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A People's History of Kansas City

Carving Kansas City out from limestone

By Jacob Smollen
Published April 29, 2026 at 4:00 AM CDT
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Laborers in Kansas City, Missouri cutting through the bluff on Walnut Street in 1868. The photograph was taken from 3rd Street facing north.
Warner Studio
/
Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library / Crysta Henthorne, KCUR 89.3
Laborers in Kansas City, Missouri cutting through the bluff on Walnut Street in 1868. The photograph was taken from 3rd Street facing north.

Bluffs up to 120 feet tall once hugged the Missouri River by Kansas City — making it difficult to traverse the landscape and expand the growing town. So in the mid-1800s, a Catholic priest named Father Bernard Donnelly recruited hundreds of Irish immigrants for a dangerous but critical task: sculpting the city's streets from mountains of rock and mud. KCUR's Jacob Smollen reports.

This episode of A People's History of Kansas City was reported, produced, and mixed by Jacob Smollen with editing by Suzanne Hogan, Mackenzie Martin and Gabe Rosenberg.

A People's History of Kansas City
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Jacob Smollen
Jacob Smollen is the 2025-2026 intern for KCUR Studios. Email him at jsmollen@kcur.org.
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