Bryan Stalder
Contributor

In the autumn of 1916, a lanky young man of just fifteen years shuffled through the crowded halls of Northeast High School, his sketchpad tucked under one arm like a shield against the world. He was a quiet sort, with sharp eyes that darted to every shadow and curve, already dreaming in lines and forms that others couldn’t quite see. Earnest and a bit withdrawn— he navigated algebra and history lessons that felt as distant as the stars he sometimes etched in the margins of his notebooks.

His family’s home at 23rd & Hardesty Avenue was small, plain, and nothing special to passersby. But inside, at the kitchen table, the young man would sketch. Over and over, he filled scraps of paper with drawings. A mere hobby which helped him to develop an eye for detail and a hunger to create. 

His father had come a long way to build this life. A German immigrant and a studio photographer, he captured frozen moments on glass plates and early film stock. It was in his father’s dim, chemical-scented darkroom that this young man first glimpsed the magic of the film industy—flickering reels of shadow and light that danced like living drawings.

And then one day, his father was gone- walked out and never came back. The young man was forced to drop out of school, not because he wanted to, but because someone had to keep food on the table for his mother and four younger siblings. He took a job engraving checks at a bank note company, his steady hands learning deft precision and repetition.

This skill carried him to the Pesmen-Rubin Commercial Art Studio, a bustling hive of ink and ambition in downtown Kansas City. By 1919, at eighteen, he was already a standout commercial artist and illustrator with the steady hand of a surgeon. Expert in drafting, he wielded lettering like poetry and airbrushed shadows with surgical grace, turning ads into windows to other worlds.

Then, in the fall of that year, a new apprentice arrived—another Missouri native, fresh-faced and full of fire— was hired to hustle sketches for holiday catalogs. The two teens, both on the cusp of manhood, found themselves side by side at scarred drafting tables, the air thick with the scent of India ink and fresh newsprint.

But the art world, like life, had its ebbs and flows. Come the new year, after the holiday rush faded, the orders dried up. The studio’s doors swung shut on both of them—laid off, pockets light, futures adrift. Yet in that sting of rejection, opportunity flickered.

Together, the two young men hustled for jobs, drew ads, and made slides for local theaters. Then came something bigger. An experiment in moving drawings. A little studio at 31st and Forest, filled with teenagers who believed they could turn doodles into stories. The dream was too big for their bank accounts, and the company didn’t last. But the lessons did.

When the time came to invent something new—something the world had never seen—it was the quiet one, the young man from Hardesty Avenue, who sat down with his pencil and made it real.

The drawings poured out of him, hundreds a day. He went on to create a character that would outlive them both. A cheerful little mouse, drawn with simple lines, but filled with life. The partner with the big dreams gave it a voice and a name, while the partner with skilled hands gave it a face the world would never forget.

The whole world knows the dreamer by name… Walt Disney. But the lesser-known boy from Hardesty Avenue was Ub Iwerks. Together, they gave the world Mickey Mouse.

And now you know the rest of the story.

To learn more about the nearly forgotten history of Ub Iwerks, read A Mouse Divided: by Jeff Ryan published in 2019.

Mike Westby has also written a book, which was released in 2024, titled “Disney History: Rare & Unknown” where he identifies Ub Iwerks’ childhood home as the former location of The Yum Yum Express, a restaurant that closed in 2020. The property is currently vacant.