Was this historic mansion on UMKC’s campus built out of spite?

If there’s one thing to know about Kansas City real estate, it’s that the grandest homes tell the best stories.

Built between 1912 and 1914, the limestone mansion on UMKC’s campus that would become Scofield Hall was the crowning achievement of clay pipe magnate Walter Dickey. In the early 20th century in Kansas City, clay was king. It was cheap, durable and essential for the infrastructure of a rapidly-growing city.

But Dickey’s ambitions extended far beyond sewers and pipe systems: He harbored a bitter rivalry with William Rockhill Nelson, founder of the Kansas City Star. Local legend claims that Dickey specifically chose his mansion’s hilltop location so Nelson would have to look at him from his own front porch. While unproven, this persistent myth captures the animosity between the two.

“It’s probably one of those things that makes a lot more sense in retrospect, knowing what happened,” says David Trowbridge, an associate research professor in digital and public humanities at UMKC. “All myths have a bit of truth in them. That’s why they persist.”

According to Trowbridge, Dickey was determined to take over the media dominance that Nelson held, so he launched his own newspaper to rival the Star. The venture bled money and crumbled.

“When his name comes up, it’s usually about losing his fortune and going after Nelson and then leaving debt for his heirs,” Trowbridge says. But his legacy wasn’t always so doom and gloom. When the city’s brand-new convention center burned down just months before hosting the historic Democratic National Convention, Dickey and fellow industrialist Uriah Epperson personally raised funds to rebuild it in 90 days. The 1900 Democratic National Convention was a chance for Kansas City—just 20 years removed from being a muddy, goat-filled town—to prove itself as a major American city.

Back to the mansion: Enter William Volker, known as Kansas City’s greatest philanthropist. “He’s known as Mr. Anonymous because he gave not only to organizations but to individuals,” Trowbridge says. “If you needed help with rent, he was the guy.” Volker purchased the Dickey mansion from the indebted heirs in the early 1930s, “solving their problem and solving the problem of a university.”

In fall of 1933, the mansion became the entire University of Kansas City (later UMKC). A library occupied the first floor, and an old carriage house was converted into a gymnasium.

Today, you can still sense the building’s former grandeur. Plaques on the front porch commemorate speeches there, including one by the president of Mexico. Upon walking through the entryway, you’ll find what was the home’s great hall on the left, which is now a conference area.

The building was eventually renamed Scofield Hall  after Carleton Scofield—the chancellor who oversaw the university’s transition from private to public institution. Perhaps the most poignant legacy lives in a brown house around the corner. Originally built for Dickey’s son in law, it became the university president’s residence, where, during World War II, the president’s wife opened her home to Japanese American students from internment camps and, later, to African American students during integration.

The rivalry that consumed Dickey’s fortune is long forgotten, but the mansion he built, whether it was a slight to his enemy or not, leaves a greater impact.

“[Dickey is] leaving this kind of legacy that wasn’t maybe his original intention,” Trowbridge says, “one layer after another.” 

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