We were founded in 2017 under the name “Historic Architecture Protection Society” by a group of urban explorers looking to get permission to photograph and document the various historic abandoned buildings in Kansas City. Since then, we’ve documented a large portion of KC’s historic schools and downtown buildings.
The group went dormant around COVID and our volunteers started to focus on other things. Some of us focused on work, some of us became historians of niche Kansas City history, and some of us quit exploring entirely. Over the Summer of 2025, one of the founders decided to turn this website into an archive and blog to share the hidden histories of Kansas City.
ProtectKCHistory.org’s mission is to provide a free information repository for other researchers and offer services to holders of rare materials to digitize these records for future generations to use.