Though it covers a huge area, stretching for some 20 miles on both sides of the Missouri–Kansas border, and nearly 30 miles north to south, Kansas City (pop. 450,000) never really feels like a big city. It’s more like a conglomeration of small towns, once separate from each other but now joined together by tract-house sprawl and the 100-mile-long I-435 Beltway. The historic center of Kansas City lines the south bank of the Missouri River, where 30-story skyscrapers stand above hefty brick warehouses, huge stockyards, railroad tracks, and banks of grain elevators all testifying to Kansas City’s role as the main distribution point for Midwestern farm products.
Southwest of the city center, off Main and 40th Streets, Westport is the birthplace of Kansas City. Before the Kansas River switched course and left it high and dry, Westport was the westernmost steamboat landing in the United States, and quickly grew into a prime supply point on the Santa Fe and Oregon Trails. For a better taste of old-time riverfront Kansas City, head downtown to the Steamboat Arabia Museum (daily; $9.50; 816/471-4030), in the historic City Market at 400 Grand Boulevard, which displays the fascinating contents of a steamboat that sank in 1856: hardware, guns, clothes, booze, canned and bottled food, and all sorts of things that made life on the western frontier livable.
Located on the south side of Westport, the remarkable Nelson Atkins Museum of Art (closed Mon.; free; 816/561-4000), at Main and 47th Streets, would do any city proud, with strong surveys of both Asian and American art, including in-depth coverage of K.C.-based Thomas Hart Benton. Two blocks west, Country Club Plaza was one of the country’s first shopping malls, and its opulent Spanish Revival styling still attracts the upscale likes of Gucci, Saks, and the Body Shop.
Right downtown, the Hallmark Visitors Center (closed Sun.; free; 816/274-5672) is at Main and 25th Streets, on the top floor of the Crown Center Mall. It is much better, or at least much less nauseatingly saccharine, than you might expect: 14 galleries trace the history of the Hallmark company, which started here in 1910, and explain the design and production processes behind the 50,000 different types of greeting cards (more than $4 billion worth!) they sell each year.
A mile east of downtown K.C., in the revitalized 18th and Vine neighborhood, the heartland of Kansas City’s post-war jazz scene is the marvelous Negro Baseball Leagues Museum (closed Mon.; $6; 816/221-1920), at 1616 E. 18th Street. The newly renovated building houses an outstanding new museum dedicated to documenting the players and culture of the various professional baseball leagues that existed side-by-side with the majors before the color barriers began to be broken down in the late 1940s. An extra $2 gets you in to the adjacent American Jazz Museum, documenting K.C.’s prolific jazz heritage. The city’s big band golden age (1930s–1940s) spawned jazz greats Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Count Basie, and Jo Jones, all of whom are honored alongside national jazz greats like Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington in a series of listener-friendly exhibits.
The Kansas City Royals (816/921-8000 or 800/676-9257) play at the very pleasant, 40,000-seat Kauffman Stadium off I-70 at the I-435 junction. Games are broadcast on WHB 810 AM.
