This Kansas City high school has several famous alumni. See how it changed in 115 years
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Editor’s Note: Past|Present is a new video series from The Star that travels through time to show how scenes Kansas City depicted in vintage postcards look today. Have a postcard you’d like to share with our team? Tell us about it here.
The Santa Fe Trail made Westport a bustling frontier stop. Eventually the town was annexed by Kansas City, and in 1908 the second incarnation of Westport High School opened at Locust and 39th Street It soon became one of the Kansas City School District’s gems, a place where Greek was taught alongside more practical courses in cooking, sewing and auto mechanics.. Ewing Kauffman attended Westport High, as did filmmaker Fritz Freleng and basketball star Brandon Rush.
The district decided to close Westport High in 2010, and the four-story structure sat vacant. That will change soon when the Village at Westport Commons, a mixed use residential and office project, opens in the old school’s space. A comparison of the building from a postcard made shortly after it opened and the same exact view in 2023 shows how little the brick and stone exterior has changed.
Looking for more Kansas City history?
The saga of another long-closed Kansas City high school
An “oasis” for Black people between Kansas City and Westport
Learn how the “wide open town” of the 1930s was managed
Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward starred in the last big movie made here
Looking back at the biggest park in town
