By Michael Bushnell
Northeast News
February 4, 2015

Hardly the downtown of today, this black and white lithographed postcard shows a view looking east-northeast from the Coates House Hotel at 11th Street and Broadway Boulevard.

Published by the Southwest News Company of Kansas City and printed in Leipzig-Berlin, Germany, the undivided back card shows what the downtown area looked like between 1905 and 1906. The distinctive “onion-dome” roof of the Coates House’s tower can be seen in the foreground. The Savoy Hotel can be seen near the center of the card just to the right of the old Board of Trade Building.

Built between 1886 and 1888, the impressive seven story building was designed by the noted Chicago architectural firm of Burnham and Root.

The Board of Trade Building was the center of Kansas City’s grain market from the time it was finished until 1925 when trading activities moved farther south in the city. It was considered to be one of Root’s finest designs.

Just to the right of the Board of Trade Building is another of Kansas City’s first skyscrapers, the New York Life Building. Built during the same time period as the Board of Trade Building, the New York Life Building still stands today as a shining example of 19th Century Renaissance Revival/Italianate architectural style.

A huge, bronze eagle weighing close to 4,000 lbs. and boasting a wingspan of nearly 12 feet stands watch over the front courtyard of the building, which was long heralded as Kansas City’s first skyscraper.

In the far right of the picture the domed roof of the Federal Building can be seen at the corner of 8th Street and Grand Avenue. The building served as a main Post Office and Federal Courthouse for many years until the building of the “new” Federal Courthouse occurred in the 1930s.

Interspersed throughout the photo are private residences. It was still common to see a private home next to a 3- or 4-story building in the downtown area as there were few zoning laws present to monitor what sort of development occurred on a given block.

It would not be long. however, until the fabric of downtown would change drastically with the onset of construction of numerous ‘skyscrapers,’ including the National Bank of Commerce, the R.A. Long and Scarritt Buildings.