Negro Quality Hill and Negro Hyde Park

In “A City Divided” by Sherry Lamb Schirmer, Schirmer reports that this African American enclave emerged in the 1890s on the city’s eastside. Earlier out-of-state spectators had constructed hundreds of spacious two-story homes during the real estate boom of the 1880s. The boom’s collapse left developers, contractors, and lenders with numerous vacant houses. Desperate to sell, owners gladly sold or leased properties to anyone, regardless of skin color. Because of that, a large number of African Americans settled in the area between Troost and Woodland Avenues from Twelfth to Twenty-fifth Streets. Here certain sections became known as Negro Quality Hill and Negro Hyde Park for their handsome homes and manicured lawns. Within a decade, a corridor along Vine Street would form the nucleus of the black community.

Bibliography:

Schirmer, Sherry Lamb. A City Divided, The Racial Landscape of Kansas City, 1900-1960. University of Missouri Press. Columbia, Missouri. 2002.

Sanborn Map Company. Kansas City, Jackson, Missouri, Volume 3 1909-1950. Courtesy of the Kansas City Public Library, Missouri Valley Special Collections. kchistory.org