Best known for his founding of the forerunner of the Kansas City Southern [KCS] Railroad, Arthur Stilwell began his years in Kansas City as a real estate entrepreneur. He never really left that occupation the rest of his life in that his promotion of the Kansas City, Pittsburg & Gulf [later KCS] was integrally entwined with his land development efforts as well.

The 1880s was an expansive period in Kansas City. Real estate “boomers” came from all over the country to partake of the spoils of “getting on the ground first.” Arthur Stilwell was one of these; in this particular instance he arrived from his home town of Rochester, New York. Proceeding to buy land with other people’s money, Stilwell formed what he called the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Trust Company. In spite of its similarity to the official name of the KATY Railroad, the MKT Trust really dealt in vacant land for residential speculation.

Among the pieces of land Stilwell acquired was a portion of the Kenwood Subdivision adjacent to Hyde Park in the section between Kansas City and Westport. The larger Hyde Park residential subdivision lay to the west of the physical park bearing its name between 36th & 39th Streets. Kenwood lay to the east with the same north-south boundaries as the Park. Students of urban history will readily recognize that investors were being invited to speculate in lands designed to look like parts of South Chicago.

The first use of Stilwell’s portion of Kenwood was not residential however. Rather, he allowed the residents to lay out Kansas City’s first golf course links on the property. Because it lay just east of the actual Hyde Park, it came to be known as “Hyde Park Country Club.” Indications are that it was only a 9-hole course featuring a small frame clubhouse between Locust and Oak [now Gillham Road].

A small number of houses went up among the golf links, constructed by a contractor for Stilwell’s partner in development of Kenwood—the Jarvis & Conklin Investment Company. Stilwell and an early partner built almost matching red stone houses on the north side of 36th facing the golf links. While Stilwell’s former house burned down prior to the 1950s, its fraternal twin still stands majestically at the northeast corner of 36th & Kenwood.

The Hyde Park Country Club seems to have been the brainchild of some Scots accountants who had settled in booming Kansas City to help provide a degree of financial accountability to the otherwise go-go atmosphere. Their idea of relaxation seems to have been hitting a little white ball around a few holes and then settling in for a fine evening with Scotch whiskey at the “10th Hole” clubhouse. Later, such locations would be known as the “19th Hole,” but the abbreviated links required adjustment in the name.

By 1896, Stilwell was underway in his plans for Fairmount Amusement Park to attract riders for his Airline Railroad between Kansas City and Independence as well as raising money for the much more extensive plans he had for a railroad “straight as the crow flies” from Kansas City to the Gulf of Mexico. He raised much of the money for all these ventures mostly in The Netherlands.

Also in 1896, the Hyde Park Country Club suffered the loss of its essential facility, the clubhouse, to a fire. The denizens decided to accept an offer of sufficient land for an 18-hole course further south on the land of Hugh Ward [now Loose Park]. That freed up the former golf course land for residential development. To aid the process, Kansas City annexed Westport, including Hyde Park and Kenwood, in 1897.

Stilwell had local architect George Mathews lay out a two-block long private street for grand dwellings on oversized lots. The idea of private streets was well-known in Stilwell’s partner’s hometown of St. Louis but had not caught on in Kansas City. Stilwell even arranged financing for the necessary improvements through a Dutch investor. Hence, the new development came to be known in the investor’s surname—Janssen Place.

As it turned out, Hyde Park Country Club evolved into the Kansas City Country Club in its new location that remained a golf course for the next 30 years. Another land developer, J. C. Nichols, bought up land around it and named his collection of subdivisions “The Country Club District” to lend prestige to the neighborhood. It worked magnificently.

As it turns out, Stilwell’s original plans for Janssen Place and Kenwood didn’t turn out too badly either. By World War I, it was one of the toniest addresses in the city. Even though it suffered a downturn not unlike Stilwell’s own loss of prestige late in life, Janssen Place and its surrounding neighborhood, now known as “Hyde Park” rather than as Kenwood, have regained their influential and attractive position as a premier neighborhood in the center of the city.

In part, we can thank Arthur Stilwell and some Scots golfers for that fact.

Dr. Bill Worley, Instructor in History, MCC-Blue River