It is well known that J. C. Nichols early on came up with the quintessential promotional event for his creation, the Country Club Plaza. The first building constructed under his master plan proved to be the Mill Creek Building which today faces Mill Creek Park and J. C. Nichols Parkway on the extreme east end of the Plaza. It opened in 1923 and the first Christmas lights graced its massive eves in 1925.

What is not quite so clear is whether Nichols himself or his electrical and maintenance engineer, Charlie Pitrat, actually came up with the idea. The distinctive building that today houses M & S Steakhouse was quite remarkable in its early years. From the start, Nichols planned to get all he could out of his commercial buildings at the Plaza. When the Mill Creek Building opened as “the Suydam Building” in 1923, the 2nd floor housed no fewer than five boutique businesses—all operated by women.

On the other hand, Charlie Pitrat was just beginning his long association with the company. For decades he looked after all the electrical and many other construction and maintenance concerns for the growing land development and real estate business. As the Plaza and the Country Club District grew and expanded over south Kansas City and northeast Johnson County, his special skills were needed in many places, but nowhere more than his simple stringing of a few strings of lights over the doors and windows of the Mill Creek Building two years after it opened.

1925 had been a busy and important year for Kansas City. That Christmastime, the city had just adopted a new, nonpartisan charter that created the office of City Manager and supposedly banished “boss rule” forever. Of course, the reformers, including Nichols, who backed the new form of city government did not fully appreciate the abilities of Boss Tom Pendergast to adapt to new circumstances. You see, Tom had examined the charter and figured out how to make it work for him. He supported its passage just like J. C. Nichols.

Meanwhile, three new high schools opened in the city—Southwest, East and Northeast. J. C. Nichols was particularly proud of Southwest High School because he was in his 9th year on the School Board and had especially championed the construction of a school that would serve his exclusive residential section of the city.

A little to the north of the Plaza, across Pershing Road from Union Station, Liberty Memorial was taking shape as Kansas City’s premier World War I monument. President Calvin Coolidge came to visit in the following year to dedicate the finished site. J. C. Nichols had been instrumental in raising the funds and acquiring the land on which the magnificent memorial was raised between 1921 and 1926.

Also in 1925, J. C. Nichols learned that a new system of national highways was being planned by the Bureau of Public Roads in Washington, D. C. That first Christmas of lights on the Plaza was the time in which he began planning to attract one of the main highway routes of the new system to pass directly through his new shopping center and very near the Mill Creek Building and its twinkling Christmas lights.

In 1926, his quest proved successful when U. S. Highway 50, one of the ten most important east-west routes of the new system, was designated to enter Kansas City along Ward Parkway, follow Madison to 47th Street and then turn east to traverse the length of the shopping area. Today, that route is designated as U. S. 56 and directly connects Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza with one of its sources of inspiration—the famous Plaza at the center of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Ultimately, the question is: what would Kansas City be on Thanksgiving night without the Plaza Lights? The lighting ceremony has evolved into one of the biggest outdoor events in the city each year. The site is so spectacular that shoppers and gawkers drive from far and wide to 47th & Nichols Parkway each year just to catch a glimpse of the glories that began that long ago Christmas season when Charlie Pitrat first strung up a few Christmas lights, and J. C. Nichols thought it was such a good idea that he did it the next year…and the next…and….

William S. Worley
Instructor in History, MCC-Blue River
Author, The Plaza: First and Always, and J. C. Nichols and the Shaping of Kansas City