This home on Bellefontaine Avenue was the residence of world famous film animator Walt Disney and his family from 1914 to around 1922. Disney, his parents, and his siblings moved to Kansas City after spending five years in Marceline. It was here that Disney first developed a passion for entertaining and an interest in becoming an animator. Using a borrowed camera, he set up a makeshift studio in the family garage and experimented with making cartoons. Disney also established his first (short-lived) film company, Laugh-O-Gram Films, before going bankrupt and leaving Kansas City for good in 1923. Today the house remains a private residence and is not open to the public. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.
The McConahay Building on East 31st was home to Walt Disney's first professional cartoon studio, Laugh-O-Gram Films. The fledgling studio consisted of Walt, Ubbe Iwerks, and a handful of other artists from the Kansas City area. They operated from rooms in the second story of the building and produced several cartoons. It is said that around this time Disney met a mouse that would later provide the inspiration for Mickey Mouse in 1928. Laugh-O-Gram Films was short-lived, opening in May 1922 and filing for bankruptcy in July 1923. Disney and several of his employees would later go on to become pioneers in the animation industry. The building was designed by lauded Kansas City architect Nelle Peters, a female who succeeded when men dominated the industry. While Peters had a short career, it was highly influential. Today the building is owned by the non-profit group Thank You, Walt Disney Inc., which is working to repurpose the building into a studio that trains local artists and a space that shares the history of the building and community.
This mural on the corner of 31st & Troost celebrates the neighborhood's rich history, including the construction of the Isis Theatre which operated at this location from 1918 to 1970. The building was later demolished in 1997, is remembered today as a place where Walt Disney found work as an illustrator and the location where he met Carl Stalling, a talented composer and voice actor who later composed most of Disney's early animated feature films. The mural includes the Isis along with a history of the people in the communities that have called this area home, starting with Native Americans. The mural also shares the history of the neighborhood at the turn of the century and early 1900s when it was a streetcar suburb, followed by decades when Troost served as a racial dividing line and symbol of residential segregation. The mural also pays tribute to African American communities and organizations and serves as a symbol of residents who are working to support neighborhoods along Troost Avenue and build vibrant and diverse communities.
The Newman Theater was a popular movie theater that existed on Main Street from 1919 until 1972. It was one of several built by local exhibitor Frank L. Newman. The Newman Theater was known for its opulence and extravagant features, such as Italian tapestries and hand-painted murals. The theater is also noteworthy for being the first site to air a production by Walt Disney, a series of short satirical cartoons called Newman Laugh-O-Grams. They were fully animated by Disney himself and screened during newsreels in 1921. In the 1940s the Newman became a Paramount Theater, and was eventually closed and demolished in 1972. Today the site is occupied by City Center Square.
This Tour is a Walking Tour.
This short driving tour includes sites related to Walt Disney's five years in Kansas City including his home, the Laugh-O-Gram Studio, and the theater where his first commercial cartoons were screened.
