This year, the Kansas City Fed marked 10 years since moving to its headquarters at 1 Memorial Drive. Before that 2008 relocation, the bank’s home since 1921 had been in the heart of downtown, at 925 Grand.
A photograph from the archives captures a scene from Sept. 21, 1921, in the final weeks of the bank’s construction. Workers paused while delivering a 50-ton vault door purchased from the Mosler Safe Co. of Ohio for $32,000.
The door’s astounding weight required a combination of mechanical and equine power to haul it northward from the rail yard near Union Station to the 925 Grand construction site. According to The Kansas City Star’s coverage of the feat, “The vault was mounted on two house-mover’s trucks lashed together. Four horses were hitched to the trucks, and ahead of the horses were two five-ton trucks, each of 60-horsepower pulling capacity.”
The bank officially opened at 925 Grand on Nov. 16, 1921.