Venue Information

Theis Park is named for Frank A. Theis, a Kansas City grain merchant who served as chairman of the Board of the Simonds-Shields-Theis Grain Company and the president of the Kansas City Board of Trade. He was also on the Board of Directors for many companies and contributed to several civic organizations. He was on the Kansas City, Mo. Board of Park Commissioners from 1950 until his death in 1965, serving as president of the Board from 1952-1965.

The property now known as Theis Park was part of the William Rockhill Nelson estate in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In 1947, bonds were passed to develop the property as a Cultural Center park, an idea suggested by real estate developer J. C. Nichols and others. They envisioned a park that linked the Kansas City Art Institute and the Nelson-Atkins Museum on the north side of 47th Street with the then-proposed Midwest Research Institute, the Barstow School, the University of Kansas City, Menorah Hospital and Rockhurst College on th ...