The Plaza branch will close early at 5 p.m. Monday, July 1, due to water line repairs.
Signature Event
Sunday, February 16, 2014
2:00pm
Murderers. Mob bosses. Anarchists. Bootleggers. Thieves. They’ve all found a home at the U.S. Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, regarded for many y...
Signature Event
Sunday, January 19, 2014
2:00pm
Trumpeter Miles Davis once said: "You can tell the history of jazz in four words: Louis Armstrong. Charlie Parker."
Saxophone virtuoso Charlie "Bir...
Signature Event
Sunday, December 8, 2013
2:00pm
By 1940, Kansas City authorities had finally deposed “Boss Tom” Pendergast. In the spring of that year, teams of laborers from the Works Progress Admi...
Signature Event
Sunday, November 17, 2013
2:00pm
In Person
In the late 1940s and 1950s, Kansas City native Tommy Campbell won 50 professional fights and became the world’s No. 2 lightweight. B...
Signature Event
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
6:30pm
Author-educator Herbert Alan Johnson explains how a lawsuit over a steamboat monopoly ultimately led to Congress gaining the power to...
Signature Event
Sunday, September 15, 2013
2:00pm
In Person
Though far from the fashion center of New York, Kansas City once boasted a large, vibrant garment manufacturing industry. During its heyday in the ear...
Signature Event
Sunday, September 8, 2013
2:00pm
Built in 1942 in Johnson County, Kansas, the Sunflower Ordnance Works quickly became the world’s largest producer of rocket propellant, an essential p...
Signature Event
Thursday, August 29, 2013
6:30pm
In Person
When police in Ohio raided Dollree Mapp’s home looking for evidence in a bombing, all they found were some “lascivious books.” Mapp appealed her porno...
Signature Event
Sunday, August 18, 2013
2:00pm
In Person
William Quantrill’s August 21, 1863 Confederate raid on Lawrence, Kansas, left nearly 200 men and boys dead and the city in flames. Film expert...
Signature Event
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
6:30pm
In Person
Homer Plessy—a man of seven-eighths Caucasian descent and one-eighth African descent who was nevertheless considered black under Louisiana law—boarded...