Jarvis Hunt Room and Postal Service Exhibit

Named in honor of Jarvis Hunt, the Chicago-based architect who designed Union Station, this space at the northwest corner of Grand Hall was home to a men's smoking lounge. The space is now utilized for banquets and meetings. The room features some of Union's Station's historic chandeliers and marble floors. Jarvis Hunt designed numerous structures throughout the nation, including some of Kansas City's current landmarks like the Kansas City Star Building and the Commerce Trust Building. Just south of the Jarvis Hunt Room is an exhibit highlighting the connection between Union Station and the postal service. The utilization of railroads to move mail, especially after the completion of transcontinental routes, changed the way in which the people of the eastern and western United States communicated. After the completion of Union Station, most of the mail crossing the country passed through Kansas City. This exhibit highlights the advances that were made to both increase the efficiency of the process and to protect the health of Rail Post Office (RPO) workers. Established by the Government Employees Heath Association (GEHA) in collaboration with Union Station, the exhibit was dedicated on November 19, 2020. 

Jarvis Hunt Room

Jarvis Hunt may have been a product of wealth and societal connections, but the Chicago-born architect created his most famous work through shrewd decisions and the powerful force of his will. Hunt was accepted for the position of designing and building the new Kansas City Union Station almost without competition by the twelve organized rail lines that were working on the project. This happened through a chain of associations that traced back to the Chicago Golf Club.

Hunt's uncle, Richard Morris Hunt, was a popular and successful architect of his own, known for designing and building mansions and estates in Newport, Rhode Island and New York City. It was through these connections that Jarvis Hunt was selected to build the Chicago Golf Club's club house. From there, he was hired to build houses for a number of members along the course. Hunt competed in the 1904 World Olympics on the United States Gold Team.

Among the most beneficial of the Chicago tycoons, Jarvis Hunt became friends with the president of the Alton line, Samule Felton. Felton hired Hunt to build the new train station in Mexico, MO. This work and success was fresh on Felton's mind as he and the rest of the railroad presidents looked for someone to lead the project in Kansas City. To Felton, Hunt was the obvious choice. Edward Harriman, president of Union and Southern Pacific Railroads as well as the chair of the Terminal Railroad planning committee listened to Felton, so Hunt was his choice as well.

After being selected, it is rumored that Harriman gave hunt a single imperative to work with in his designs: "Make a monument."

Railroads and the Postal Service

With the Pacific Railway Act of 1862, President Abraham Lincoln solidified the growing relationship between mail services and the railroads. It stated that it was “An Act To aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean, and to secure to the Government the use of the same for postal, military, and other purposes.”

Rail Post Offices (RPOs) were formed soon after to take advantage of the expediency of the railroads. RPOs provided remarkable economic convenience for smaller towns along the train line by delivering the mail as they passed even when the train was not scheduled to stop. Instead of waiting for mail to be delivered to a depot at a determined stop and brought back to the town by wagon, residents received their mail much more quickly.

This service, however, slowed down the entire Railway Mail Service, and with-it passenger service, because trains were forced to slow down at every town in order for a clerk to exchange outgoing mail and incoming mail by passing it hand to hand. Faster exchanges sometimes ended up in disastrous "snowstorms" where mail bags were caught in the train wheels and erupted in a rain of letters.

By 1869, less than eight years after RPOs began operating, the RMS had devised a faster, and much more dramatic method to transfer mail "on-the-fly." This was the Mail Crane. A durable steel hook and crane standing ten-feet tall, the Mail Crane held a

"Catcher Pouch" that was swept into the RPO car by an onboard "Catcher Arm" operated by an RPO clerk at just the right moment. A common sight along railways for the next sixty years, an RPO clerk would simultaneously push mail destined for a town out of the train while swinging the Catcher Arm outward to bring in the outgoing mail via the Catcher Pouch.

The beauty of such a smooth transfer of mail at full speed also brought with it significant risks for RPO clerks. A Catcher Arm released at the wrong time might miss the mail completely and instead hit switch targets, telegraph and telephone poles, or semaphores. A missed catch resulted in five demerits against the offending clerk, which wounded their pride, but could also cause significant physical harm. Dangerous conditions came with the job on the RPO. In addition to injuries caused by the Mail Crane, clerks also encountered trains jumping the rails, excessive heat and cold, and fires, especially on the earlier wooden RPO cars.

The inherent risks associated with these working conditions led a contingent of Kansas City RPO clerks to form their own hospitalization group in 1939. This burgeoning service grew into one of the largest health associations for federal workers and is still in existence today. It is now known as the Government Employees Health Association, or GEHA.

Jeffrey Spivak, Union Station Kansas City, The Kansas City Star Books, Kansas City, Missouri, 1999, p.149.

Pacific Railway Act, The United States National Archives. May 10th, 2022. Accessed June 27th, 2024. https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/pacific-railway-act.

Jeffrey Spivak, Union Station Kansas City, The Kansas City Star Books, Kansas City, Missouri, 1999.