Grandview Residential Historic District

The Grandview Residential Historic District contains several Queen Anne, Tudor Revival, and Craftsman styles of homes and serves as a reminder of the early growth of the city east from the railroad tracks. Many of the homes in the district are located on parcels of land that were platted in 1912 and 1925. Grandview itself began as a railroad town when two lines came through during the 1880s and 1890s. Residential development followed, with gridded roads spreading outward from the city's commercial center located near the railroad depots.

Grandview's evolution from a railroad village during the 1880s to a modern Kansas City suburb after World War II can be seen by walking through the Grandview Residential Historic District and viewing the original homes. This 10.8-acre (irregularly-shaped) district is south and east of Grandview's downtown, the community's historic commercial center which straddles the Kansas City Southern Railroad tracks and the original St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad tracks. This residential district serves as a reminder of Grandview's expansion and evolution from a small railroad town to a suburb accessed by several roads and highways. 

Grandview, Missouri, emerged as a railroad town, starting with the establishment of a railroad station in 1889. The new village benefitted from the growing populace of the Kansas City metro area, as well as the expanding agricultural market economy in the city's hinterlands. Before the railroad's arrival, the sparse road network limited the farmers' (in and near Grandview) ability to ship their surplus crops and livestock to Kansas City or other parts of the nation. The town relied on horse-drawn wagons to bring in freight from Lee's Summit or Westport, both of which required an eight-mile journey over at least one large stream. However, the railway expansion into Grandview boosted the town's and its nearby farmer's economic growth. 

During an economic depression in 1873, a few years after rail lines connected Kansas City with Lee's Summit, the Kansas City, Memphis, and Mobile Railroad Company proposed constructing a railway line through the previously bypassed southern and western Jackson County (where Grandview is located). That same year, the company purchased the "rights of way" across farms in the path of the proposed line in the southwest part of the county. In the mid-1880s, The Kansas City and Southern Railway Company purchased this right-of-way and subsequently established stations, erected depots, installed switching tracks, and built employee housing along the line. By April 1889, a small depot stood alongside the tracks in Grandview. Farmers James G. Feland and James W. Jones partnered to plat a new town on their land near the Kansas City and Southern Railway Company depot in Grand View. Another farmer, John Anderson, applied in 1889 to the United States Postal Service (USPS) to establish an office in the new town, which he noted should be called Grand View; the post office name became the town name. 

The railroad depot, post office, and town platting served as the first signs of a developing new city, bolstered by a second railway line proposed for Grandview in 1890 by the Kansas City, Nevada, and Ft. Smith Railroad Company; they opened a second depot in Grandview in 1897. Indeed, Grand View enjoyed continued expansion, which included an influx of both working- and middle-class residents. The homes built during the early twentieth century reflected a person's socio-economic class, but homes for both classes arose rapidly. Although most residential development in the nation by the early twentieth century strayed from the nineteenth-century urban grid patterns, Grand View's residential development adhered to the traditional grid style. The railroad played the most significant role in residential construction as most residential developments straddled the rail lines. All told, by 1910, two years before the incorporation of Grand View, the town boasted of several dry goods stores; two churches, two schoolhouses, a stockyard, doctors, dentists, and a drug store; a lumberyard and hardware store; a newspaper; a pool hall, two barbershops, candy shops, restaurants, a hotel, and a host of residential construction.

By the interwar period, roads and automobiles began to supplant railroads as the dominant mode of transportation, which led to a physical shift to the east of its original commercial center. Indeed, by 1923, the Missouri State Highway Department supplanted railroad companies as the catalyst for new public, commercial, and residential development. By the 1930s, the Great Depression slowed the town's progress. However, one significant event occurred during this stagnant period, which reflected past growth trends and affected future growth and development patterns: the 1934 annexation, which reflects both railroad-related commercial and industrial development and residential development in Grandview. The large portion of annexed land encompassing the railroad junction north of town was ideal for expanding commercial and industrial development in this area adjacent to critical railroad lines. The annexation also contained a small two-block area bounded by Highgrove Road to the north, Pinkston Avenue to the south, Grandview Road to the west, and 13ih Street to the east. The annexation reflected the residential development already underway at this location, which was part of the 1925 Grandview Gardens Addition and comprised today's Grandview Residential Historic District. 

City of Grandview Community Development Department. "Grandview Residential Historic District." City of Grandview. December 2016. https://www.grandview.org/home/showdocument?id=6548.

Schwenk, Sally F. "Registration Form: Grandview Residential Historic District." National Register of Historic Places. mostateparks.com. 2005. https://mostateparks.com/sites/mostateparks/files/Grandview%20Res%20HD.pdf.