By Michael Bushnell
Northeast News
September 14, 2011

Around the turn of the 20th Century, it was not uncommon for local photo-postcard companies to go door to door in Kansas City’s more affluent neighborhoods, take a photo of the home, then sell copies of the photo in postcard form to the homeowner as a “keepsake” the family could send to friends out of town, announcing their new real estate acquisition.

This real photo postcard was published by the Fred B. Schell Company, Central Building, Kansas City & Union Square in New York City.

The card shows “The Roberts Home, located in Mellier Place, Kansas City, MO.” Mellier Place is a subdivision located in what is today the Volker Neighborhood, bounded by 37th Street on the north, 39th Street to the south, Wyoming on the east and State Line on the west. The addition was platted by Walter Mellier, vice president of the Mellier-Duncan Real Estate Company, Kansas City.

Mellier, a St. Louis born cattle dealer turned real estate developer, came to Kansas City in 1879. His company platted numerous additions in the midtown area, thus capitalizing on Kansas City’s great land boom of the early 20th Century. Those additions included: Llewellyn Park (1886), Kenwood and Kenwood Annex (1886), Murray Hill (1886), Mellier Place (1887), Dickinson Place (1887), Mellier Place Annex (1889), Bonfils Place (1887), Bonfils Heights (1897), Mellier Park (1900) and Corbin Place (1902).

Some of the more notable residents of the Mellier Place area were William Volker, whose Roselawn Estate was located in the 3700 block of Bell; former City Assessor George Lee; and A. Wallace Love, a noted building contractor and operator of the Phoenix Drug Store called Mellier Place Home.

No information was given about the Roberts family who owned this home. The card bears a date of May, 1901 and has never been mailed.