The Colonial Shops and Bismark Place

The Colonial Shops opened in 1907 at what is today 51^st and Brookside Blvd. This was Kansas City developer J.C. Nichols’ first shopping center, and it was built to support his first housing development in Kansas City, Mo. In 1905, Nichols and his financial backers had purchased 10 acres located between Walnut and Main St., 49^th  St. to 51^st St. The area had been platted into a neighborhood called Bismark Place in 1887 but few lots ever sold. Nichols began actively advertising and promoting the development. Since it was just south of the city limits at the time and far from businesses and stores, Nichols built the Colonial Shops to provide necessities for the neighborhood. This started a tradition, where Nichols would include a dedicated shopping center for most of his developments, most famously the Country Club Plaza.

In 1887, the development firm of Waller & Maloney purchased about 20 acres just south of Brush Creek and the city limits bounded by what is today Main St. and Brookside Blvd., 49^th St. and 51^st St. The platted the land into a development called Bismark Place. However, the location, removed from utilities and city services, attracted few buyers and no houses were ever built. In 1905, J.C. Nichols and his financial backers purchased 10 acres of the original plat, comprising about 2 city blocks. Nichols began actively advertising and promoting the development. To show his faith in the project, Nichols and his wife built one of the first houses in the development for themselves at 5030 Walnut. The house can be see in an early photo of the nearby Colonial Shops. It still stands today.

For the first year, Bismark Place lacked all utilities. The houses were on septic tanks and the earliest residents, including Nichols himself, had to fetch water from a nearby spring. There were no graded or paved streets or sidewalks. The nearest streetcar stop was a mile away. However, Nichols persevered and as more lots sold, he was able to afford to grade the roads and install boardwalk sidewalks. The city soon installed electricity, gas and sewer lines.

Sales in the Bismark Place development lacked the deed restrictions and racial covenants that became a hallmark of Nichols' future projects. These restrictions governed the styles of houses and their placements on the lots and forbid the future development of the property for commercial or multifamily structures. The racial covenants forbid future sales to people not of the white race. Because of the lack of building restrictions in Bismark Place, developers almost immediately began building the hodgepodge of apartment complexes in differing architectural styles that dominate the neighborhood today. Very few single family homes remain. Nichols' own home at 5030 Walnut was turned into a duplex by a subsequent owner. Because of these issues at Bismark Place, Nichols adopted the practice of deed restrictions on subsequent developments to ensure that they remained single family home neighborhoods.

Passing to the east of Bismark Place was an old steam railroad known as the “Dodson Line” that ran from Westport to a factory in the former town of Dodson at what is today 85^th and Prospect. Nichols and his backers purchased this railroad and donated it to Kansas City, which by 1907 had converted it to become part of the streetcar system with service as far south as 75^th St. Now that Bismark place was connected to the rest of the city, lots began to sell rapidly. Seeing a need to provide services for the new residents, Nichols built a shopping center at what is today 51^st and Brookside Blvd., adjacent to the stop on the new Country Club Streetcar Line, named for Nichols’ nearby Country Club District developments. The Colonial Shops, named for the building’s nod to colonial style architecture, housed such businesses as a butcher shop, grocery store and café. A filling station would later be built on the east side at the corner of 51^st and Oak St. Nichols built his real estate office for Bismark Place on the west side of the center, just on the other side of the streetcar tracks.

For almost 120 years the Colonial Shops have served the Bismark Place and surrounding neighborhoods. Countless shops and businesses have come and gone over that time. When the University of Kansas City, today UMKC, was founded a few blocks to the east in 1933, the Colonial Shops provided the closest services to campus. Many students used the Country Club Streetcar line to get to campus and walked by the shops every day. They have alway been considered by the university's students as an informal part of campus.

In 1938, Abby Abercrombie and Bill Buffe, early graduates of the university, started up a malt shop to cater to student traffic, called the Kangaroo in honor of the university’s mascot. The shop became a hangout spot for the university, which lacked a student union. Ads for the shop indicated that it was "on the right side of the tracks" at 51st and Brookside. The Kangaroo offered a live music jam session on Thursday afternoons that attracted KCU and Southwest High School students for music and swing dancing. Students lovingly referred to the Kangaroo as their “Jelly Joint,” which was a slang term for dancing too close to the opposite sex. The shop paid a variety of local musicians including members of Jay McShann’s band and at least on one occasion future jazz legend Charlie Parker. A photo in a KCU student magazine called the Kangaroo captured the only known image of Parker playing the alto saxophone in Kansas City before he left for New York City. Ironically, although most of the musicians the shop hired were African Americans, like the vast majority of restaurants in Kansas City at the time, the Kangaroo was segregated, and African American students would not have been allowed to attend the performances.

Today, Crows Coffee is the latest in a long line of coffee houses and cafes catering to UMKC students stretching back to the Kangaroo. UMKC alumni can date themselves by the coffee shop they hung out in at the Colonial Shops. The East 51st Coffeehouse of the 1990s made way for Mildred's Coffeehouse, which in turn made way for Muddys. When Muddys left in 2014, Crows moved in. Other notable businesses over the years include the Kin Lin Chinese restaurant and Pizza 51. Kin Lin was established in 1989 by Chinese immigrant Ping Yi Hu. For over 35 years it has been a neighborhood and university community favorite specializing in authentic Chinese and Chinese American Dishes. In 2002, Brookside residents Jason and Shannon Pryor purchased the old gas station at the corner of 51^st and Oak, which had sat vacant for years. In 2004, they opened the Pizza 51 pizzeria at the site. For more than 20 years it has been a favorite spot for students and area residents alike. With the opening of the Kansas City Streetcar stop next door, these businesses will once again be able to advertise that they are "on the right side of the tracks," at 51st and Brookside.

Since 2007, the Colonial Shops have been owned by the UMKC Trustees, a private booster group and advisory board for UMKC. UMKC is considering development plans for the vacant land it owns just north of the Colonial Shops, including the possibility of a sports arena at that location. Should those plans move forward, it is likely that the Colonial Shops would be torn down and reincorporated into retail spaces as part of the arena.  

Chuck Haddix, "Charlie Parker jams for UMKC students," Backstory, Important Moments in Kansas City, Kansas City Magazine, August 2020, p. 120.

Christopher Wolff, A Pearl of Great Value: The History of UMKC, Kanas City's University, UMKC Alumni Association, 2016 p. 31-32.

Chuck Haddix, "Bird at the Jelly Joint," JAM: Jazz Ambassador Magazine, Aug/Sept 2015 p 6-8.

Kerkhoff, Blair. "UMKC hopes to build new on-campus arena for basketball." Kanas City Star (Kansas City, Mo.) May 17th, 2023. , B sec.6.

About Crows Coffee, crowscoffee.com. Accessed February 18th, 2025. https://crowscoffee.com/about/.

Simmons, Derek. "UMKC Trustees buying 51st Street stores." University News (Kansas City, Mo.) February 17th, 2007. .1.

Berg, Erik. "New Eatery Part of UMKC Urban Renewal." University News (Kansas City, Mo.) September 20th, 2004. .1.

Nichols, Jesse Clyde. Jesse Clyde Nichols (1880-1950) Memoir, files.shsmo.org. Accessed February 18th, 2025. https://files.shsmo.org/manuscripts/kansas-city/nichols/JCN087.pdf.

Worley, William S.. J.C. Nichols and the shaping of Kansas City: innovation in planned residential communities. Columbia, Mo. University of Missouri Press, 1990.

Levings, Darryl. J.C. Nichols blazed a trail through Kansas City well before the Plaza was born., Kansascity.com. March 23rd, 2018. Accessed February 18th, 2025.

Levings, Darryl. J.C. Nichols blazed a trail through Kansas City well before the Plaza was born., Kansascity.com. March 23rd, 2018. Accessed February 18th, 2025.

Levings, Darryl. J.C. Nichols blazed a trail through Kansas City well before the Plaza was born., Kansascity.com. March 23rd, 2018. Accessed February 18th, 2025.