Vintage postcard of Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza shows shopping center’s early history

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The Country Club Plaza did not emerge full grown, as this postcard from the early 1930s clearly illustrates.

J.C. Nichols’ new shopping district was about 10 years old, and still largely centered around the intersection of 47th Street and Mill Creek Road.

The building on the left with the tall chimney actually preceded Nichols’ project. The Chandler Landscaping and Floral Company opened there in 1916, on land previously used as a trash dump.

It wasn’t until 1923 that the Mill Creek Building on the north side of 47th Street officially put the Plaza on the map. It’s also where the first strand of those legendary Christmas lights was strung.

The building was originally called the Suydam, the name of a decorating company that occupied it.

Immediately to its west, the Tower Building soon added even more Spanish design touches to the nation’s first auto-centric retail development.

And yes, that’s a gas station in the middle of the image — one of eight that eventually operated on the Plaza.

In some ways, the three tall apartment towers across Brush Creek — the Villa Serena, Locarno and Riviera almost steal the show from the low-slung storefronts.

Nichols didn’t build them, but their arrival in the late 1920s demonstrates how quickly the idea of southward expansion was catching on with wealthy Kansas Citians.

Speaking of Nichols, a view from the same spot in 2024 reveals a small corner of the iconic fountain which bore his name for sixty years. Since 2020 it’s been known simply as the Fountain in Mill Creek Park.

Having trouble seeing the video? Watch it here.

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