By MICHAEL BUSHNELL
Northeast News
June 14, 2017
This view of The Paseo, between 15th and 16th streets, looks north toward the old Chace School, circa 1907 or 1908. The Chace Public School was built in 1880 and served what was then a sparsely populated area near what is now The Grove Park. The school was named for former mayor and prominent businessman, Charles A. Chace.
Chace was born in 1835 and moved west in the mid-1860s, settling in Kansas City in 1867. At the time he moved here, he was an agent for the Hannibal, Quincy & Saint Joseph Railroad, the same company that worked with then Congressman R.T. Van Horn on securing the region’s first railroad bridge across the Missouri River. Chace also operated a feed and grain business at 1306 Grand St., and he was a partner in the Sheridan Hotel at 212 W. Fifth St. Chace served a two-year term as mayor of Kansas City, between 1880-81.
The view in the card has changed drastically since its printing. The lake was covered in 1907 and was used for flowerbeds between the northbound and southbound lanes of the Paseo. The school was razed in 1913 and is now the site of the busy Interstate 70 and Paseo interchange. The Paseo was one of Kansas City’s first boulevards and was named and modeled after Mexico City’s Paseo de la Reforma.
This Detroit Publishing “Phostint” Postcard was mailed June 13, 1912, to Miss Gertrude Koehring, Lawrence, Kan. The message on the back reads, “There are twelve of the party here at the depot with more to join us in St. Paul. A dear little Dorothy Peters is very interesting. Tell you more about her later. Alfa.”