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The Kansas City Daily News estimated the 1887 parade to be 18 blocks in length. Division 3 of the AOH held a ball afterward in the Board of Trade Hall. That evening's article in the Daily News noted, almost incredulously: "It is a noticeable fact that but very few intoxicated men were seen on the streets. Certainly no arrests were made."
Alas, the parades finally fizzled. As the Irish advanced politically and financially, their attentions broadened and their neighborhoods shifted. And tolerance from the rest of the community shrunk. Indeed, the last big parade in 1891 marked the beginning of a contentious era in which the specter of anti-Catholic sentiment grew vivid and violent.
There was no sign of the violence to come on March 17, 1891. The evening Star headline read: "A Glorious Day Greets St. Patrick's Faithful Followers." Beneath three italicized verses of an Irish song, the paper reported a beautiful May-like day: "At an early hour the crowds of people, regardless of nationality, began to assemble on the streets in the neighborhood of the rendezvous ..."
A military band enlivened the air with Irish national melodies. High-spirited horses danced and sidestepped through Old Town and the Market, then south and west through Downtown. Capt. M. T. Downey led the Hibernian contingents. Marshals John Sullivan and R. E. McDonnell led the Citizens contingent, made up of Mayor Holmes, members of the Council, and the Catholic clergy. Fire brigades, labor unions, industrial councils, German groups, and marching bands of every stripe stretched out for blocks and blocks.
There were some 5,000 participants in all. A huge crowd gathered at "The Junction" (where Eighth and Main is now), waving handkerchiefs at the procession before it turned east and headed to St. Patrick's for Mass. Father Glennon said the Mass, along with Fathers Gleason, Brogan, Cullen, Lillis and others. The service lasted about an hour and a half before the parade restarted and moved westward, past a reviewing stand manned by Bishop J. J. Hogan at 12 th and Washington streets. From there it was over the hill and into the West Bottoms. The Grand Marshal had the final review at Ninth and James streets, on the Kansas side near old St. Bridget's church, where the parade was finally dispersed.
That night, the Knights of St. Patrick held a big banquet at the Midland Hotel, complete with Irish toasts and a formal program. Speakers included the Knights' president, John O'Grady; Father William Dalton; John F. Philips; and John C. Tarsney. Mr. Frank P. Walsh spoke on his chosen subject: "The Irish American."
In the ensuing years of unrest and tension that marked the heyday of anti-Catholic sentiment, the Irish parades all but disappeared. The Journal printed huge ghost images of St. Patrick, a shamrock and a harp on its front page in 1893. The Times predicted that everybody of Irish descent would be wearing the green, but sneered in a headline that there would be "No Parade, Luckily"
Celtic music programs were held each year at the Coates House through the turn of the century, but the flashy and boisterous parades were finished. Who could have guessed that night in 1891 at the old Midland Hotel that Kansas City's St. Patrick's Day Parade would not march, loud and proud, again for another 82 years?
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