The blocks on 35th St. between Cypress Avenue and Chelsea Drive in Kansas City, Missouri resides within census tract 58. These two blocks are fairly sparse with development. There are a handful of residential buildings, (small houses) and one tiny Baptist Church. However, there is mostly just open lots along the road between Cyprus and Chelsea.

Upon looking at the census data for this particular census tract, I found a drastic change in racial composition from 1950 to 2000. In 1950, the population of this census tract was predominantly white. By the year 2000 the census tracts population was made up of over 90% black, and the total population had decreased by 37%. The population decrease doesn’t stop there though. From 2000 to 2010, the census tracts population continues to bleed out, dropping another 49% in just 10 years.

The two blocks along 35th St. between Cypress Avenue and Chelsea Drive marked a fairly unremarkable and extremely underdeveloped portion of Kansas City, MO. The majority of the structures built along this stretch were mainly residential in nature excluding the one small Baptist Church and the parking lot for the VA hospital. The most interesting find that helped me to better understand how, why, and when this area developed was discovering that 35th St. between Cypress Avenue and Chelsea Drive  was not officially annexed into the Kansas City, MO city limits until 1909. Built structures weren’t substantial enough to document until well after these new city limits were drawn.