Kansas City Police Station Number 4 (Hemingway Building)

Completed in 1916, this former police station was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005 and is now known as the Hemingway Building. It was built to add police presence in the neighborhood, which required protection since it had been growing in recent years, including the construction of Union Station four blocks to the south. Between 1917-1918, author Ernest Hemingway visited the police station in 1917-1918 when he was a reporter at the Kansas City Star newspaper. The building is named after him. It is also significant for its Mission Revival architecture, which was popular at the time and distinguished the station from the rest of the buildings in the neighborhood. Notable features include a Spanish-tile roof and arched dormers, windows with ornamental hoods, an entrance on the west end of the 19th Street facade with Doric columns and arched pediment, and a decorative cartouche above it. A studio and comedy theater occupy it today.

Interestingly, the building was not entirely newly constructed in 1916. It was actually a near complete reconstruction of the previous building on this location that was home to the Kansas City Elevator Manufacturing Company. That building was completed as early as 1895 and was one of the first structures erected on the block. By 1906 a wholesale liquor business was also located next door and the surrounding neighborhood included a number of industrial businesses such as a mill, lumber company, and machine works.

The neighborhood continued to developed in the coming years especially after Union Station was built. New structures included warehouses and distribution and manufacturing facilities. To protect the area and freight operations at the station, the city decided to build a new police station (a new fire station was also built in 1911). The Kansas City Elevator Manufacturing Company leased the property to the city for ten years with an option to purchase. The city then hired a local architectural firm which devised plans to reconstruct the building using reinforced concrete. The first floor contained the police offices and separate jail cells for whites and African-Americans. The station was the first in the city to have segregated jail cells. The South Side Municipal Court, the judge's and clerk's quarters, and the matron's room and juvenile holding cells were located on the second floor.

The police occupied the building for 22 years. An office of the Works Progress Administration was established in 1939 but closed in 1940. Five years later a distributor of club room accessories moved in. By 1950 it became a dice factory. It is unclear how long the factory operated and if other businesses were located in the building in the coming decades. It was vacant for several years before 2015 when it was remodeled and renamed the Hemingway Building. An event venue called the Havana Room operated for a few years but appears to have closed in 2020.

Ottesen, Kristen. "Kansas City Police Station Number 4." National Park Service - National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form. October 26, 2005. https://mostateparks.com/sites/mostateparks/files/KC%20Police%20Station%20No.%204.pdf.

Roberts, Rob. "Farewell to vacancy: New owners to rehab Hemingway Building." Kansas City Business Journal. November 5, 2015. https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/news/2015/11/05/ernest-hemingway-building-rehab.html.

Stafford, Diane. "Ghost of Ernest Hemingway is summoned in Crossroads building renovation." The Kansas City Star. November 5, 2015. https://www.kansascity.com/news/business/development/article43195428.html.