What's Your KCQ? What do you want to know about our community? The Library and The Kansas City Star combine resources to find answers to questions about regional topics. 

It was a hot morning in mid-summer 1923 when Walt Disney walked briskly through Union Station in Kansas City. With the last remaining money in his pocket, he purchased a one-way first-class ticket for Los Angeles, California. He was leaving Kansas City, the town where he had lived off and on since he was 9 years old — for good.

Now, 101 years later, this same train station is hosting “Disney100: The Exhibition” honoring this visionary filmmaker and professional dreamer, and the company that bears his name. 

In light of this rare exhibit in Kansas City through Nov. 30, one reader recently asked What’s Your KCQ?, a partnership between the Kansas City Public Library and The Kansas City Star: What exactly was Walt Disney’s connection to Kansas City?

In the summer of 1911, Elias and Flora Disney moved their family, including 16-year-old Roy, 9-year-old Walt, and 7-year-old Ruth, from Marceline, Missouri, to Kansas City in hopes of a more promising career for Elias. They rented a home at 2706 E. 31st St. for several years before moving to 3028 Bellefontaine Ave.

For his sole income, Elias purchased the rights to a paper route from The Kansas City Star and The Kansas City Times, bounded by 27th and 31st streets and Prospect and Indiana avenues, employing Roy and Walt without paying them. 

Each day the brothers awoke before 3:30 a.m. to complete a demanding paper route before going to school. By the time Walt Disney finally arrived at the Benton School, only a few blocks from his home, he was exhausted. On Saturdays, Walt received his first formal art training through classes offered by the Kansas City Art Institute at the YMCA.

Read the rest of the story at KCHistory.org.