Robert Gillham Road, looking south from Linwood Boulevard, is pictured on an old post card mailed from Kansas City in May, 1910. The old Hyde Park School is in the distance. Robert Gillham was a member of the first Board of Park Commissioners of Kansas City, which served the city from 1895 to 1898. Whitney's history of early Kansas City and its people states: Robert Gillham, a successful civil engineer, was the originator of the idea of a cable car system in Kansas City. He came to Kansas City poor in everything except mental resources and won distinction in his profession. Cable railways had their origin in San Francisco in 1873...Chicago's system was second and Kansas City (in 1885) was the third city in the world to operate cable railways. Gillham designed the 9th Street cable car line, completed in 1885. The hair-raising grades and curves of this line culminated in the famous incline from the top of Quality Hill to the Union Depot in the West Bottoms below. Gillham Road was a horse and buggy and early automobile parkway of varying width and irregular outlines, extending over hills through valleys from the Kansas City Terminal tracks at 22nd and Grand to Brush Creek valley at 46th. Property for the roadway from 22nd and Grand to 31st was acquired in 1901. The section from 31st to 46th was acquired in 1903. The road was completed in 1908. Hyde Park School was razed in 1955. Today George B. Longan school occupies part of the old Hyde Park School site. Kansas City Times, July 14, 1973.
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