Kansas City Terminal Railway Company Roundhouse

The historic Kansas City Terminal Railway Company Roundhouse, which is now an office building, represents the crucial role railroads played in the development of Kansas City as a major economic center in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was built in 1914, the same year the nearby Union Station was completed. The roundhouse and its auxiliary buildings operated as a service and maintenance facility for passenger train engines, tender cars, and switch engines. As its name implies, the roundhouse is in the shape of a semi-circle and is adjacent to a large turntable used to rotate train engines and cars. A rail car remains on display on the turntable. The roundhouse along with some of the auxiliary buildings comprise the Kansas City Terminal Railway Company Roundhouse Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.

Roundhouses became the standard design for many train service and maintenance facilities in America by the late 19th century. These facilities were a critical part of the railroad infrastructure since early steam engines required regular maintenance, water, and fuel every 30 miles. Given their size, roundhouses were more expensive to build, however, than square "engine houses." As a result, many were erected by a consortium of railroad companies.

This is how the Kansas City Terminal Railway Company Roundhouse was built. By the early 1900s, the previous Union Station—a three-story, French Renaissance building located in the West Bottoms near the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers—was no longer adequate to meet the needs of the growing city. In 1890, the size of the population was around 171,000. In 1910, that number grew to 330, 712. The number of freight cars operating at the nearby freight yard increased to over 22,000 per day. The station itself was falling into disrepair as well and could not be expanded since it was surrounded by livestock pens, meat packinghouses and other industrial facilities. The smell from the livestock pens was unpleasant as well. The site was also prone to flooding, which occurred in 1903.

As a result of these factors, the city, the railroad companies, and the Union Depot Company which operated the station, decided it was time to build the present Union Station. In 1905, the companies agreed to build it together. Negotiations about how to proceed continued until the next year when they agreed to merge with the Union Depot Company and the Kansas City Belt Railway Company to form the Kansas City Terminal Railway Company. The plan to build the station and roundhouse took shape in the next few years and residents voted in favor of it in September 1909. Construction delays pushed the completion of both until 1914.

The roundhouse was supposed to be nearly completely circular with two openings but only two sections were built. It was powered by electricity and featured a series of stalls with drop pits and sewer drains, a ventilation system, and an elaborate plumbing system. Large windows allowed natural light to illuminate the interior. It saw peak usage from 1914 to the onset of the Great Depression and from the late 1930s through World War II. Around 6,000 people worked at the roundhouse. By 1940, at least 25 auxiliary buildings had been built including the original ones. By the 1960s there were at least 16 remaining.

The use of the roundhouse started to decline after World War II. Diesel engines soon replaced steam engines and passenger traffic decreased as well as people bought cars and traveled on planes to travel long distances. Roundhouses became obsolete and many were eventually demolished. The Kansas City Terminal roundhouse was abandoned in the 1970s but fortunately it was never torn down. It was restored and converted into office space in the 2000s and vacated in 2020.

Schwenk, Sally F. "Kansas City Terminal Railway Company Roundhouse Historic District." National Park Service - National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form. January 26, 2001. https://mostateparks.com/sites/mostateparks/files/KC%20Terminal%20Railway%20Co.%20Roundhouse%20HD.pdf.