How did this Missouri town’s flooded Main Street help lead to a popular recreation area?
Inside Look is a Star series that takes our readers behind the scenes of some of the most well-known and not-so-well-known places and events in Kansas City. Have a suggestion for a future story? Email our journalists at InsideLook@kcstar.com.
In 1909, Main Street in Smithville, Missouri, hardly looked like prime postcard material. Just a few miles north of Kansas City, Smithville was tidy, self-sufficient, but not appreciably different from hundreds of small towns across the country.
Its name was pretty generic too, derived from the mill that Humphrey Smith and his wife Nancy began operating on the Little Platte River in 1824 — a site that came to be known as Smith’s Falls.
Because Cass County had been settled largely by southern sympathizers, the owner’s Massachusetts heritage earned him the nickname “Yankee Smith.”
By the turn of the century, the town had grown prosperous enough that Main Street included a bank, grocery store, shoe store, hardware store and pharmacy. Most notably, the saloon and pool hall on the corner (in the background of the postcard) featured an opera house and dance hall upstairs, funded in part by donations from other local merchants.
But flooding from the Little Platte was less charitable. Overflows repeatedly took their toll on homes and downtown businesses.
Finally, after Congress allocated funds in the 1960s, the river was dammed to create Smithville Lake. Impoundment began in 1979, and today the lake’s 170 miles of shoreline offer visitors an abundance of hiking, fishing and boating opportunities.
And a flood-free Main Street.
Having trouble seeing the video? Watch it here.
Looking for more Kansas City history?
A Missouri town that may or may not have a controversial namesake
Once a thriving steamboat port on the Missouri River, what remains of Quindaro can only be glimpsed
How the state line between Kansas and Missouri was actually drawn up
