Sunday, January 08, 2017

Snapshot Missouri! - Rocketing Through Kansas City

Back in 2011, we featured a short series entitled Snapshot Missouri. It featured photos from a Disney-centric midwest road trip that my son and I had taken that year.  The series fell victim to what became my regrettable, erratic publishing schedule and ended after a mere four posts.  My son and I have since become roadtrip warriors (as documented both here and on our sister blog Boom-Pop!) and revisited the Show-Me State in 2015 and again last summer.

Our visit to Kansas City last June was not Disney-focused as it had been in the past, and time did not permit the usual touring of Walt Disney historical sites such as the McConahy Building and 31st Street.  But we did manage a quick freeway exit detour to the old TWA headquarters building, located at the corner of 18th Street and Baltimore Avenue.
TWA sponsored the Rocket to the Moon attraction at Disneyland from 1955 until 1962.  At the same time, TWA displayed a replica Moonliner on the roof of their headquarters building in Kansas City. That original replica is now preserved at the nearby National Airline History Museum.  The building itself was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2002 and a restoration was completed in 2006.  Part of that restoration involved the placement of a new Moonliner replica that we now happily showcase here.