Convention Hall was a convention center in Kansas City, Missouri that hosted the 1900 Democratic National Convention and 1928 Republican National Convention.
It was designed by Frederick E. Hill and built at the corner of 13th and Central and cost $225,000 and opened on February 22, 1899 with a performance by the John Philip Sousa band.
It was destroyed in a fire on April 4, 1900, Kansas City was scheduled to host the Democratic National Convention over July 4. Hill redesigned a new hall that would be fireproof and it was built in 90 days in an effort that was called "Kansas City Spirit." Harry S. Truman was to serve as a page at the convention.
The hall hosted the 1928 Republican Convention and was torn down in 1936 when it became a parking lot for the new Municipal Auditorium.
The hall hosted various traveling events including a Sarah Bernhardt performance of Camille. Its most controversial use was hosting a series of Ku Klux Klan rallies in 1922-1924.
Famous quotes containing the words convention and/or hall:
“No good poetry is ever written in a manner twenty years old, for to write in such a manner shows conclusively that the writer thinks from books, convention and cliché, not from real life.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“While there we heard the Indian fire his gun twice.... This sudden, loud, crashing noise in the still aisles of the forest, affected me like an insult to nature, or ill manners at any rate, as if you were to fire a gun in a hall or temple.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)