By Michael Bushnell
Northeast News
November 4, 2015

What began in 1891 in two rented rooms in the Schutte Building near 11th Street and Grand Avenue grew to more than 470 students and twenty instructors in 1908 when it was known as the largest school of its kind in the country and the fourth largest in the world.

This Hall Brothers postcard shows the Kansas City Veterinary College as it looked in 1908 when it was located at 14th Street and Holmes Road. Under the leadership of Robert Cummings Moore, who was elected president of the school’s board, the facility grew rapidly and purchased ground for a new building on 15th Street. The first floor housed offices, a library, a pharmacy, a college room, the clinic wards of the hospital and a large clinical amphitheater. On the second floor were classrooms, a large museum, microscopic laboratory as well as wards for small animals.

War, however, was looming in Europe at this time, and when the World War I draft was instituted in 1918, the student population dwindled to almost zero, forcing the closure of the school.

The Interstate Casket Company later used the building until the late 1930s. After a fire in the 1950s, part of the structure was razed. The rest of the lot was claimed for a new Interstate highway project in the late 50s.