There are many sources for researching the history of your home, family or business in Kansas City. The Kansas City Public Library has produced two very helpful brochures: Researching the History of Your House and Pathfinder to Researching Local Building History. In addition to the Missouri Valley Room (special collections) at the library, your research may also take you to the Western Historical Manuscript Collection at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, the Black Archives of Mid-America, the Mid-Continent Public Library, or historical societies in Clay or Platte County.

1940s Tax Assessor Photographs
The historic preservation office has in its possession photographs taken in 1940 by the Jackson County Tax Assessor's Office. Part of a PWA project, the Assessor's Office documented all of the buildings standing within Kansas City limits in 1940.

The photos in our possession are 1"x2" contact sheet prints mounted on cards by block. Each card contains one physical block and is identified by the streets that encompass it (e.g. bounded on the north by 11th Street, on the south by 12th Street, on the east by Locust, and on the west by Oak). Because there is no further identification of the individual pictures on each card, it is necessary for a person familiar with the property to visit our office to identify the specific building in which they are interested.

Scanning Fees
Scan of Property Photo (no cropping or corrections made)		$5.00 per scan If requested, files under 1mb in size can be emailed at no additional charge.
Delivery Fees
Saved to CD, Standard Mail		$1.00 per disk
Shipped by Priority Mail		$3.70

Because of the age of the photos and the fact that they were obtained after being discarded, we regret that there are properties of which we do not have photographs. For instance, Central Hyde Park is missing from the collection. Individual photos are missing from some cards as well. We do not make prints of the photographs in our office; we only offer the digital scans made at 300 dpi., that can be taken to a company offering photo printing services.

Please call (816) 513-2902 in advance to set up an appointment for reviewing the 1940s photographs.