The Kansas City Star, Ernest Hemingway and 106 Years of History

By Hannah Strader

1729 Grand Boulevard was home to reporters and ad staff for the Kansas City Star for 106 years, but University student and current intern Conner Mitchell admittedly knows little about its history. The Star, a leader in Midwestern journalism, was deep in the throes of re-locating to what is called the Press Pavilion next door.

“I know that the Star has been in its current location forever, but even that is changing since the newsroom is moving into the large glass building next door that everyone already thinks is the Star,” Mitchell said. “I think Hemingway was a features writer, but I’m not really sure.”

The famed author Ernest Hemingway did, in fact, enjoy a short stint at the Kansas City Star in 1918. His time as a cub reporter covering crime and medical emergencies allowed the 18-year-old – then too young to actively enlist in the army – to make connections that both encouraged his writing and also encouraged his involvement in the war. It was in Kansas City that Hemingway would sign up to join American Red Cross ambulance drivers in Italy and set him on the path toward writing what is considered one of the most iconic texts in American history. In later years, Hemingway himself would remark that The Star’s style sheet consisted of “the best rules I ever learned in the business of writing.”

This is a comment that Steve Paul (StevePaulKC.com) , a retired Star reporter and local Hemingway expert, suspects was made to cater to his Kansas City audience upon his return to the city for the birth of his son. The city made such an impact on the young writer that it appears in multiple pieces of his work.

“There’s this story called ‘Soldier’s Home’ that sort of has a Kansas City connection,” Paul said. “Which is kind of fun because the character Harold Krebs has returned from the war a little later than most of the other soldiers. He’s been in New York with his buddies and doesn’t know what to do with his life. He’s sitting around the kitchen with his mother nagging at him In Oklahoma, but he’s reading the Kansas City Star.”

Hemingway only spent six months in Kansas City, but those six months undoubtedly influenced the rest of his life. He met fellow reporters who encouraged his adventurous spirit and natural talent, among them the playwright best known for his work on ‘The Sound of Music’, Russell Crouse.

“Ernie, as I knew him, was a good reporter, not sensational by any means, and a completely nice guy,” Crouse said according to Paul’s book ‘Hemingway at 18’. His editor, Wilson Hicks, would continue a legacy in journalism by becoming the executive editor of ‘Life’.

At 21, Mitchell is hoping for a similar journey.

“I’ve seen the power that journalism can have when it’s done right. It’s a very unique career field because it literally has the power to change people’s lives,” Mitchell said. “It can change the course of history.”

1729 Grand holds 106 years of history, but the move to the Press Pavilion paves the way for more innovation and more legacies to be made.