Kansas City Tuberculosis Hospital

On a hill off Eastern Avenue, just south of where 1-435 now intersects Raytown Road, once stood a building with a complicated past. The two-story, concrete structure served as Kansas City’s tuberculosis hospital for almost 50 years until it was closed and abandoned in the summer of 1964. Vandals soon laid claim to the place, and it was demolished in 1971 to make way for a Kansas City Police Department helicopter unit. John McNamara remembers his older siblings sneaking into the building to scare themselves before it was torn down, prompting him to ask, “Can you tell us more about the old tuberculosis hospital?” The What’s Your KCQ team, a community reference partnership between the Kansas City Public Library and The Kansas City Star, has the details.