Bricklaying Contest
E. Kansas City and E. Poplar. Had you been traveling muddy roads for years in your Model T you might have joined the 10,000 who celebrated the paving of Kansas City Road on the Westport route of the Santa Fe Trail. The highlight was a bricklaying competition between James Garfield “Indian Jim” Brown and Frank Hoffman. On a drizzly September day in 1925, Brown won the contest by laying 46,664 bricks in seven hours and 48 minutes. He received $200 for his effort in addition to his $2 an hour wage. A marker in a landscaped area of the intersection tells this remarkable story.