Squier Park Historic District

Kansas City's Squier Park Historic District is bounded by Armour Boulevard, The Paseo, East 39th Street, and Troost Avenue. The district is located on land once owned by William Stewart the first settler of European origin whio traveled from Kentucky to what would become Kansas City in 1836 and developed a highly successful farm. Squier sold the land to the man who would become the neighborhood's namesake, James J. Squier, who built a grand estate and eventually designed a future subdivision. Squier's son-in-law and a real estate investor Robert Jones developed subdivisions on the land in 1908, and bucking the trend of following the city grid, he included winding roads. Numerous homes were constructed in the next two decades, each with unique designs that represented the diversity of architectural styles during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Wealthy and up-and-coming professionals served as the principal residents of the neighborhood, taking advantage of the streetcar line on Troost Ave that took them back and forth to downtown Kansas City. By the 1930s, the Great Depression and restrictive covenants started a trend where upper-middle-class residents left Squier Park for more recently established neighborhoods.

Kansas City's Squier Park Historic District is a sixteen-block residential neighborhood on land once owned by James J. Squier. Squier's son-in-law, Robert Jones, planned the development of the area as a streetcar suburb, and planned some of the unique winding streets.

The neighborhood's namesake, James J. Squier, purchased land from William Stewart in 1881. Stewart had moved to Kansas City from Kentucky in 1836 and developed a highly successful farm. By 1881, Stewart amassed one of the most extensive tracts of land near Kansas City; he sold 160 acres of land to Squier for $10,000. Squier, born in Pennsylvania in 1836, managed a hardware store in Cambridge, Ohio, with his father in 1856 before moving to Chicago to open another store. He eventually left the store and engaged in a highly successful career in cattle. Like many of that era, he moved from Chicago to cities along the Missouri River, closer to the Plains. In 1872, Squier moved to Kansas City to work as a cattle buyer for the Fowler packing house and eventually accumulated a vast fortune. Typical of many successful business owners in the Gilded Age, Squier co-founded two banks: Citizens' National Bank in 1882 and Interstate National Bank in 1889, both essentially serving as cattlemen's banks. 

Ever the investor and opportunist, Squier realized that the Kansas City limits were progressing south and east, closer to his property. In 1887, within two years after the city limits extended to 31st Street, Squier filed two plats for subdivisions of his property known as Squier Place. Squier died in 1900, leaving his estate to his wife and Cora, his only daughter. While on the East Coast, Cora met Robert Valentine Jones, a successful residential developer; the two married in 1902. Although James Squire platted most of his Kansas City property by 1887, the lots still stood empty when Cora and Robert returned to Kansas City in 1908. Inspired by the opportunity, Jones formed a real estate and mortgage company, the Manheim Realty & Investment Company, and subsequently developed a new plan for turning the land into a suburban community. 

Jones envisioned a suburban community with a street layout that adhered to the area's topography instead of the city's street grid. Built from roughly 1909 through the 1920s, many of the homes contained such luxuries as hot water heat, sleeping porches, and multiple bathrooms. But, these houses struggled to sell. The Jones-Squier family home also stood in what is now Squire Park, with the home occupying a city block and the grounds encompassing another 52 acres. Numerous prominent Kansas City architects designed homes in Squier Park, resulting in a diverse collection of styles, mainly due to the requirement that each house in Squire Park possess a unique design. Today, one can see the layout of the south blocks, which reflects Jones' vision of creating a residential haven with winding streets and a park-like environment. After Robert and Cora Jones divorced in 1925, the couple sold their estate to a developer who tore down their property to develop the entire lot as "Squier Manor Community Center," which consisted of apartments, businesses, a theater, and a hotel. The plan never materialized, leaving it to be subdivided into residential lots by 1930, one of the final steps in the development of Squire Park. 

In addition to the neighborhood's design and its abundance of diverse, unique architecture, Squier Park serves as a reminder of the numerous streetcar suburbs that developed during the early twentieth century. The development of streetcars allowed middle-class residents to move away from business centers into suburban locations. The original owners of Squier Park homes consisted of upper-middle-class citizens with occupations that included architects, attorneys, artists, entrepreneurs, and company executives from such industries as automobiles, jewelry, lumber, iron, and railroads. In places like Squire Park, the professionals and artisans could enjoy newer home construction, parks, and walkways while also taking advantage of the streetcar line running along Troost Ave on Squire Park's western boundary that brought them downtown. 

The 1930s saw many changes take place in Squire Park. First, the Great Depression hit many of the residents hard, forcing them to leave their homes. And then, in 1934, the Federal Housing Administration ushered in the era of guarding White-only subdivisions by allowing for restrictive covenants. As a result, Troost Avenue evolved into a border between Black and White neighborhoods, with Whites living east and Blacks west, leading to Troost's decline by the 1970s. Squire Park stood just west of Troost, which led to a period of "white flight," notably after World War II; numerous White residents left the neighborhood from the 1950s to the 1970s. 

In recent years, Urban Neighborhood Initiative (UNI) has sought "to break the inter-generational cycle of poverty and historical racial inequities caused by decades of neglect and systemic racism by helping to build healthy neighborhoods that enable all children and families to thrive." Part of that mission has included the revival of Squier Park, which received a place on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012, becoming only the second residential district east of Troost to earn the designation.

Euston, Diane and Tim Reidy. "Dissecting the Troost Divide and racial segregation in Kansas City." Martin City & South KC Telegraph. June 30, 2020. https://martincitytelegraph.com/2020/06/30/dissecting-the-troost-divide-and-racial-segregation-in-kansas-city/.

"Manheim Park." Urban Neighborhood Initiative (UNI). uni-kc.org. Accessed October 22, 2021. https://uni-kc.org/neighborhoods/squier-park/.

Nugent, Rachel and Matthew Nugent, Amy Crouse, Grace Lee, Judy Shifrin, Pamala Wright. "Nomination Form: Squier Park Historic District." National Register of Historic Places. archives. gov. 2011. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/77835187#.YXLksA_wZzE.link.

Salzman, Eric. "For decades a dividing line, Troost Avenue in Kansas City, Mo., sees new hope." NBC News. October 12. 2018. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/decades-dividing-line-troost-avenue-kansas-city-mo-sees-new-n918851.