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Michael Bushnell
Publisher
A two story home at 214 Wabash Avenue was built in 1895 for Hugh McKean. In 1907, Dr. Elmore Smith purchased the property and officed on one side and lived on the other. Dr. Smith advertised home treatments for cancer.
As recounted in the Pendleton Heights Then and Now book published in 2011, Dr. Smith’s daughter Pearl was kidnapped on November 22, 1907 by a snubbed suitor, one Clay Fulton. Fulton purchased a revolver and later that same night went to the Smith home on Wabash.
Fulton took Pearl at gunpoint and they walked south on Wabash to 9th Street, turning west toward the Paseo. It was a typical cold November evening in Kansas City and Pearl finally convinced Fulton to go into a restaurant to call his sister to bring her a coat. When Fulton was on the phone, Pearl escaped to Newcomer Undertaking rooms. David Newcomer and employee P.M. McDaniel led Pearl to a shed where she hid in a wagon for two hours until she was out of danger. Police were then summoned to the Newcomer facility where Fulton was apprehended and detained. Fulton resided at 1438 E. 14th Street at the time. Interestingly, Dr. Elmore Smith was the person assigned to ascertain Fulton’s sanity following the incident.
Smith continued his medical practice out of the home as late as 1923 according to City Directories. The house is still standing as late as 1940 as evidenced in the 1940 Kansas City Tax Assessment database.
In the late 1960’s a three story apartment building was constructed on the site. No evidence of the Dr. Emory Smith home exists today.
On the back of the postcard, is this verse:
Friendship’s Road
Sweet is the journey on friendship’s road,
No matter how far or heavy the load,
Bright is the radiance of friendship’s light,
No matter how dismal or dark the night,
E’en though the things of life go wrong,
Friendships arm is willing and strong,
And happiness dwells at the journey’s end,
In the laugh and the smile of an old time friend.
E.O. Smith M.D., Specialist in skin and cancer diseases
214 Wabash Ave.
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