Michael Bushnell
Publisher

Downtown Kansas City’s Stats Hotel at 12th & Wyandotte was proclaimed to be at the center of everything when it was built in 1923 by Samuel J. Stats. The hotel’s grand opening was in 1924 and featured 250 rooms with 250 baths, all with outside exposure. Ice water and electric fans were available with rates ranging from $1.50 to $3.50 for a single. In 1934 the property was purchased by the Tri-State Hotel Company and the name was changed to the State Hotel. In 1960, it was purchased by Ben Weinberg who quickly lost it back to Hotel Stats Incorporated.

The hotel was, quite literally, in the center of everything given its proximity to over two dozen other hotels within a two-block radius. Additionally, when the Stats was built in 1923, Kansas City’s Convention Hall was catty-corner across the street at 13th & Wyandotte on the lot that is now Barney Allis Plaza. In 1936 when Municipal Auditorium was completed and Convention Hall was razed, the Stats still maintained a strong trade, mostly of business travelers with interests downtown or in the stockyards district in the West Bottoms.

The Stats however, also has the distinction of being what many consider to be the epicenter of the gay rights movement on a national level. In February of 1966, when the North American Conference of Homophile Organizations (NACHO, pronounced NAY-CO) was born out of the two-day conference at The Stats.

This conference predates by three years the nationally recognized Stonewall Riots in New York City in June of 1969 after police raided the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. The ensuing and often violent protests by gay activists were long thought to be the original catalyst for the gay rights movement.
In a 2016 article by the late Charles Feruzza published by KCUR years before the LGBT acronym became widely known, gay and lesbian activists pushed for acceptance of the “homophile” community. By using the suffix “phile”, activists hoped to educate the community that they were more than the sex in “homosexual.” NACHO’s goal was to expand coordination among homophile organizations in the United States.

The Stats Hotel was razed in 1973 for lack of business. By that time, trends in shopping and business activities were quickly shifting to the suburbs, leaving many downtown hotels, department stores and office buildings to die on the vine.

In the late 1980’s, George K. Baum Real Estate announced plans for a new, steel and glass tower to be erected on the site of the old Stats Hotel.

On October 20, 2016, a bronze, historic marker recognizing Kansas City’s official role in LGBT history was dedicated on the southwest corner of 12th & Wyandotte in Barney Allis Plaza, across the street from the site of the old Stats Hotel, commemorating the first-ever, national meeting of LGBT rights activists. The site is a stop on the KC Rainbow Tour as well.