1901 McGee Street Automotive Service Building

The building at 1901 McGee Street, a former car dealership, is located in an area of town known as "Automobile Row." In particular, when this building was built in 1912, it was during a time when the automobile dealership district was still in its early years, and the popularity of cars was starting to rise. Like the nearby Kirkwood Building at 1737 McGee Street, which was also a part of Automobile Row, 1901 McGee Street is a commercially designed building specifically built to be a car dealership. However, since this building is older, it combines more modern design aspects with older ones. For example, the inside of the building is made of combined stonework and wood, common in early twentieth-century buildings, but supplemented with massive steel beams to allow the building to support its very heavy merchandise. Large windows, which allowed dealerships to display cars to pedestrians, can also still be seen on the ground level.

1901 McGee Street, one of the first buildings on "Automobile Row" to be constructed, was built during a time when it was becoming increasingly common to own cars. Before World War I, the processes needed to build and repair cars were expensive. At the time, a car cost between two and three thousand dollars, about twice the annual income of the average American worker. This kept cars in the hands of the wealthy only. However, during and after the Great War, a number of technological improvements, including the invention of the electric starter, and economic changes, including Ford's introduction of the rebate, began to make cars more affordable. The number of cars produced in the United States annually skyrocketed. In Kansas City, in particular, there were only 400 cars on city streets in 1907, but this grew to 55,000 over the next fifteen years.

This building is an early example of the Commercial style common in early twentieth-century car dealerships and other businesses. The overall shape of the building is simple and would have been relatively inexpensive to construct. Like other Commercial style buildings of the time, the materials used were a combination of stonework and wood. However, unlike those buildings used for other purposes, 1901 McGee Street is supported by massive steel I-beams, necessary to support the heavy cars displayed inside. On the ground floor are some of the large windows that showcased the dealership's merchandise to those passing by on foot or in the streetcar. The windows on the second floor and the skylights on the roof let in natural light to illuminate the open display space on the inside of the building.

1901 McGee Street passed hands between many dealerships after it was opened, including the Dey Motor Company, Century Motor Company, and Erwin Davis Motors. It sat empty from 1935 until 1940 as the automobile industry suffered from the Great Depression but was bought by a new dealership at the start of World War II. In 1954 it was sold again and became McGee Radio. In 1968 the ground floor windows were removed, and metal plates were installed where they had been. This was in response to the riots that had taken place earlier that year after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. These windows were restored in the early 2000s when the building was redone by Rosin Preservation. As the restoration company put it, "Sometimes you don't see what is right in front of you. ... [This building's] historic features were lying dormant, waiting to be rediscovered."

Coombs, Cathy. Kansas City’s 110-Year-Old ‘1901 McGee Street Building’ Used To Be a Downtown Automotive Sales & Service Business, The Medium. July 6th, 2022. Accessed September 3rd, 2022. https://medium.com/@cjcwriter04/kansas-citys-110-year-old-1901-mcgee-street-building-used-to-be-a-downtown-automotive-sales-d8139086fd7a.

Rosin, Elizabeth. 1901 McGee Street - National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, National Park Service. April 1st, 2008. Accessed September 3rd, 2022. https://catalog.archives.gov/OpaAPI/media/63819082/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MO/08001359.pdf.

Historic Resources Survey McGee Street for M19 Master, LLC , Missouri State Parks. Accessed September 3rd, 2022. https://mostateparks.com/sites/mostateparks/files/McGee%20St%20HR%20Report.pdf.