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Conceived as a ploy to bring customers to visit the Heim Brewing Company in 1899, the original Electric Park at Chestnut and Guinotte streets grew into an attraction in its own right. Each night, the 100,000 lights that gave the park its name illuminated a roller coaster, scenic railway, carousel, skating rink, swimming pool, bowling alley, alligator farm, dime museum, theaters, dance pavilions, bandstand, penny arcade, shooting gallery, flower beds, lake, and rental boats. Most alluring were the nightly performances of costumed young women who danced to a colorful electric light show on a platform in a large fountain in the center of the lake. Sometimes known as Kansas City's Coney Island, it served as the city's greatest amusement park for nearly two decades.
Every once in a while, the Kansas City skyline lights up in brilliant, seemingly coordinated hues — like everyone got together to make the city shine. Reader Joel Jackson was wondering just how this was possible, so he submitted this question to our "What’s Your KCQ?" series: "How does the Kansas City skyline’s lights get coordinated for special occasions, and which buildings participate?"
Since The Kansas City Public Library launched "What’s your KCQ?" last October in partnership with the Kansas City Star , we’ve answered many reader-submitted questions about Kansas City’s history, traditions and quirks.
In recent months, we’ve explored how Kansas Citians used to travel between downtown and West Bottoms, if a reader’s father did really pay a nickel to see a giant whale in Kansas City in the 1950s — Long story short, the whale’s name was Winnie. — and why Kansas City has a bridge to nowhere.
