Fate is working in my favor these days. Let me explain...
When I mentioned to Marty Thoennes that my blog post with Central Avenue pictures was getting a great response, he said that the photos had come to the Central Area Betterment Association from retired KCK Police Captain Charles Steele.
Just a morning or two later, I read an email from Patty Dysart in which she said that the special guest at the Armourdale Optimist Club meeting this month would be… Charles Steele... talking about the history of Central Avenue!
Jackpot! How could it get better? A great lunch and an opportunity to talk to Mr. Steele about the photos. The Optimist Club meeting was last Tuesday and it turned out better than I could have ever hoped. Mr. Steele had brought along a handful of new photos that I hadn't seen yet and he loaned them to me so that I could scan them and share them with you.
These photos shift our focus from Central Avenue to the east end of Minnesota Avenue and some of the blocks around it.
He also told me how he ended up with the photos.
As we figured last time, most of the photos in these two collections were taken in the mid-1940s. They were taken by Police Department photographers (for a variety of reasons including documenting the streets, planning traffic control, planning future street improvements, etc.).
Mr. Steele said that in the early 1970s some of the administrators within the Police Department ordered the photos to be thrown away because they were taking up storage space that was needed for other files.
He said that one day at Police Headquarters, he happened to see some employees tearing the old photos in half and putting them in a trashcan. He said that he stopped them and told them he would take all of the photos rather than see them thrown away. Way to go Captain Steele!
So here we go… Avenues (Part 2). As I did last time, I took my cell phone camera out on the street and snapped a current photo that is as close to the original view as possible.
I hope you enjoy this set as much as you did the first. I've also picked up a couple of leads on additional photos and postcards, so this definitely won't be the last post in the "Then and Now" series. :-)
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| This picture was taken from the southeast corner of 5th & Minnesota (where the EPA building is) and is looking north / northwest up 5th Street. |
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| The Federal Court House on State Avenue dominates the view today. The Reardon Center is in the foreground on the left. The Children's Campus is just out of the picture to the right |
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| From the edge of Huron Park looking east on Armstrong. |
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| Fire Headquarters still looks much the same, but the rest of the picture is remarkably different. |
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| Looking north along an alley that was "behind" the old City Hall (now City Hall lofts). The photographer was standing just east of 6th Street on Ann Avenue. |
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| The old City Hall building is still there (now converted to lofts). The building on the right served for years as the Police garage. |
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| Looking west on Minnesota Avenue. The photographer was standing about halfway between 5th and 6th Streets. |
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| The Commercial National Bank building (now UMB) is still present at the corner of 6th (at left) and the Kresge building (white) is still present across the street, but there have been lots of other changes. |
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| Still looking west on Minnesota Avenue. The photographer is now standing just a little west of the 6th and Minnesota intersection. |
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| Lots of changes (and a few new gaps) on this block. |
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| Looking north on 7th Street from the intersection of 7th Street and Ann Avenue. |
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| The Security Bank building now dominates the view on the left. The old Scottish Rite Temple on the right is now the 7th Street Casino. |
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| Looking south / southeast from 8th and State Avenue. The antenna in the right background was for KCKN radio (which had studios on the 2nd floor of the Kansan building). |
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| The KCKN antenna is gone on the right, but you can see the reflections from the windows of the new Brotherhood tower on the left. |
Have a great week!
~ Brian
bmckiernan@wycokck.org
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