver Brown's name rings loudest from the 1954 Brown v. Board desegregation case, but 12 women fought alongside him in Topeka. Kansas Historical Society curator Donna Rae Pearson's "Women of Brown" exhibit helps tell their story.
-
The landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that outlawed racial segregation in public schools may have played out differently if it hadn’t been for a tenacious group of women in Johnson County, Kansas, who led their own integration lawsuit five years earlier. The case centered around a two-room schoolhouse and included a lengthy boycott, big-shot NAACP lawyers, FBI surveillance — and six very brave children.
-
Lawrin was owned by Herbert Woolf, the president of Woolf Brothers, one of the most important clothing stores in Kansas City history. Woolf also had an odd connection to political boss Tom Pendergast.
-
Kansas City native Edward J. Dwight Jr. is set to be on the next Blue Origin rocket into space. The rare opportunity comes more than six decades after he was passed over to become a NASA astronaut.
-
Business owners have campaigned for nearly two years to sever Troost Avenue from its slaveholding past. But the effort has hit a bureaucratic roadblock, as Mayor Quinton Lucas tries to avoid another public controversy like the failed renaming of The Paseo.
-
Once seen as a musical relic, audio cassettes have survived the eras of CDs and streaming to win over music lovers of a new generation. That’s in large part thanks to the National Audio Company in Springfield, Missouri, the largest cassette manufacturer in the world.
-
Would the Chiefs and Royals really leave Kansas City if the sales tax vote fails? History says maybeRepresentatives of the Chiefs and Royals have suggested they would consider other “options” if Jackson County voters don't approve a sales tax to help fund a downtown ballpark and upgrade Arrowhead. It's not inconceivable that a professional sports team would leave Kansas City — because it's happened before.
-
If Jackson County voters feel conflicted about the April 2 stadium sales tax vote to help finance a new downtown ballpark for the Royals and Arrowhead Stadium improvements for the Chiefs, they can be confident in this: political fights over stadiums is a local tradition that goes back at least 93 years.
-
Missouri, which earned the infamous nickname of "meth capital of America," played a key role in the drug's spread across the country. A new podcast tells that story.
-
Up until a few weeks ago, Lynette Woodard from the University of Kansas had scored more points in college basketball than any woman ever. But she was never recognized by the NCAA as a scoring champion.
-
Author Frances Levine tells the stories of a mix of women, each with different and very personal reasons for taking America’s first great international commercial highway to the West, in her book "Crossings: Women on the Santa Fe Trail."
-
The exhibit includes 135 handmade antique dolls — some that were made by enslaved people — and about 60 period photographs showing dolls, children and adults posing for the camera. But not everyone involved in the Kansas City showing is completely comfortable with it.
-
As Kansas City celebrates the Chiefs’ third consecutive Super Bowl appearance, the team name, logo, and some problematic fan customs like the “tomahawk chop” are once again being broadcast worldwide. But where did it all start, and how did the team avoid becoming the Kansas City Texans?
-
Watermark West Rare Bookstore has overcome challenges for 40 years, including the internet upending the book business and a drop in rare book collecting. Owner Philip McComish doesn't know what the future holds for his historical repository.
-
In 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.
-
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.
-
Despite her success in the 1930s, Dana Suesse’s music remains underappreciated. From piano concertos infused with jazz to popular film music, Suesse was a woman of great musical prowess.
-
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.