Charles O. Finley, owner of the Kansas City Athletics, with Charlie O., the team’s mascot. [Jackson County Historical Society Archives, photo #2017.006.188]

Kansas City’s sports fans might be forgiven for overlooking or choosing to forget that…

William T. Kemper in 1902. [Political History of Jackson County: Biographical Sketches of the Men Who Have Helped to Make It (1902)]

Progenitor of two of Missouri’s most prominent banking families, William T. Kemper also…

Isaac McCoy. [Oklahoma Historical Society, Muriel Wright Collection, 15075]

Isaac McCoy was born on June 13, 1784, in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. At the age of six,…

George Caleb Bingham’s depiction of the violence and tragedy of the Missouri-Kansas border war in his iconic painting Order No. 11. [State Historical Society of Missouri Art Collection, 1945.0003]

Civil war raged along the Kansas-Missouri border for nearly a…

William Rockhill Nelson. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Missouri Press Portraits Collection, P1196-014545]

Of British, Quaker, and Huguenot heritage, William Rockhill Nelson was born five miles west…

Jack Oakie. [University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, J. Willis Sayre Collection of Theatrical Photographs, JWS25751]

Jack Oakie was long considered one of the screen’s most notorious scene-stealers. He had a…

William Powell on a card distributed with packs of cigarettes. [New York Public Library Digital Collections, George Arents Collection, 1206072]

William Horatio Powell was the epitome of the suave, urbane leading man throughout his…

Dr. Katharine Berry Richardson. [Courtesy of Children’s Mercy Kansas City]

Katharine Berry Richardson founded the highly respected Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas…

Edgar Snow. [University of Missouri–Kansas City Special Collections, KC.19.2.9-11-00002]

Edgar Snow grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, where he was born on July 17, 1905. After a…

Gladys Swarthout with costar Jan Kiepura from the movie Give Us This Night (1936). [New York Public Library Digital Collections, Billy Rose Theatre Collection, psnypl_the_5262]

Gladys Swarthout, a concert and operatic mezzo-­soprano, was born in Deepwater, Missouri,…