Garment District Plaza

Turn left and we’ll stroll westward through the brick-paved plaza. This is the Historic Garment District.

First Kansas City was a trading post and haven for trapper's shipments coming down the Missouri River fur trade. Then it became a frontier town, being close as it was to the Oregon, California and Santa Fe trailheads. The railroad brought the cattle, and then the grain, and still the people headed out West. Sometime after prohibition ended and our Paris of the Plains lost some of its luster, it became a full-blown textile town. 

Ahead to your left is a sculpture - a giant needle through a red button - honoring this history. Feel free to pause the tour and read the plaque.

From here, we’ll keep heading west. When the plaza ends, follow the sidewalk to Washington Street.

At its height, the garment district here in Kansas City was once the second largest in the country. The conglomeration of garment factories in this part of the city can seem like a sort of inevitability, the way that all commerce seems to be inevitable once it redefines the landscape. But it was Kansas City’s centrality to the national supply chain, rail-wise, that made it such an enticing manufacturing hub. Concentration comes with a cost, though, in the form of solidarity. 

More on that in a minute.

We’ll keep heading west. Follow the sidewalk to Washington Street.