The excellent site which Perth linked us to (and which I have poked around on a time or two) has held me rapt for the past couple of hours as I looked for items of local interest.
I found a subject near and dear to my heart, namely Longview Farms. Longview Farms was a grand private farm operation, constructed by lumber baron RA Long and complete in 1914. It is about three miles from my house as the crow flies, and I have been enthralled with the place ever since I was a kid. It was, of course, long deteriorated and mostly abandoned by the time I moved out to this part of town in 1969, but all of the old structures were intact at that time, if somewhat abused.
It is really difficult to describe the grandness of it all, but someone in our government had the foresight to survey and document it in conjunction with the planning and construction of the lake that now covers a large portion of the original property. Although many of the structures *still* survive, and are even used (the main mansion and the chapel are actively used...I've even been to weddings in each of the structures.) to this day.
Some of the buildings have been razed over the years. The show horse barn (Long's daughter was a world renowned horsewoman, and the farm was largely built for her use as a breeder and horse person) burned in the 70's (probably due to some kids partying in it, if memory serves me...the whole place was a very attractive nuisance to us young hippies back in the day). As I mentioned before, a large part of the land is now underwater, and much of the rest is being developed as subdivisions. In fact, a friend of mine just built a house about a quarter mile behind the water tower you'll see if you go to the link below.
The link takes you to only a small part of the documentation available...if interested, go to the search function and type in "Longview Farm", and see what's there.
Maybe it is only fascinating to me, but someone else out there might find some value in it. It is a piece of my youth in a way...my wife went to the community college that is now located immediately west of the water tower in the aerial view of the place. The large pond in that same photo is still there, and I drive by it frequently on the road that now crosses from Grandview to Lee's Summit. Another picture shows a period photo of a small waterfall on the Little Blue River, a place my friends and I used to jeep across when the land was federally owned but not yet underwater.
Sigh...memories. Isn't that what this site was all about? Well, for me, there's some damn personal memories there. Library of Congress = Good!
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/...g,awh,nfor,sgp