Missouri history

This summer, students in Western Michigan University's "Walt's Pilgrimage" class visited the small Missouri town of Marceline, discovering the inspiration behind Disney's fantastical worlds.

For decades, the names of thousands of local enslaved people lay hidden in deeds, wills, probate records and bills of sale. A recent discovery is shedding new light on Missouri's history of slavery.

The Sondern-Adler House was the famous architect’s first design for Kansas City. Since it was built in 1940, it has had six owners, including prominent arts philanthropist Richard J. Stern.

The 1951 Black Friday Flood on the Kaw River destroyed Kansas City's Stockyards and meatpacking industry, did $12 billion worth of damage and displaced 750,000 people.

Author Craig Fehrman will be at the Kansas City Public Library later this month for a conversation about his new book "This Vast Enterprise: A New History of Lewis & Clark."

Mark Twain’s hometown of Hannibal, Missouri, contains many of the inspirations for “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.”

During the first weekend in May, Latinos from across Kansas City celebrated 100 years of a beloved Cinco de Mayo fiesta at the Guadalupe Centers. What began as an annual celebration of Mexican immigrants and their cultural roots has grown into a weekend-long block party filled with music, food and the chance for longtime supporters to reconnect.

The eight-state highway's origins started in Springfield, Missouri, a century ago on April 30, 1926. The route helped keep some Missouri and Kansas towns afloat during the Great Depression and after World War II.

"The Ghost of the Colonial Hotel" was unveiled this week at the exact moment a telegraph was sent officially naming Route 66, 100 years ago.

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: digging streets for the city from rocks and mud.

As the United States’ first federal highway system, Route 66 connected people and places across the country. It was a symbol of adventure but also independence, especially for Black travelers through Missouri.

Kansas City, Missouri, became the first major city in the U.S. to repeal its anti-jaywalking ordinance, after research found that tickets were being disproportionately issued to Black men. It’s a full-circle moment, because Kansas City was also the first city to criminalize jaywalking more than a century earlier.