Part 8

The Kansas City Star, originally called the Kansas City Evening Star was founded on September 18, 1880 by William Rockhill Nelson and Samuel E. Morss.  The men moved to Missouri from Indiana where they sold their previous newspaper, which would later become the Fort Wayne Sentinal.

Morss quit the business within 18 months due to ill health and Nelson was left to defend the paper against it's competition alone. There were 3 other KC newspapers at the time, The Kansas City Times, The Evening Mail, and the Kansas City Journal. The KC Times editor, Eugene Field wrote this about the Kansas City Star:

Twinkle, twinkle, little Star,
Bright and gossipy you are;
We can daily hear you speak,
For a paltry dime a week.

Nelson's business strategy called for cheap advance subscriptions and an interntion ot be "absolutely indepentent in polics, aiming to deal all men and parties wih impartialilty and fearlessness." Nelson fully purchased the Star in 1882 and in 1901 bought the Kansas City Times.

The Star had several famous workers. First was Harry S. Truman, who worked two weeks in August 1902 in the mail room, making $7.00 the first week and $5.40 the second. In 1950 Truman half joked in an unmailed letter to Star editor Roy Roberts, "If the Star is at all mentioned in history, it will be because the President of the U.S. worked there for a few weeks in 1901." The second was Ernest Hemingway, who developed him trademark style while writing for the paper. Ernest Hemingway was a reporter for the Star from October 1917 to April 1918. Hemingway credited Star editor C.G. Wellington with changing a wordy high-schooler's writing style into clear, provocative English.


The paper was first printed on the second story of a 3-story building at 407–409 Delaware. In 1881 it moved 14 W. 5th Street. In 1882 it moved to 115 W. 6th. In 1889 it moved to 804–806 Wyandotte Street. In 1911 it moved into its Jarvis Hunt-designed building at 18th and Grand.

The current building, a massive $199 million, two -block long, glass-enclosed printing and distribution plant on the northeast side of the Star's landmark red brick headquarters at 1729 Grand Avenue. The plant began printing in June 2006. It took nearly four years to build, and is considered a major part of the effort to revitalize downtown Kansas City. The plant contains four 60 foot high presses. On June 4, 2006, the first edition of the Star came out from the new presses with a major redesign in the sections and the logo.


The paper has earned eight Pulitzer Prizes since it's opening.