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Day: August 24, 2025
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Sleeping Beauty
Despite looking like a crumbling romantic castle right out of a storybook, the origins of this iconic KC building are far from a fairytale.
Just south of the 18th and Vine historic jazz district, the 1897 yellow limestone building known as the Workhouse Castle (2001 Vine St.) served as a jail until 1924, housing mostly petty offenders—not royalty. According to records, female prisoners sewed prison uniforms while male prisoners spent their days working for the city’s public works department.
Built by popular KC architects A. Wallace Love and James Oliver Hog in the romanesque revival style, the location was chosen for its generous natural deposit of yellow limestone, which was quarried by inmates. The workhouse itself was constructed by hired labor, as the powers that be at the time did not think using prisoners to build their future home was a good idea. The four-story structure’s two-feet-thick walls are made of solid limestone and mortared with concrete. Adding to the castle-like look, the building has parapet walls and narrow barred windows, with two towers that extend two stories beyond the roof line.
After the prison shut down, it was repurposed a handful of times. It served in a variety of capacities, including city storage, a marine training facility and a dog euthanization center, before it was completely abandoned in 1972. It earned a place on the Kansas City Register of Historic Places in 2007. However, despite its status on the register and the special place it holds in many Kansas Citians’ minds, it has completely deteriorated over the last few decades. The roof collapsed, destroying the floors and leaving a large vacuous space. Various efforts by community groups and developers to bring it back to life have floundered.
Despite, the much needed repairs, it still looks like a romantic castle.
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Independence’s 53rd annual SantaCaliGon Days Festival celebrates local art, food and history
Independence, otherwise known as “Queen City” where the California, Santa Fe and Oregon wagon trails commenced, will be celebrating its storied history with a festival on Labor Day.
The 53rd annual SantaCaliGon Days Festival—named for the three historic trails—draws around 200,000 visitors to Independence every year. This year’s festival will be headlined by country music artist Phil Vassar on August 30.
Although the first three trails festival was held in 1940, it wasn’t until 1973 that it became a reliable annual city tradition. To honor the historic significance of the Queen City, SantaCaliGon maintains a “Main Street 1849” section, which recreates the look and feel of the pioneer era.
SantaCaliGon Days director Amy Knipp says that when the festival was revived in 1973, the focus was to “play into the Old West theme.” She recalls attending and seeing the city’s sheriff dress up in costume and historic reenactments of pioneers and wagons headed out west. Knipp says that from there, SantaCaliGon Days has grown significantly, adding arts and crafts booths along with entertainment.
In addition to the mainstage, there’s a community stage where local talent are the stars. Mikealene Evans, the Independence Chamber of Commerce’s director of marketing, is also the festival’s stage manager and says a highlight of the festival is seeing “floods” of people watching family members perform.
“That’s just our sense of community,” Evans says. “It gives them a place to just be creative and show off their talent locally.” The community stage also hosts the all-important ice cream eating and root beer chugging contests.
Evans and Knipp both say that the most significant part of SantaCaliGon is the “economic impact” that it creates, giving local nonprofits a fundraising avenue. “It might be dance troops, it might be Scout troops, it might be churches or youth groups, and they make a ton of money,” Knipp says.
Heather Browne is the president of MelRoe’s School of Dance’s Booster Club. She, alongside other dance parents, is preparing supplies for their “Bright Purple Booth,” where they will be selling hand-rolled pretzels to support their competition dance team.
Knipp says that SantaCaliGon Days is “truly a slice of Americana,” with all of its history, as well as the artists, musicians, vendors and visitors who are both local and out-of-state.
“It’s all shapes and sizes and levels and a whole big melting pot of people that come to enjoy the festival,” Knipp says.